Letters to the Editor
PaulE
Published Letters: 43 Editor's Choice: 7
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It's not about Almond or Sarvas...
[Read the article: The blogger who loathed me]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I haven't read much from either of these guys, nor do I care about the petty squabbling. But I have to say that it was a very interesting and worthwhile piece to read. Not because Almond is able to overcome the shackles of his artistic and commercial success to "forgive" Sarvas, but because it's a great portrayal of the world of blogging.
The irony is that Almond as a writer has the maturity to express his own puerility. Sarvas is below him, a self-inflated poser who pathetically thinks that it is quaint to use the "royal we". Yet Almond still feels the need to reduce himself to ad hominem attacks in the face of Sarvas' criticism.
I don't think Sarvas could write a piece that would so eloquently reveal his own faults as well as Almond has revealed his.
This type of story is straight out of something like "This American Life", and I love it. It fits well with Salon's blog theme. Don't change a thing.
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We should dismiss her, actually...
[Read the article: Yes, Maureen Dowd is necessary]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is incredible to me that people can speak with unchecked prejudice as freely as Maureen Dowd, so long as it is remains only sexist in nature. Why are sexists given such free reign to unfairly generalize when racist discussion is typically nipped in the bud almost immediately? Maybe that's because if we were to replace the gender issues with racial ones, it would be quite easy to answer many of these questions.
Why? Because most people agree that while many racial stereotypes may have some (albeit usually miniscule) basis in reality, we should look at the individual before we look at the demographic. Have you ever been asked, "Are whites necessary?" Probably not. Well, are they? Probably not. Does that really get to the heart of anything?
Traister can try to sort through the chaff to find some wheat, but it sounds like the point is being missed by a distance far greater than the breadth of the "rarefied D.C.-N.Y. corridor of power". We have to start looking at people as people and stop trying to make snap judgments out of misguided classification, be it by race, gender, country of origin, or sexual orientation. The healthiest relationships I know are not formed on a basis of gender roles, but on a basis of personality.
Race becomes an issue when you make it one. Gender becomes an issue when you make it one. If you stop looking at someone as a man or a woman and start looking at them as a person, things become a lot easier. Sure, men and women are different. But any given woman is quite a bit different than most other women, too.
Maureen Dowd's writings may serve as a good catalyst to get people talking, but that should not be confused with an endorsement of her own sexist generalizations. Forget whether feminism is dead or not. It doesn't matter. It's time for the discussion to evolve beyond the "feminists vs. non-feminists" mentality altogether.
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Playing right into the Right's hands....
[Read the article: The Jesus symbol, the witch and the wardrobe]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Before the current era of political and religious fundamentalists shacking up with each other, the public was well aware that political views and religious views are quite separate. The religious right's ploys have been to confound the issues and confuse people into thinking that Conservative = Christian Atheist-Hater and Liberal = Atheist Christian-Hater. This has no bearing on reality.
Unfortunately, Laura Miller is trying to write an expose on a topic that she knows nothing about, and comes out a perfect model of the Liberal Atheist Christian-Hater. Just how Christian is C.S. Lewis' masterpiece? Acknowledging that it may sound absurd doesn't obviate the idea that it is in fact an absurd question.
It is a well-understood literary fact (even outside theological circles) that the Narnia series is an allegory. Miller's (or I should say Goldthwaite's) few cogent arguments are merely long-standing arguments against Christianity: "For purely evil creatures to exist, God would have had to create them, and God does not create evil." This has nothing to do with Narnia whatsoever.
So what about the discussion about Lewis' true motives? Lewis was a very complicated person with complicated views about the Christian religion, most of which were quite plainly written in a book Miller didn't even refer to, "Mere Christianity". If she read Lewis as studiously as she read Goldthwaite, she would have at least understood what Lewis' frame of mind was (and how the ideas in Narnia were quite in keeping with his view of what Christianity was). But instead, it's difficult to even understand what she is trying to argue about him.
In fact, I myself am left wondering, what *was* the purpose of this one-sided expose? This article was of dubious motivation and has no meaning. Is she trying to derisively laugh at the Christians for embracing something that isn't compatible with her view of their fundamentals? Or is she merely trying to turn people away from Lewis to atone for her horrific appreciation of something of Christian origins?
Sorry, Laura, while I certainly am not a member of the religious right, I don't subscribe to your prejudices. Go look up "liberal" in a dictionary.