Lethem 2

Lethem finds our obsession with plagiarism a disadvantage for writers because it creates this panic in the writer's brain about whether or not readers will perceive something they've written as being stolen from somewhere else. There is this sense of judgment to see if the writing is original, and even if the author did not consciously or purposefully borrow any ideas for their writing, it will be marred if anyone suspects they did. Lethem feels that people should be more accepting of the exchange of ideas and embrace it. His main point is that the struggle between writers and plagiarism laws hurts the readers because a writer may be unable to create a true masterpiece that weaves together many different ideas with their own if some law or corporation tells them they aren't allowed to. To Lethem there is this great collective imagination from which all ideas spring and he doesn't understand how any one party can claim ownership of an idea that came from this collective set of thoughts to begin with. If all ideas were recognized as belonging to everyone, Lethem argues, great new combination of thoughts may come forth that can flow back into the collective imagination and lead to more new thoughts. But this process can't occur if everyone is claiming ideas to be their own and stopping others from using them. If the flow of ideas if halted there can be no true great writing, only recycled old ideas because there will never be anything new added to them.