The Ultimate Hostile Takeover

A good formal definition of plagiarism is "the practice of ... incorporating material from someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement."

A while back, I experienced this directly as a participant in an informal book discussion group. This was [ostensibly] a writers' support group, yet I found myself repeatedly fending off bullies there. In the most egregious variation on this theme, one particularly impervious duo pointedly ignored or disparaged every contribution I made to group discussions, while presenting many of those very same concepts and ideas in their own comments, without attribution, sometimes verbatim, apparently in order to create the impression that they, not I, had originated them.

Both people emphatically praised and credited other discussion group members whose ideas they quoted; the contrast between this behavior and that directed towards me was remarkable, to anyone paying attention. Thus to all appearances, these individuals sought to stifle my voice within the group, while appropriating that same voice - my words, my ideas, even aspects of my 'style' - to pass off as their own.

[I have also experienced this in workplace settings - both as a bystander and as the target. Women may experience this behavior from male colleagues and superiors as a subtle form of discrimination: ignore her, but steal her ideas... ]

This behavior gives a bully a triple payoff.

First, the bully obliterates the target by disenfranchising him [or her] to keep him [or her] excluded and unheard, and at the same time appropriates the target's talents and accomplishments to pass off as the bully's own productions.

Second, while preventing the target from receiving recognition and reinforcement, the bully diverts what is rightfully the target's 'payoff' into the bully's own hands. Much sadistic pleasure can be gleaned from this behavior, for those so inclined.

The final payoff, of course, is that the bully does no actual work to produce the talents and accomplishments he or she dishonestly appropriates. It is an act of pure parasitism: the ultimate hostile takeover.

Both of the people whose actions I am describing here seemed highly focused on establishing themselves as 'gurus' over this particular group, and apparently regarded my presence and contributions as a threat to this. For someone whose goal is dominance of a group - "power over" it, in Patricia Evans' terminology - people who think well [aka 'critical thinkers'] are not easily deceived and cannot be easily controlled; they must therefore be intimidated, marginalized, and, if possible, driven away.

This happens in churches, clubs, neighborhoods, and workplaces. It happens everywhere. It happens all the time.
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The hostility that underlies this type of plagiarism - and its many cousins - seems rarely to be acknowledged by onlookers, no matter how blatant it becomes. But this particular experience was relatively minor, as such things go.

I know of a case that was far more extreme, extending far beyond the theft of someone's idea, catchphrases, or pet metaphors, to the point where the actual life of the target was plagiarized and appropriated, in the most extreme form of 'hostile takeover' possible short of outright murder and impersonation.
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A woman I know [whom I will call Sandy] had an entire career plagiarized out from under her by someone who was, to all appearances, a bully with erotomanic stalker 'traits'. With her permission, I will tell her story. I've altered a few details to protect her privacy.

Sandy, who was single, started working for a new employer about 20 years ago. Although she loved the work, she was soon very uncomfortable with the woman in the office next to hers. This woman, who was also single, made no overt passes at Sandy, but insinuated herself into every conversation Sandy had, work-related or otherwise, that involved a male colleague or superior, and made barbed, hostile, often highly inappropriate remarks to the man [usually semi-jocular threats of violence].

She struck obvious 'vamping' poses in Sandy's office doorway; gushed fulsomely and effusively over things Sandy did, said, wore, or read; referred to her as 'sweetie', 'honey' and 'my dear'. She followed Sandy to on-site meetings and presentations, sat next to her, and disrupted the events with loud, inappropriate comments [usually audible, hostile put-downs of the speaker, if male]. Claiming 'seniority', she tried to force their employer to send her to all of the offsite meetings that Sandy attended.

Because no direct overtures were ever made, Sandy, who is a very devoted PFLAG and utterly opposed to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, could only hint that she had other romantic preferences, talk about her dates, etc. - all of which simply compounded her discomfort.

Since the underlying issue was never directly revealed to Sandy, she never felt able to directly address it. Erotomania was hardly a common topic of conversation at the time; stalking of any kind was only beginning to be addressed legally with any seriousness. Dr. Doreen Orion's personal account of her own horrific experiences, "I Know You Really Love Me", had not yet been published and wouldn't be for years. Sandy could not describe what was happening to her in any way that she felt a third party, particularly her own management, could understand.

