tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post115361329135297707..comments2024-03-29T06:55:47.109-05:00Comments on Althouse: "The most overrated essay in the modern canon... turgid, self-righteous and philosophically hopeless."Ann Althousehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153786757319814572006-07-24T19:19:00.000-05:002006-07-24T19:19:00.000-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Derve Swansonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03588383169658816894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153765345928746672006-07-24T13:22:00.000-05:002006-07-24T13:22:00.000-05:00I have no hope of getting them to read Strunk and ...<EM>I have no hope of getting them to read Strunk and White</EM><BR/><BR/>Strunk and White was required reading during my senior year at an (unusually good) public high school. To my surprise, I loved it.Vaderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02590784039904228357noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153733094426258542006-07-24T04:24:00.000-05:002006-07-24T04:24:00.000-05:00Lou, I don't know about required reading, but we w...Lou, I don't know about required reading, but we were assigned to read Animal Farm in elemetry.<BR/><BR/>dklittle,<BR/><BR/>"Flip-flop", "Death tax", "Pro-life", "Activist judges", "Tax relief" and "Fight them over there and not here"<BR/><BR/>These are all counter examples. The phrases were exhausted before they were even popular at the conventions. When people hear them, they tune out (knowing that the speaker is just reframing). They don't convince, they reinforce. Those words only spoke to the converted. It was only pols that thought they were clever, everyone else thought it was cute that the pols thought they were clever.aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11511239246957960529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153728017331787592006-07-24T03:00:00.000-05:002006-07-24T03:00:00.000-05:00"I know why were not reaching the public, weren't ..."I know why were not reaching the public, weren't not convoluted enough."aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11511239246957960529noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153656831988725212006-07-23T07:13:00.000-05:002006-07-23T07:13:00.000-05:00George Lakoff was the first thing I thought of, to...<I>George Lakoff was the first thing I thought of, too. The idea that you can take a concept and get people to like it simply by changing the name is absurd. </I><BR/><BR/>Well, on the face of it, it may seem absurd, but as an idea, it fits back with a broader concern (on both the Left and the Right) about controlling the frame of discourse. <BR/><BR/>Conservatives engage in this kind of meta fight about who gets to define the terms of discourse too. See, e.g. Ramesh Ponnuru's recent book -- he calls it <I>Party of Death</I>, not something more neutral, like, say, <I>Abortion and its Discontents</I> or whatever. And there is a concern among conservative abortion activists that news papers refer to them as "anti-abortion," rather than their preferred term -- "pro-life." Again with the newspapers, conservatives will sometimes go through and count the number of times conservatives or conservative organisations are referenced with a "right-wing" or "conservative" descriptor, and compare that against the number of times liberals or left-wing organisations are mentioned, and complain of bias when conservative organisations are categorised by ideology and liberal organisations are not. Why? Because they think they are at a disadvantage in the public debate, when their side (our side) gets stuck as the "conservative" view, and the other side is presented as a neutral view. This is the same kind of concern about framing that Nunberg and Lakoff are pointing to.<BR/><BR/>Of course, Lakoff certainly takes it much, much further -- I like his work generally, but his political analogies are awfully forced (and his political advice pretty useless). And I expect Nunberg does the same, although I have not read this particular book. But the basic concern about framing the discourse is one shared by conservatives. It's not this loony delusion left-wing linguistics professors cooked up all by themselves.Balfegorhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08012196656096263507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153648544978031382006-07-23T04:55:00.000-05:002006-07-23T04:55:00.000-05:00http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/gow...http://www.ourcivilisation.com/<BR/>smartboard/shop/<BR/>gowerse/complete/index.htm.<BR/><BR/>is worth a look as a source of advice on writingdeariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153648319515362792006-07-23T04:51:00.000-05:002006-07-23T04:51:00.000-05:00For anyone who doesn't know it, may I recommend Go...For anyone who doesn't know it, may I recommend Gowers:-<BR/>http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/gowerse/complete/index.htm.deariemehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06654632450454559188noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153629314085365302006-07-22T23:35:00.000-05:002006-07-22T23:35:00.000-05:00Palladian, I think I'll make a stab at getting The...Palladian, I think I'll make a stab at getting <I>The Elements of Style</I> adopted in our freshman classes sometime in the future. We use it in more advanced writing classes, and if I recall correctly, I discovered it a couple of years into college, on the advice of a philosophy professor.<BR/><BR/>With freshmen, a large part of my goal is to help them see writing as something that's within their grasp, and a useful tool for understanding ideas, their own and those they encounter in school and the world. Some students are ready to grabble with style, but generally, it's one of the elements that marks a B and A student from a C student. <BR/><BR/>lou: most of my students are public school grads, or from run-of-the-mill Catholic schools, and yes, invariabley a few students recognize Orwell as "the guy who wrote 1984."Bethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16774002797359859550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153626411149746352006-07-22T22:46:00.000-05:002006-07-22T22:46:00.000-05:00Just wrote a post about this:http://louminatti.blo...Just wrote a post about this:<BR/>http://louminatti.blogspot.com/2006/07/george-orwell.html<BR/><BR/>I just checked my local ISD and Animal Farm isn't mentioned for junior high kids. I think that is sad.