What do you think of when you hear or see the words "John Locke"? Do you think of ideas like the social contract or the time of the Enlightenment? Do you think of a dead guy sometimes depicted as having white hair? Or do you think of a tall, muscular, bald actor on a hit TV show?
In my last post I talked about the phenomenon of knowing a derivative before an original. What happens when large portions of society have this experience?
A friend once quoted the movie "My Best Friend's Wedding" as being the source of "This too shall pass." I never went to church as a child, and even I knew that this phrase was older than Julia Roberts' career.
But does it really matter if we don't credit the Bible where credit is due? What harm is done, especially if it's an honest mistake? Besides, the Bible, like any old work, has been the inspiration for countless other works. Those can be enjoyed without knowing their source.
But from Kurt Vonnegut and his Paul Proteus to J.K. Rowling and her Dolores Umbridge, creators are winking at us knowingly when they name their characters, when they make allusions, and they're trying to say something larger about the universe they've constructed. What happens when we don't get the reference?
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