Tastefully Stealing for the Common Good

Our Lives - What We Create and How We Live, Move, and Have Our Being - Is the Sum Total of What We Mimic, Copy, and Admire

There’s this scene in One More Thing, a short story collection by B.J. Novak (the guy who plays Ryan on The Office U.S.), where two aspiring authors plan to rob a convenience store. “Are you sure about this?” “Of course I’m sure! They say great writers steal. Bret Easton Ellis probably still robs at least a couple gas stations a year.”

I’ve always liked this joke because it exaggerates Picasso’s truism: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”¹

We really do steal. Sometimes unconsciously, other times very consciously.

In the 1930s, a woman named Sanora Babb got in touch with John Steinbeck and shared some of her notes for her rough draft novel about dust bowl migrant farmers.

But it wasn’t until 2004 that this rough draft was finally published. And commentators immediately noticed the similarities between it and Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

Plot thickens: apparently Babb showed Steinbeck her rough draft in the dead center of when Steinbeck was drafting Grapes.²

The similarities are damning: both novels mention similar environmental prose, prejudice against migrants, and even stillborn babies.³ In fact, the reason Babb’s book didn’t come out until 2004 was because publishers were worried it’d get called a Grapes ripoff.

So did Steinbeck steal? It’s inconclusive; but it’s likely he was at the very least inspired by Babb—who insisted Steinbeck stole from her until her death in 2005.

However, I doubt Steinbeck literally plagiarized with malice and forethought, just like I doubt Pharrell and Robin Thicke stole from Marvin Gaye while writing “Blurred Lines,”⁴ just like I doubt Olivia Rodrigo consciously copied Taylor Swift’s “Cruel Summer” bridge for her “Deja Vu” bridge.

But what probably did happen in all these scenarios is that these artists worked on their projects while their influences were floating at the top of their toolboxes.

Reality is: we can’t help but regurgitate what comes our way since we’re all more or less sponges that absorb our environments.

But there’s a way to steal well and a way to steal poorly. People make films and novels smearing the latter kind (The Social Network, Amadeus, Yellowface), while the former kind get hailed as the greats of their field.

And while it might seem like this article is geared more toward writers, it’s geared toward everyone.

Imitation and mimicry is both a natural phenomenon (toddlers copy their parents as they learn to live and move and have their being), and an intentional discipline for excelling in life (as in when a guitar player picks up their mentor’s idiosyncrasies or a preacher mimics their hero’s cadence). Imitation is so powerful that Paul even used it as a placeholder spiritual formation model: “Imitate me as I imitate Christ.”

This good kind of stealing (what Kierkegaard called “admiration”) is crucial for lovingly investing ourselves in our callings. In short: everyone steals, but the redeemed form of stealing is imitating out of admiration.

So let’s start by talking about the basics: