Monday, March 24, 2008

And people say I get obsessive about blog arguments

Okay, okay, so every now and then I get carried away in the comments section of this blog and end up having long, meaningless arguments with people who clearly aren't worth it. I know this. I even intend to get help. Just as soon as I manage to find the time away from all these arguments I'm busy having.

But no discussion (read argument) I've ever had on this or any other blog can even begin to compare to the tortuous lengths that M/s. Shepherd, Robbins and Co. go to in response to a post about Intentional Fallacy. 15,700 something words (and counting) of heated debate, most of it, I suspect, unintelligible to anyone who doesn't have at least an undergraduate degree in English Lit.

Personally, I'm not entirely sure what the intention of any one of the parties involved was in having the discussion, but it makes for an entertaining, if slightly abstruse read.

4 comments:

Cheshire Cat said...

"Personally, I'm not entirely sure what the intention of any of the parties involved was in having the discussion"

Aren't you succumbing to the intentional fallacy?

(Cue rewind)

Seriously, that discussion is so much fun. I don't really think it's abstruse; the fact that it doesn't descend into theory-speak is what makes it so entertaining. I took a class with Michael once; nice to see he's as ideological as ever. To have a really good argument, it's essential to have at least one person who's unshakably convinced he's right. If there's less than one, then it's not so much an argument as a discussion, a conversation; if more than one, cold silence is likely to ensue.

So whose position in that argument is closest to yours? I kinda like that Henry Gould guy. He's a temperate character, just like me.

Falstaff said...

cat: And that, of course, was the point.

Yes, I enjoy Henry Gould too, though I actually thought K. Silem Mohammad's comment right there at the start was the most practical and my favorite comment (not one I necessarily agree with, but one I most enjoy) is Boyd Nielson's first appearance.

Personally, I think it all comes down to the intention of the poet who emerges from the text vs. the 'real' intention of the poet who wrote the text. I think MR is right in saying that we need the former, but that RS is right in thinking that there's no reason why the former should map closely to the latter.

km said...

Arguing over poetry in dull, long paragraphs of text. Oh well.

Anonymous said...

Arguing over poetry in dull, long paragraphs of text.

km, remember the comments on this?. :)