DeVoss and Porter – Meet the New Boss (same as the old boss?)

Of course, my title comes from a song lyric; have I used it fairly? Am I required to provide a citation, footnote, or other acknowledgment? To whom, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltry, the Who?

Since most of the first half to two-thirds of the essay reads as a summary of Logie and Lessig (with a few points added in), I will address only two claims in the concluding sections. Generally, DeVoss and Porter (as does Howard to a degree) enlarge upon the classical models of learning and classical attitudes toward plagiarism to support the insistence that the concept of single authorship is a more contemporary creation (see footnote 30, 197). Well, so is mass literacy and general education. In Classical Greece and Rome, rhetoric and oratory were the exclusive properties of males. Moreover, the number of those males was restricted to the well-born. Would DeVoss and Porter argue that we adopt the exclusivity inherent in such elitism with their “liberal” attitudes toward authorship? Would they recommend that we adopt the ancient attitudes toward education generally, an attitude that excluded women for the most part? Should we adopt the special privileges adult males enjoyed in their relationships with boys? Should we return to the ancient attitudes toward women and slaves?

Cherry-picking from a culture because it fits a particular view one has is much like quoting out-of-context (of course for those advocating patchwriting that probably wouldn’t be a problem). It would in fact be similar to citing Marx as an expert on human nature because he understood economics – at least in part he did. He seemed to be wildly off the mark in his predictions for capitalism and the glorious workers’ revolution. Perhaps the Greek and Roman models worked well for them because they met the needs of fewer than twenty-thousand, when in all likelihood one couldn’t get away with plagiarism anyway because most of the audience knew the sources. One could argue in fact, that this “truth” might have applied to most of Europe until book publishing became a profitable market.

My other issue with DeVoss and Porter applies not only to them specifically but to postmodern theory generally. DeVoss and Porter exclaim: “As we see it, the purpose of writing is not to reward the author, or for the author to gain prestige, credit, wealth, and fame” (200, their italics). Hmmm. There’s carrion we should nose here somewhere. When asked by Socrates’ biographer why the humble collaborators did not themselves publish in the online communities they advocate, DeVoss and Porter demurred: “We don’t always necessarily want money from our work. . . . Most of us do want: (1) wide distribution and recognition of our work, and (2) credit for our work (whether in the form of dollars, prestige, appreciation, reciprocity)” (196, footnote 28, my italics). How does one square these views? The above constitutes the problem for postmodern theory: the expressed purposes and pronouncements are at odds with the practices of the theorists. What is the Greek word for hypocrite?