Within a year, Sandy's 'office neighbor' had bought a car of the same make as Sandy's, as close to the same color as possible; was purchasing identical clothing and dressing like Sandy; and had even switched physicians so that she was seeing some of the same doctors. At this point, Sandy took the opportunity to move to a different office, feeling quite reasonably that she was being stalked and subjected to barely-covert sexual harassment.

The woman became infuriated when Sandy moved, went to their superiors, and demanded that Sandy "be ordered" to return to her original office or that Sandy's office furniture, computer, and professional reference books be reallocated to her "for compensation". When Sandy was told about this by her puzzled [and frightened] bosses, she was asked only if a direct and unwelcome pass had ever been made; she answered honestly that it had not, that no non-collegial relationship of any kind had ever existed, that her preference was for male romantic companions, and that she hoped that any such issue would die away eventually as a result of her relocating.

She had no such luck. Shortly after the office relocation, Sandy required emergency cancer surgery and chemotherapy. While she was gone, her former neighbor broke into her office, broke into her computer, and subsequently claimed to be the real author of all the work Sandy had done. Amazingly, by the time Sandy returned, this woman had appropriated the promotion that Sandy was promised at hire - and had been told she was qualified for, just one week before her surgery.
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The term 'existential revenge', used by Martha Stout in connection with workplace sociopaths' deliberate sabotage of their colleagues' careers, comes readily to mind here. In Sandy's case what occurred was so drastic and bizarre that it is more accurate to call it 'psychic cannibalism'. This woman clearly had an extreme wish to possess Sandy, and failing that, was determined to devour her, professionally at least. She sought to destroy Sandy's career and appropriate it for herself, and Sandy's feckless superiors were only too willing to oblige - after all, it was easier for them to destroy the career of a convalescing cancer survivor than to stand up to an obviously unstable bully.

Sandy's 'harasser' remains in her position to this day. Sandy, fortunately, found a healthier workplace, where she met and married a decent man who had enough life experience and common sense to believe her when she told him about this ghastly situation. She tells the story of her former life [with a shudder] when the subject of occupational plagiarism comes up in professional discussions, as a strong warning that not all plagiarism involves the written word, that employees cannot expect bosses to control even the most obvious and egregious bullies, and that such bullies, when coddled and enabled, may do - and get away with - almost anything short of murder.
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What do people gain by behaving in such ways?

My two bullies gained very little in real terms. Neither of them worked, and they were both enmeshed in the writer's group to the point of spending most of their waking lives in activities related to it - phone calls and e-mails to other members, lunches and coffee with other members, etc. This investment of one's time and treasure is a steep price to pay to maintain a small captive audience, and when I realized this, their behavior almost immediately ceased to be an issue, emotionally at least.

Sandy's Nemesis, on the other hand, gained a great deal, outwardly at least. She was able to con [or bully] their mutual supervisors into awarding her the promotion that Sandy worked for and earned. Although she was not able to maneuver Sandy into a parasitic personal relationship, she intruded into Sandy's life as much as possible, and co-opted many of Sandy's 'unique characteristics'. The purchase of an identical car and identical clothes, and the appropriation of the same medical professionals that Sandy consulted, parallels the theft of ideas, catchphrases, and 'style' that I experienced - but on a much larger, much more pathologically disturbing scale. And, in fact, Sandy's entire body of work was essentially stolen by her harasser, when the woman infiltrated her computer and claimed credit for all of the work that Sandy had prepared.

But Sandy had the existential 'last laugh'. While her 'usurper' clumsily copied some of the outward aspects of her life and took over her career path, she does not have Sandy, and never will. She also does not have the professional or personal respect that Sandy has, in her new working life.

Sandy, in the meantime, has someone sane and balanced in her life, whom she dearly loves, and who loves her dearly in return. She considers herself a double cancer survivor - "one physical cancer, one occupational cancer, two radical surgeries, two great reconstructions" is the way she puts it. She has far more satisfying work now, which she would never have considered but for this 'catastrophe', and she has no illusions whatsoever about the extent to which people will go to steal from one another in supposedly civilized places.

Deceptive Self-Disclosures

In the old days, this used to be called 'boasting' or 'bragging'.

Some people aren't very good at it; the brags and boasts are obvious. They drop names. They start every sentence with "I did..." "I know..." "I have..." "I went..." -- I, I, I.

