This passage from Posner’s The Little Book of Plagiarism is interesting:
“Politics may have played the decisive role in [Doris Kearns] Goodwin’s surprisingly swift rehabilitation, as we’ll see; and, speaking of politics, I note that one reason for the ambivalence of reactions to plagiarism is that the Left, which dominates intellectual circles in the United States, is soft on plagiarism. Notions of genius, of individual creativity, and of authorial celebrity, which inform the condemnation of plagiarism, make the leftists uncomfortable because they seem to celebrate inequality and “possessive individualism” (that is, capitalism).” (p. 94)
Yeah, I noticed that, the relatively blase’ attitude towards what I might have become outraged about or taken an overly moralistic stand based on principle. Posner puts it in a straightforward statement that connects the dots.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology