Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 203 Editor's Choice: 13
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@libertarius
[Read the article: The man who ruined the novel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, this brightened up my day. Rarely does one come across such a fitting object lesson in the fatuousness of accusing others of fatuousness, particularly when the subject (insomuch as we can agree to sustain the notion of a subject) is cultural literacy and the author trumpets his position as an employed paragon of linguistic insight just before misspelling the word "the" (though in homage to the clumpy experimentation of Robbe-Grillet, let's say we cannot really "know" the order in which these narrative moments occurred). Kudos, too, for the suave deployment of the "Well, Mr. Literary Critic/Actual Novelist, neither I nor any of my esteemed colleagues at this cow-pasture college have ever heard of your commercially successful output because we're just too darn busy doing French mouth-to-mouth on the avant-garde" offense. What a delicious souffle of bull-crappery, except for the part where I must wonder what this person thinks of the people he's being paid to educate, considering the contempt he heaps on here. Perhaps a ticket back to the land where monkey-grinders roam the streets and the cafes are filled with talk of the subtle complexities of comparing window-blinds to jealousy would be best for all involved.
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"who knew nothing"
[Read the article: The man who ruined the novel]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm actually an academician, friend. Neither of us appear to posses the freighted objectivity to even deign to enter journalism, low as that fruit may hang. And you spelled amazingly wrong -- that is, in the spirit of the master, you spelled "amazingly" wrong. Are you in one of those states where the WPA hasn't humped spellcheck over the ridges on the backs of sledding dogs yet? Really, when you write about a novel with 200 words, you should, at least hydraulically, make each of yours count.
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I Would Have Hoped
[Read the article: I don't believe in atheists]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]for a little less about the excitement of the interviewee's career and a little more about, say, the subject. Though I'm awfully glad he thinks the existence of genital mutilation "is disgusting," it seem to upset him less than the existence of Christopher Hitchens. And how tedious is it to tip your hat to the Enlightenment so casually while accusing others of having a high-school perspective on the whole religion thing? He sounds no different from any other bellicose "public intellectual" marking his turf.
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She doesn't need to apologize: she deserves reverence from your ilk.
[Read the article: Geraldine Ferraro still needs to apologize]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Instead, you people need to grow up. You need to realize that sexism is an insidious force in your cohort, more insidious than racism. Deal with it. Grow up, again. Then get over yourselves, again, show some appropriate respect, stop getting off on abusing white women, and then, and only after showing that respect, contemplate apologizing to us enough to actually garner enough of our votes to win an election. Or we'll keep defecting to where our identity isn't treated with contempt. Get it?
Otherwise, you'll win nothing, Joe Conason, et. al. Pretend women like me are people. Count the numbers, contemplate the contempt, think about your misdirected sanctimoniousness, count again, and change your tune or lose. It's not like we're asking for anything more that what you demand is accorded routinely to your type. Enough is enough. We've been thanklessly carrying water in this movement for long enough. Grow up and get over it, and respect us, and we'll still vote for your inappropriately-advanced candidates, your fantasy candidates, even though you fear women, and your candidates have neither earned it nor deserved it, because women are still, and perhaps unavoidably, repulsively, forgiving that way. Though we shouldn't be. Show some respect, and we'll still show up.
Which is more than I can say for your ilk. It's an election. You've already alienated me. But if you stop and make a half-hearted attempt to apologize, I'll still show up to vote, which is more than I can say for you.
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Salon, Slate and Time Online: The Identity Crisis
[Read the article: Rum, Romanism and James Carville]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From my perspective as a news consumer, it is the on-line magazine world that is leading the charge to strip real policy discussion from election coverage and replace it with personality and insider spats -- though Glenn Greenwald's disciplined documentation is an exception. Just because you label something media criticism doesn't mean you're not: a) part of the media, and b) doing precisely the same thing, and, c) motivated by the same fiscal justification, which is to attract readership.
So is the solution to step away and practice only what you preach? I don't know. But it certainly doesn't make sense to criticize others for doing precisely what Salon does, and it's absolutely wrong to exclude Salon et. al. from this particular charge. What percentage of your content has been of the type criticized here?
If there is an intellectual crisis in our generation, this is it: the practice of claiming that superior insight (meta- or post- or "outsider") excuses you from the rules of the game and ultimately from acknowledging that you are even a part of it. That's an easy position to take -- too easy, and too tempting -- a sort of intellectual Naderism. And look where that, for all its intentions and promise, (politically) went.
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"They aren't nihilists . . . but young men, drunk"
[Read the article: Terror and loathing]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's not rawly nihilistic to condemn half the human race -- the half you live with and procreate with, the half that give birth to your children, to sub-human enslavement, body and mind? This may look, from a distance, like "young men drunk." But it is something far more profound and disturbing.
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Pearls Before...
[Read the article: Why Hillary Clinton should be winning]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, that's a little harsh. But when comments are willfully obtuse, when readers refuse to follow a logical argument, dismissing it as "emotional" (how, exactly, is this article emotional?), or refuse to read what Wilentz is saying about the system itself because the system has produced what they want and so (now) they endow it with spiritualist infallibility; I have to ask whether it's even worth trying to have a discussion in such a biased, Obama-besotted environment.
Back to the stories about his sonorous voice, his gorgeous smile, and those rays of light emanating from his head.