It's an interesting idea for a symposium, but having read a lot of both Kurp and Myers, I expect the end results to be somewhat skewed. (Since they're guilty of some of the same mistakes and assumptions they discuss in the question list. If a bit of personal experience is what prompted the questions, kudos to them. If a certain stubborn insistence on being in the right lies behind that, anti-kudos.)
Nonetheless, I left a couple of comments. One of the comments I left (where's Judith when I need her?) was about the nature of the medium affecting the discourse:
The only thing that makes things seem snarkier online than in print is the ease and speed with which one is able to toss off a heated reply. It's all too easy to hit the Reply button in the heat of the moment. In other words, the technology makes it perhaps too easy to reply in emotional haste, rather than requiring one to have slowed down and thought about one's reply before committing it to text. This is an effect of the medium, not any fundamental change in either human nature or in the nature of discourse. (It's surprising to me how many online literary types seem to really miss this basic point about the medium itself. I guess most of them haven't read McLuhan, or even Hugh Kenner.)
We'll see if that even gets acknowledged. I expect it not to be.
Frank, do you ever get impatient with what appears to be willful blindness manifesting itself as fixed opinion disguised as objective criticism? I have to say, not only in the case of Kurp and Myers, but in many other cases, too, that I find lit-bloggers claiming to follow more or less objective standards of literary merit to be far more subjective about it than they think they are. LOL
As a friend of mine used to say, "Ignorance can be excused. Stubborn ignorance cannot be."
Hi Art, I'm one of the people who answered the questions, so stay tuned. What you ask about subjective/objective is interesting. I have said repeatedly that my own approach is phenomenological: If you describe your experience as accurately and precisely as you can, I will know what you feel in relation to that experience, because experience is an encounter of subject with object or subject with subject. I think there are some "objective" criteria regarding writing: The sentence is either grammatical or it is not; the plot is either plausible or it is not. I think it is fair to say that The Da Vinci Code is, objectively, a bad book - to say the writing is pedestrian is almost to compliment it; the time-frame is highly implausible; the behavior of the septuagenarian curator after being shot in the stomach by a high-caliber pistol unbelievable; the historical references largely wrong. But most books that bad aren't the subject of literary discussions. Is Frank O'Hara a better poet than John Ashbery? I like both and find them quite different, actually. Others might feel differently. I don't think any "objective" conclusion is possible.
I look forward to seeing what comes of this, including your responses, Frank.
I also like your phenomenological approach. I think I largely agree with it. I have often opined in reviewing or discussing or critiquing poetry that poetry needs to elicit an experience, a somatic response in the writer and reader alike. As Adrienne Rich once defined it, a poem should BE an experience rather than be ABOUT an experience.
I also agree with you about some objective criteria being notable in writing—grammar, etc.
The Dan Brown example sort of leads us back to our previous discussion of Cormac McCarthy, too, doesn't it? LOL I suspect those issues and this symposium are rather tangled together—in my own mind, at least, I see much overlap.
As I find myself often harshly disagreeing with Myers and Kurp, I find their question about harsh disagreement and ad hominem attacks to be interesting—precisely because I don't think they're as good at tolerating harsh disagreement with their viewpoints as they might claim to be. What we see in others we also need to observe in ourselves.
I find zero confusion in this matter, and wonder why the question is there. It seems obvious to me that harsh disagreement and ad hominem are not at all the same thing, even t hough many confuse them. Specifically, one has every right to attack the work, or the opinion, or the interpretation; and no right to directly attack the person. That's the difference in a nutshell, I believe.
I prefer vigorous disagreement myself. It is one thing to take a swipe at a viewpoint, another to take a swipe at a person. I think one can take a position diametrically opposed to another person's and state that position in no uncertain terms and not get personal about it. If the other person takes vigorous disagreement personally, that's their problem.
It's an interesting idea for a symposium, but having read a lot of both Kurp and Myers, I expect the end results to be somewhat skewed. (Since they're guilty of some of the same mistakes and assumptions they discuss in the question list. If a bit of personal experience is what prompted the questions, kudos to them. If a certain stubborn insistence on being in the right lies behind that, anti-kudos.)
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I left a couple of comments. One of the comments I left (where's Judith when I need her?) was about the nature of the medium affecting the discourse:
The only thing that makes things seem snarkier online than in print is the ease and speed with which one is able to toss off a heated reply. It's all too easy to hit the Reply button in the heat of the moment. In other words, the technology makes it perhaps too easy to reply in emotional haste, rather than requiring one to have slowed down and thought about one's reply before committing it to text. This is an effect of the medium, not any fundamental change in either human nature or in the nature of discourse. (It's surprising to me how many online literary types seem to really miss this basic point about the medium itself. I guess most of them haven't read McLuhan, or even Hugh Kenner.)
We'll see if that even gets acknowledged. I expect it not to be.
Frank, do you ever get impatient with what appears to be willful blindness manifesting itself as fixed opinion disguised as objective criticism? I have to say, not only in the case of Kurp and Myers, but in many other cases, too, that I find lit-bloggers claiming to follow more or less objective standards of literary merit to be far more subjective about it than they think they are. LOL
As a friend of mine used to say, "Ignorance can be excused. Stubborn ignorance cannot be."
Hi Art,
ReplyDeleteI'm one of the people who answered the questions, so stay tuned.
What you ask about subjective/objective is interesting. I have said repeatedly that my own approach is phenomenological: If you describe your experience as accurately and precisely as you can, I will know what you feel in relation to that experience, because experience is an encounter of subject with object or subject with subject. I think there are some "objective" criteria regarding writing: The sentence is either grammatical or it is not; the plot is either plausible or it is not. I think it is fair to say that The Da Vinci Code is, objectively, a bad book - to say the writing is pedestrian is almost to compliment it; the time-frame is highly implausible; the behavior of the septuagenarian curator after being shot in the stomach by a high-caliber pistol unbelievable; the historical references largely wrong. But most books that bad aren't the subject of literary discussions. Is Frank O'Hara a better poet than John Ashbery? I like both and find them quite different, actually. Others might feel differently. I don't think any "objective" conclusion is possible.
I look forward to seeing what comes of this, including your responses, Frank.
ReplyDeleteI also like your phenomenological approach. I think I largely agree with it. I have often opined in reviewing or discussing or critiquing poetry that poetry needs to elicit an experience, a somatic response in the writer and reader alike. As Adrienne Rich once defined it, a poem should BE an experience rather than be ABOUT an experience.
I also agree with you about some objective criteria being notable in writing—grammar, etc.
The Dan Brown example sort of leads us back to our previous discussion of Cormac McCarthy, too, doesn't it? LOL I suspect those issues and this symposium are rather tangled together—in my own mind, at least, I see much overlap.
As I find myself often harshly disagreeing with Myers and Kurp, I find their question about harsh disagreement and ad hominem attacks to be interesting—precisely because I don't think they're as good at tolerating harsh disagreement with their viewpoints as they might claim to be. What we see in others we also need to observe in ourselves.
I find zero confusion in this matter, and wonder why the question is there. It seems obvious to me that harsh disagreement and ad hominem are not at all the same thing, even t hough many confuse them. Specifically, one has every right to attack the work, or the opinion, or the interpretation; and no right to directly attack the person. That's the difference in a nutshell, I believe.
I prefer vigorous disagreement myself. It is one thing to take a swipe at a viewpoint, another to take a swipe at a person. I think one can take a position diametrically opposed to another person's and state that position in no uncertain terms and not get personal about it. If the other person takes vigorous disagreement personally, that's their problem.
ReplyDelete