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From: paul@phs.UUCP (Paul C. Dolber)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Form and Substance
Message-ID: <947@phs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Oct-84 17:41:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: phs.947
Posted: Wed Oct 10 17:41:12 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Oct-84 01:09:15 EDT
Organization: Dept. Physiol., DUMC
Lines: 132

[But it's *cold*!]

Complaints about Ken Arndt in net.motss tend to take one (or all) of
three directions: he's not supportive, he's unintelligible, or he's
rude.  In response to the complaint that he's rude and unsupportive,
some have argued that he appears to be knowledgable and perhaps, at
times, even reasonable. In response to such responses, others have
denied the possibility that he may be reasonable, argued that his
rudeness is the main point to be considered, and/or suggested that he
attempt to become intelligible that his points, if there be any besides
a hypothetical one atop his head, be better understood.

Let me reject the "not supportive" complaint out of hand; why someone
must be supportive to be heard escapes my understanding. (After all,
I tolerate liberals in net.politics -- though it appears some have
great difficulty tolerating me.) And I think that most net.motss
readers, gay and otherwise, agree. (Let me also reject the complaint
not noted above, that he has no answers to the problems he raises.
Who does?) Leaving, of the three types of complaints I noted, that he
is frequently unintelligible and rude.

On to intelligibility. I frequently find such luminaries as Sartre,
Connell, Eliot, Hamsun, Lagerkvist, Pynchon, Brecht, Ionesco, and
Baudelaire... unintelligible. On the other hand, I sometimes find
them intelligible, which sustains me in reading their works. And I
have found that it is generally true that just that which makes them
so often unintelligible makes their message, when I am hit with it,
so forceful. Now, one need not include Ken in the list above -- i.e.,
as of the same rank -- to consider the possibility that his style suits
him as the best to get across his points. To make a point, it may
sometimes be necessary to strike the listener in the face with a dead
fish. Would you reduce the efforts of, say, Ionesco to that which would
fit on a bumper sticker? (It would save a lot of trees; "The Lesson"
could be reduced to "Communication is Fraught with Difficulty," and
certainly everyone would understand that communication.) Would
you wait till the author died, and read the books of criticism about
the author's work? It's usually easier than reading the work itself.
Would you have the author write an essay as dull as this one (albeit
in better prose, no doubt)? Or would you admit the possibility that the
author embedded his meaning as much in the form of his work as in the
words? That in order to understand it, you had to do more than
intellectualize? (I remember, from Personality Theory or Abnormal
Psychology, when the professor explained "intellectualization" as
the defense mechanism which enabled 150 male students to hear him say
something like "All males hate their fathers because they secretly want
to have sexual intercourse with their mothers," busily write it down,
and wait for the next point. Having missed the last one.)

Not that I think I've convinced anyone of anything, but let's get on
to rudeness. Really not getting on at all, since the same point
raised above -- that attention may be better commanded by striking
the listener in the face with a dead fish than by writing a deadly
boring essay such as I am now doing -- applies here. Maybe you
should regard Arndt as an onion in the stew of life, and not expect
your reasoned arguments to turn him into a carrot.

The suggestion has been tendered that someone, not Ken, who reads
an Arndt message and espies some redeeming quality there, translate
the message for the edification of the remainder of the crew. A bad
idea, I think, but since I am filled (indeed, brimming over) with
polite language (rather gray, but it doesn't disturb anyone as long
as I don't mention National Review), let me try an example. Ken
recently wrote in an article that when in boot camp he felt sorry
for a crying recruit who was kicked by every other recruit who passed
him, including, when Ken got to him, Ken. Some net.motss readers
read this as a brave "coming out of the closet" on Ken's part,
others as an expression of Ken's wimpiness/rudeness/brutality.
Enter Mr. Explain-it-in-all-gray-tones! Ahem. "In the message from
Ken, which you are not reading because its style, nay, its very
language, was deemed inappropriate, Ken related an anecdote, or
perhaps a parable, to the effect that today's polite sympathy may not
translate into polite actions on the morrow." Really grabbed you, eh?
Thought so.

(You know, as I was mentally composing this essay, I kept hearing
Muzak playing when I thought of the brave new world we all expect
when everyone talks and writes ever so politely, and reasonably,
like, say, me. I couldn't figure out why the damned Muzak was
playing for a couple of hours, when I suddenly was hit by the
shopping market scene at the end of "Stepford Wives." I'd explain
the scene in words, but I'm afraid I'd gray so far as to disappear.)

Listen, I suspect two things: That Ken is damned nigh well unique
(certainly on this net), and that the kind of person many net.motss
readers think he is, is not. It's the latter you've got to look
out for and try to sway. Run off to mod.motss if you will, where
the moderator will protect you from immoderate opinions -- but
if everything turns to shit, and the world comes tumbling down
on your head, please refrain from asking "But they all seemed so
nice! What happened?"

I can sense that some of you (most of you?) are still unconvinced.
Very well, in better polite language than my own...

     "Perhaps there is really no such thing as a Revolution
     recorded in history. What happened was always a Counter-
     Revolution. Men were always rebelling against the last
     rebels; or even repenting of the last rebellion. This
     could be seen in the most casual contemporary fashions,
     if the fashionable mind had not fallen into the habit of
     seeing the very latest rebel as rebelling against all
     ages at once. The Modern Girl [this written in 1933]
     with the lipstick and the cocktail is as much a rebel
     against the Women's Rights Woman of the '80's, with her
     stiff stick-up collars and strict teetotalism, as the
     latter was a rebel against the Early Victorian lady of the
     languid waltz tunes and the album full of quotations from
     Byron; or as the last, again, was a rebel against a
     Puritan mother to whom the waltz was a wild orgy and
     Byron the Bolshevist of his age. Trace even the Puritan
     mother back through history and she represents a rebellion
     against the Cavalier laxity of the English Church, which
     was at first a rebel against the Catholic civilisation,
     which had been a rebel against the Pagan civilisation.
     Nobody but a lunatic could pretend that these things
     were a progress; for they obviously go first one way and
     then the other."

[From G.K. Chesterton's "Saint Thomas Aquinas," Image Books, Garden
City, New York, pp. 76-77, 1956. Which is, of course, irrelevant
because it was written by (a) a conservative who (b) is dealing with
a religious topic.]

Of course, Ken may be simply as you see him: a rude and unintelligible
boor. Yes, Ken could be exactly what many of you think he is, a bad
boy so typical of the religious right. So typical.

Keep your eyes on him.

Stew without onions? None for me, thanks. Mais, chacun a son gout.
Regards, Paul Dolber @ DUMC (...duke!phs!paul).