Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site phs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!wjh12!genrad!decvax!mcnc!duke!phs!paul 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).