> of plagiarism is very hard. So much of academic work is based on staking
> out a piece of intellectual property and talking it up--to raise its value.
99% maybe, but the tiny 1% which is about creating that property in the first place is still enough to redeem the whole enterprise.
Actually engaging concepts is the most difficult, occasionally hellish challenge imaginable -- it's as if there's just you and the material, and one or the other has to be the victor. And yet it isn't about violence; half the battle is recognizing one's own inner inability to *see* the work of art as it truly is, learning to absorb and channel its aesthetic power.
The other half is dealing with the division of aesthetic labor, which is horribly regressive right now. Ye Gods, half the MLA seems to think literature ended around 1745, and the other half doesn't even realize that the kids are playing "Devil May Cry".
-- Dennis