the curate's egg?
Can parts of an egg still be excellent if other parts stink? Will any other author who wants to look more innovative and brainy than nature intended feel that 'gee, since nothing bad happens to him and his work still gets cited', why not go ahead with a spot of plagiarism? Glory on the cheap!
Plagiarism is an ethical crimes. It erodes trust, it steals like a stab in the back, it tears at the fabric of our commonwealth of intellectual culture. It used to be that even a touch of plagiarism resulted in the perpetrator being sent to the outer darkness. But relativism has resulted in an eroding of intellectual standards, both of quality and of honour. If we don't all defend against plagiarism in general, we'll never defeat it in individual instances.
All hands on deck, or the ship sinks.