The recent scandal involving Timothy Goeglien, deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, serves to illustrate the frightening prevalence of professional recycling of information rather than creation/writing of original content. 
 

Goeglien, who presented a Dartmouth College publication as his own work in an article about education is, according to newspaper reports, a habitual plagiarist. How different is this from so many of us today who run to Google as the first point of reference in the search for information? So busy are we that the first few hits just have to do. I am quite sure that this is considered valid research by many...In haste for ready answers, is much thought given to who wrote the material or even by whom it was posted?  Most professionals lead such fast paced lives that they have no time to agonize over issues, let alone think out original angles and viewpoints. The situation is compounded by the unfailing quest our society has for certainty – There is no room for error! Rather than a wonderful tool-kit, the overwhelming array of modern Information Technology available today is seen as a panacea that delivers information without effort. I cannot help but repeat Marshall McLuhan’s notion that technology extends, rather than replaces, human capacity!

What has this to do with Intelligence?  

Intelligence deals with foreknowledge – What might or might not happen in the future! This requires thinking, analysis, research, distillation of material and the formulation of a theory – All involving risk! Logically if there is neither time nor inclination for an exploration of original content, then information will, of necessity, be sought, risk free, at the trough of the tried, tested and proven. Without good intelligence - What we know that others don't - Will we seriously be able to talk about future predictions? 
 

That our culture favours second-handing and recycling known information bears some scrutiny: Take a look at most media reports today – Despite diverse political leanings we see the same generic material and photographs all clearly downloaded at the same point. So much easier tapping into someone else’s source! Countless articles, seminars, speeches and talks all quote extensively the words of others. How often do we hear the words: "I think/believe..." followed by a truly original statement?

I am often chided for not providing seminar material electronically. Recently, one dear soul actually had the gall to tell me: “It saves me having to scan your work...that way I can just cut and paste the useful diagrams and paragraphs I need for my own presentations”. Clearly not ashamed to admit pilfering the work of others for her own profit!   

I have noticed that most publishers and book-reviewers are loath to risk giving an opinion of entirely new or original content. They openly state preference for an extensive bibliography that enables a quick assessment of the materials provenance and proven worth. Similarly academic institutions are notorious for hobbling student thinking from the outset. How many masters’ degrees /doctorates are only awarded if content is kept within the known confines of professorial dictate?

In the corporate world those able to paraphrase the thinking of the latest gurus, bestsellers and the bosses in recognizable clichéd office speak, are heralded as ‘creative’, ‘brilliant’ and those who ‘get it’ , while more often than not, the truly creative and visionary are dismissed as ‘out there’ ‘negative’, or at best ‘eccentric’

Politicians from Tony Blair to Barack Obama have been accused of plagiarism in recent years. People of this stature obviously don't generate their own material...Instead young interns do their research (and by default, their thinking) for them. How often dont we see a breathless twenty-something thrusting a cue card with the obligatory 6 points into VIP hands at the last moment before a press conference/interview begins? Much of their input is reactive in nature...frantically
responding to the latest opinion polls rather than making a do or die stand over specific issues. 

I guess my point is that oftentimes people are not encouraged to think. Without thinking and taking risk they cannot create. That this happens in the supposedly highest political office in the world should give us pause...if it hasn’t already!  Small wonder the Bush administration's intelligence gathering record of late reflects the same lamentable mediocrity!