07 July 2001
Intellectuals or Pedants?
Thinking about: Persecution and the Art of Writing
Yesterday I blogged a Jonah Goldberg column that is still on my mind today. Basically, Jonah responds to people who have emailed him with criticism, in some cases admitting they are right, in other cases further explaining himself. I don't know if it's worth the effort (other than it makes for an easy column for Jonah to write, and makes him more intimate to the regular readers). Some of the issues his critics raise are SO IRRELEVANT to the various points Jonah was making that one has to wonder about the efficacy of responding to people who are so dull as to dwell on such things. Except they're everywhere! Most of the people I ran across in grad school insisted on dwelling on the least important, most pedantic elements of any given reading (aside from some of us trained by Lence always to ask "What difference does it make?"), and then dominating the discussion as if they had discovered knowledge worthy of a Nobel (question: was this behavior genuine, or an act to convince us all and ultimately themselves they belonged, that they really were "intellectuals?"). The same behavior predominates on LiveJournal (aside from some highly notable exceptions) and general purpose discussion boards. We've become wonderfully trained to "express" ourselves, and the tools to do so are becoming ever more accessible. But do we have anything to say? And to whom? Should we even bother to write for people who haven't a clue? That last is an old question, I'm discovering.
* * * *
I've finally spent some time today unpacking the last vestiges of the move, boxes that had been deposited in the extra bedroom. It looks worse than when I started, even though I have unpacked 6-8 boxes, and thrown away the equivalent of the contents of two. Unpacking and organizing is SUCH a boring thing, but I've put if off as long as possible, even redesigning the website instead of doing it. I do still need to remaster this Mary Cutrufello/Rudyard's bootleg. Hmm....
[Posted @ 04:31 PM CST]