Others are slightly more subtle. "My best friend has..." "Our second house..." "When we were in [expensive resort]..."

Others are downright insidious. "Oh goodness, I couldn't hate someone if my life depended on it." "You all know me, I couldn't carry a grudge if I had six strong men helping me." "Well, I just love people so much, I can't ever really stay angry at anyone."

Boasting or bragging directly about material possessions, wealth, and status are pretty obvious indicators of vanity and insecurity. Boasting or bragging indirectly about such things also indicates vanity and insecurity. It's easy to identify what's going on, and it's even possible to feel compassion for the people who engage in it. It's obvious; they're fragile.

There are competitive undertones, however, that we ignore at our peril, since people who are this insecure and vain are also usually driven by a terrible fear of loss; if they only value themselves for what they own, then showing them our own treasures is a very risky move, as they may feel threatened by anyone who has 'more' or 'better' anything than themselves.

Boasting or bragging directly or indirectly about one's own character, however, is on a different level. This is the territory of manipulation, sleight-of-hand, deception. Call it advertising, or even propaganda, if it's in a political context. And ask yourself why it's going on.

Why would someone feel a need to announce repeatedly to the world what kind of person they are? Don't their actions tell us enough about them without the need for voice over narration to drum it into our heads?

Usually, when a message of this type is being endlessly repeated in our ears, it is intended to distract our attention, and prevent us from looking closely at the actual behavior of the person repeating their self-praise mantra.

In fact, everyone who has been deliberately abused - at home, at school, in a social setting, or on the job - has probably been frustrated by the fact that their abuser shows one face to them, and quite another to the public - and the public face usually includes this kind of boasting and bragging about the goodness, kindness, patience, and tolerance of the abuser, along with some kind of implied or overt comparison intended to put down the target of their abuse.

This is nothing but product positioning, in marketplace language. Creating a 'brand identity' that has little or no connection to the reality of what you get when you actually open the package. And making sure that the target of abuse is firmly identified as "brand X", the inferior product, in the minds of the studio audience.

Character propagandizing can be a harmless, rather sad exercise in self-promotion, if there is no abuse associated with it. It can be a very harmful exercise in group deception, however, if the same person who praises themselves to the skies is, in fact, bullying or abusing others and relying on a steady stream of self-promotion to cloud awareness of the fact.

Watch for this. Whenever someone makes announcements about their own character, start looking for the evidence they don't want you to see. The more time they spend telling you what they're like, the more likely it is that they're trying to keep you from seeing the kind of person they really are.

Watch What they Do, Not What They Say

She was kind to strangers because she wanted to convince them that she was a lovely dear person; she was savage to her family because she could get away with it - they were in no position to leave her, and she knew that nobody would ever believe them.

Being sweet as honey to outsiders while being shockingly vicious to your near and dear is standard operating procedure for abusers of all types - emotional abusers, child abusers, spouse batterers.

Most people are easily taken in by a charming performance; this may partly come from mental laziness, but I believe it's largely due to the fact that we are immersed in a culture that values 'positivity' far more than realism, and almost literally worships 'winners' while it scapegoats anyone branded a 'loser'.

As a result, all too often when an abused spouse or child attempts to get help or a hearing from family or friends, the people they talk to have been pre-emptively fooled by the abuser, and won't believe them. There are few crueler, or more blatantly selfish, forms of human folly on earth than the entrenched belief that "A can't possibly be abusing B because A is so polite to me." Thus do abusers literally get away with murder.

In a depressing variation on the deception theme, abusers sometimes fool even mental health professionals and legal authorities; the abusers are calm and suave, while the person seeking help is clearly distraught. All too often, the source of distress is not understood, and it's much simpler and easier to 'write off' the weaker-seeming party. And sadly, those who simply and openly prefer to identify with abusers may be found among mental health professionals and legal authorities, as well. After all, these positions are powerful... and abusers are drawn to power.

Never believe that a person is their 'image' - especially when their 'image' is extremely important to them, and they seem heavily, overly invested in protecting it. Images are just that: a deliberate creation.

Don't believe what people say. Watch what they actually do, especially to people like waiters, waitresses, janitors, etc., and even more especially when they don't think anyone is looking.

It may take a little longer, and it may require a bit more effort, but it pays off.