<BR/><BR/>http://www.katyisd.org/files/curriculum/library/Elem_Summer_Reading_6th.pdfLou Minattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16096986232572086745noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153625978869938612006-07-22T22:39:00.000-05:002006-07-22T22:39:00.000-05:00Orwell was a socialist, but he hated what socialis...Orwell was a socialist, but he hated what socialism invariably becomes: Stalinism. <BR/><BR/>I spent an hour reading Part 1 of 1984 tonight, thanks to the site Ann linked to. Are 1984 and Animal Farm still required reading in public schools? I hope they are, although I suspect these two books have been weeded out.Lou Minattihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16096986232572086745noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153624316431157252006-07-22T22:11:00.000-05:002006-07-22T22:11:00.000-05:00Well, this is weird. Geoff was a high school class...Well, this is weird. Geoff was a high school classmate of mine, and seems trapped in a cage of massive denial. Sure, words matter, but conservatives didn't capture the word "values" simply by being the first to use the term to signify traditional American, er, values.<BR/><BR/>Well, I won't go on because I don't read Geoff's stuff and thus can't comment too much. But I am very distrustful of those who say that conservatives have "won" (yeah, right), not because of actual ideas or desires for how things ought to be, but because of tricks, linguistic or otherwise.<BR/><BR/>Are we to believe those guys over at National Review have just spent the last 50 years thinking of clever phrasings?JohnFhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05405509006240173648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153621445584326412006-07-22T21:24:00.000-05:002006-07-22T21:24:00.000-05:00Ah. Yet another book retreading the theme that co...Ah. Yet another book retreading the theme that conservatives win because of false consciousness.<BR/><BR/>Maybe the image of the elitist liberal is not a creation of the Right? Maybe it's instead the natural human reaction to being called a gullible fool by liberals for literally decades?<BR/><BR/>Nah. If that were the case, then the left would bear some blame for its own failures, and that <I>can't</I> be true. It's all those devious right-wingers!Stevenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05138730966226244399noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153620677929850102006-07-22T21:11:00.000-05:002006-07-22T21:11:00.000-05:00For those who care about such things be sure to pi...For those who care about such things be sure to pick up the 3rd edition of The Elements of Style. The <A HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elements_of_Style" REL="nofollow" NAME="Wikipedia on The Elements of Style">4th edition</A> was made more politically correct and less elegant.Glenn Howeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13657643977857888422noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153617072806085822006-07-22T20:11:00.000-05:002006-07-22T20:11:00.000-05:00"Geoffrey Nunberg's "Talking Right: How Conservati..."Geoffrey Nunberg's "Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism Into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show."<BR/><BR/>Conservatives turned "Liberalism" into that stereotype? How like the stereotypical liberal to blame their problematic image on someone else.<BR/><BR/>No political philosophy has a monopoly on truth. I distrust and dislike people who love ideological monikers more than they love truth.<BR/><BR/>And is Stanley Fish just bitter because few writing professors assign his work to students? Elizabeth, I adore Strunk and White; amazing to me that students would be resistant to it. Well... being a teacher myself, sadly it's not amazing to me that students would resist anything assigned to them, entertaining or not.Palladianhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01105490715666718993noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153616324876500922006-07-22T19:58:00.000-05:002006-07-22T19:58:00.000-05:00Well, Professor Fish seems to have falled into the...Well, Professor Fish seems to have falled into the time-honoured academic trap of not bothering to critique the essay Orwell actually wrote. Orwell himself acknowledged over and again, that every point he made was far from exhaustively addressed and was wide open to objection; and that Orwell was as far as you can get from an academic literary critic or political scientist. Perhaps that's a little unnerving to a dedicated follower of academic fashion like Professor Fish?Craig Ranapiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08923246310584658857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153615342989731552006-07-22T19:42:00.000-05:002006-07-22T19:42:00.000-05:00Ann I came to your blog for the pictures of Madiso...Ann I came to your blog for the pictures of Madison (so I'm shallow). I return for the quality of the writing by both you and your commenters. <BR/>As a poor writer trying to improve, I especially appreciate this post. Thank you Anngarrisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05877785493590690611noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153614928905356582006-07-22T19:35:00.000-05:002006-07-22T19:35:00.000-05:00Josil: All the law schools I've known teach studen...Josil: All the law schools I've known teach students to write clearly. Maybe you're talking about some contracts and forms you've seen, but legal writing is supposed to be very sharp and effective. It's not about saying things like hereinbeforetoafter.Ann Althousehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01630636239933008807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153614464479067062006-07-22T19:27:00.001-05:002006-07-22T19:27:00.001-05:00Damn it-I'm a sushi-eating, latte drinking, Volvo ...Damn it-I'm a sushi-eating, latte drinking, Volvo admiring, Prius-a-wanting, Goldwater Practicalarian.Chennaul https://www.blogger.com/profile/09259086579871139667noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6329595.post-1153613634488558172006-07-22T19:13:00.000-05:002006-07-22T19:13:00.000-05:00I assign that essay in my freshman writing classes...I assign that essay in my freshman writing classes for that "great set of writing rules." I have no hope of getting them to read Strunk and White, but Orwell targets the essentials, in a clear, understandable way, and with a good argument for what he presents.Bethhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16774002797359859550noreply@blogger.com