fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2792 ]

[ SECRET POST #2792 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2792 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 047 secrets from Secret Submission Post #399.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm sorry, nonny, but classic literature and academia are fairly intertwined. But I'm not obligated to actually give you what you're asking, particularly since you seem to think that my stance is one borne of anti-intellectualism. It's one thing to like classical literature, it's entirely another to suggest that people who don't are anti-intellectual.

We're done here. Have a good night.

You completely strawmanned the fuck out of what they were asking, though. All they were asking for was criticism of a book rather than criticism of a genre. You don't have to write a 3-page essay or even criticize every single piece of literature ever written, and you know that you don't, and you know that that's not what they wanted. You're just dodging and weaving.

The thing that's infuriating about you, and which is probably why you attract haters, is that you are completely incapable of considering the idea that you might be wrong, and you're a complete dick to anyone who dares to suggest that you might be.

That really isn't true at all. I might be a dick to people, but not because they think I'm wrong.

Well, it sure comes across that way.

Can't say I can really help that.

AYRT and I want to be very clear here

I don't think that you're anti-intellectual because you don't like classic literature. I don't think that, in any way, at all. You could dislike every piece of classic literature ever written and that would not in itself make me think you were anti-intellectual.

The part that makes me think you're anti-intellectual is the part where you slam academics for being intellectual and talk about how it's all just nonsense. Where you dismiss the arguments that people make and say that the only reason they make them is because of class or gender, or because of their inability to come up with original thoughts. That's why I thought what you said was anti-intellectual - because the arguments you're making are arguments against the possibility of people liking these books for valid reasons. Because the arguments you're making dismiss the possibility of valid intellectual investigation into this field. That's why I thought it was anti-intellectual.

Agree with them or not. Like the books or not. I don't give a shit. But I don't think it's correct or reasonable to talk about how these books are obviously shit and academics keep them around solely because they're brainwashed.

You need to read my post again. I did not slam academics for being intellectuals.

You keep using "brainwashed" as if that's what I implied. It isn't. Read my post, read it carefully.

These things become classics because people who think they're smart say they're amazing, they get put into curriculum for study, and because English literature in academia tends to be very, very stagnant and unchanging because traditionalism we're still studying the same goddamn books regardless of whether they're readable or relevant.

The thing is that every one of those books has people who think that it is amazing and relevant. Every single one of them. In the case of things like Joyce and Faulkner, scads of people who think they're brilliant and relevant and worth studying. Valuable, either for modern life or for the study of English literature as a discipline. And who can give you reasons for thinking so. There are people who like these things for reasons other than tradition, or who claim to, and who are passionate about them.

And you don't have to agree with them. There are plenty of good answers to those people if you disagree with them. But if your answer is "Nope, everything they're saying is just mindless respect for a meaningless tradition, the books are just shit and irrelevant" - if you're seriously going to reduce the reasons they have for being passionate about these things to "tradition" and "because their (white, male) mentors told them so" and so you don't have to have any response to the content of what they're saying - I have no respect at all for that answer and I think it's an anti-intellectual thing to say. And that's pretty much what you've said as far as I'm able to determine.

(Also I don't think that English literature in academia is as stagnant as you think it is - we've had going on 40, 50 years now of challenging Dead White Males - but that's not central to the point and I am willing to cede the argument there)

I have no actual opinion on this--I've seen Waiting for Godot, but I've never read anything else you mentioned. I just couldn't resist.

Edited 2014-08-26 03:09 (UTC)

I see. So you do not in fact have any actual argument. Could have guessed that at the start, tbh.

That's nice.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2792 ]

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