Yes, you are dedicated. The fan boy vibes are coming off you in waves. It’s pathetic.
I don’t think I ever doubted that he was a psychiatrist. He could be a lion tamer for all I care.
I didn’t suspect anything about his profession one way or the other. I don’t care about his profession. When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter if you’re a psychiatrist, a rocket scientist, or a trapeze artist. His being a psychiatrist doesn’t give his arguments any extra weight in my mind because they’re just so obviously wrong and/or incomprehensible, not to mention almost completely uncited.
My jurisdiction? Please, tell me, what is my jurisdiction? What am I allowed to comment on? Be specific.
Damn right you’re not.
Well, there we differ. I think everything from his uncited declarative assertions, to his seemingly haphazard deployment of pop culture references, to his frenetic style which leaps from point to point without any semblance of real structure, to that stupid German strapline which I’ll get to in a minute, all combine to indicate that the guy is either (a) unbelievably pretentious or (b) trying to sound smarter than he really is…which isn’t that different from option (a), really.
Jesus Christ, will you drop the persecution complex? So I didn’t like your favourite little blog. Get over it.
Yes. I know that. It’s Wittgenstein. Specifically, it’s the last line of his first major work Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus wherein he outlined his philosophy that metaphysics was logically incomprehensible because the words that metaphysicians tend to use (‘God’ or ‘afterlife’ for instance) don’t have real-world referents. What Wittgenstein means is that if something doesn’t have a tangible physical presence we can’t talk about it in any meaningful way (Whereof one cannot speak) and so therefore we shouldn’t even try (thereof one must be silent).[sup]1[/sup]
I got all that immediately, but it proves my point! If I didn’t know Wittgenstein, and if I didn’t happen to already possess a smattering of German, I would have had to spend Christ knows how long Googling about, just to figure out the strapline on this guy’s shitty little wordpress blog. Now, a familiarity with philosophical catchphrases might impress you, but they don’t impress me. They just don’t. To me, that strapline is just another sign of the contemptible pretension which makes this guy’s blog such a chore to read. If he’d had it in English then maybe he could have gotten away with it, but no. He had it in German. Why did he have it in German if not to be obscurantist?
I don’t like obscurantism. Sue me.
Yes, you’re absolutely right. As soon as I’ve divested myself of my responsibilities to my friends, family, and employer, as well as of all my not inconsiderable health problems, I will immediately undertake a rigorous Talmudic analysis of this weird little blog that I’d never heard of until I opened this thread (and Christ, do I ever regret doing that). I will leave no stone unturned, no post unannotated, and no article of punctuation unscrutinised so that when my intellectual Odyssey is complete I will be able to stand tall and, in the sight of Gods and men, proclaim to the world that I earned the right to say…I don’t like it.
Look, it’s just a blog, all right? Someone asked the board at large for opinions on its content and mine were negative. I gave my reasons. I don’t have to go through every line this guy’s ever written to ensure my opinion takes his every damn keystroke into account. He already lost me. When you give up on a book after fifty pages, do you force yourself to read the remaining six hundred just so you can justify to yourself your decision to go read something else? ‘Cos if you do, let me tell you, most people don’t. And when most people are asked for their opinions of a book they discarded, they don’t say “I’ve no right to an opinion because I didn’t finish it”, they say “I didn’t like it because of X,Y, and Z’. Is that terribly unfair to the author? No! It’s the author’s job to retain the reader’s interest. If he fails, that’s his fault.
Right, well you fucking got it wrong then, didn’t you? Because Cudgel who, according to you, “knows what you’re talking about” said quite clearly that it was actually a reference to the Nietzchean concept of the ‘Last Man’ (look it up).
See what I mean about the lack of clarity being a problem, yet?
Good thing I never said that then, isn’t it? If you’re going to throw a hissy-fit could you at least do it without straw-manning me?
Because people asked! Lakai started this thread for general opinions about the blog. One, just one of the opinions I have about it is that it is badly written. Occasionally, it’s exceptionally badly written. Here’s a question: Why have you got to dog me for that one opinion? I also took issue with the way he summarily redefined the concept of “agency” to suit his purposes in his Hunger Games article, but I notice that you’ve left that objection completely alone. Why is that?
It’s really quite amusing. I criticise the guy’s style and substance. Then you come along and criticise me for criticising his style and then accuse me of having no substance! What about my criticisms of his substance? Why haven’t you addressed ANY of that?
Says the guy who just wrote a hysterical 1,000 word screed because some random on the internet dared to criticise his favourite blog.
Click on this link: xkcd: Duty Calls
See the guy in that cartoon? That’s you.
I’m glad someone does.
[sup]1. - Apologies to any philosophy majors reading. It’s been nearly 20 years since I read the Tractatus. I hope I got the gist of that bit right, at least.[/sup]