A Modest Proposal

Ian McEwan has been accused of plagiarism over his Booker Prize nominated book, Atonement. Perhaps McEwan is aware of two important points. One. Nothing can ever be original. Two. Whatever you write, someone else has probably already done it better.

Plagiarism is not stealing. It would be impossible to think of something completely original. People speak too much. It is far better to be economical with language. There are too many useless words just floating about pointlessly. If we attempt to reuse them more effectively, we can all live in a cleaner, happier, quieter place.

Too much time has been wasted on philosophy and literature. There are much more important things to worry about. Plagirism helps us to use our time more effectively. If, for example, we spent less time thinking about poverty and more time actually doing something about it, perhaps there would be no more poverty.

If everyone just copied what someone else had already said, time could be spent much more wisely. Instead of making students think for exams, universities should permit plagiarism so that everyone gets good marks. Universities would go up in the league tables and students could actually get jobs and earn some money doing something useful.

There are too many ignorant people in the world already. If everyone just copied what more intelligent people had already spent years thinking about, the world would be a much better place.

McEwan is obviously not intelligent enough to write something original and so has wisely stuck to plagiarism.