More from Rachel
At last, substantive debate!
Rachel says:
1. Reading the discussion between you and your co-bloggers leads me back to my original impression which was: you admit you've watched one of Spike Lee's films all the way through and wasted your time watching a few others. You admit you are relatively unfamiliar with his work and feel justified making judgements about it nonetheless. Did you attend drama class with Lee in high school? That explains my "flaunting ignorance" comment.
Indeed, I did "admit" (what a curious choice of wording) to watching Do The Right Thing all the way through, as well as parts of Bamboozled and She Hate Me. Any other assertions as to the breadth of my experience with any of the rest of his work would be assumptions on your part. At no time did I "admit" (there's that word again) to being "relatively unfamiliar" with his work. But let's address that one first. Are you asserting that before I could make a judgment (opinion is more accurate, but let's not quibble), I would have to be intimately familiar with every atom of his work? How tedious. And how hypocritical. Few and far between are those who suffer through the swamps of someone's "art" in order to be sure they haven't rejected it prematurely. In other words, life is way too short. I'd be willing to bet you haven't suffered through the hundreds of hours of Ricard Wagner's work, but I'm more than willing to bet you have formed an opinion on them. Finally, I'm not sure why you would think I needed to attend high school drama with Spike to form an opinion on his work. If you are referring to my comment on his best work being in high school, that was derived from an interview I read once in which he talked about being a stage hand or something in his high school drama class. My comment was a satirical extension of those remarks. You and Jonathan Swift will have to have a long talk one of these days if you consider satire to be "flaunting ignorance."
2. You're trying to have it both ways: saying talent is subjective on the one hand, and Hollywood/pop culture is not an adequate judge of talent on the other. What can I extrapolate from that judgement, except this: you want to be the judge of talent and say what you want about it, and defend it how you want.
I don't want to be a judge of anything and haven't made any assertion to that effect. I can offer multiple examples of Hollywood's failure to adequately recognize talent. And there is no objective/subjective disconnect. Your extrapolation is your own, but it is faulty and not supported by any evidence. If we have to start prefixing everything we say with "in my opinion" this blog is going to get tedious. If you read the blog, you will find several exciting discussions regarding what is opinion and what is not.
3. If your goal is to be contra mundum, you're succeeding. My point in saying "we need wise men not bullies" is this: the best polemicists are those with substantive weight behind their invective, like St. Athanasius, Martin Luther, or John Adams. The title of your blog indicates it exists because you want to use the internet to make a statement, "persuasively advocate an agenda"--not gratify your crankyness!
As I said, being contra mundum doesn't bother me, but I would hardly go so far as to say it is my goal. If there is insufficient weight behind my polemics, which are usually rhetoric and not polemic at all, then that is your subjective evaluation and you have offered insufficient evidence to support the assertion. In short, your rebuttal lacks substantive weight and if you would attempt, however indirectly, to hold me to the standards of John Adams, et al, then I submit it would be hypocritical of you to expect me to hold you to a lower standard. The gratification of crankiness is also your assessment, and it is without merit.
Rachel says:
1. Reading the discussion between you and your co-bloggers leads me back to my original impression which was: you admit you've watched one of Spike Lee's films all the way through and wasted your time watching a few others. You admit you are relatively unfamiliar with his work and feel justified making judgements about it nonetheless. Did you attend drama class with Lee in high school? That explains my "flaunting ignorance" comment.
Indeed, I did "admit" (what a curious choice of wording) to watching Do The Right Thing all the way through, as well as parts of Bamboozled and She Hate Me. Any other assertions as to the breadth of my experience with any of the rest of his work would be assumptions on your part. At no time did I "admit" (there's that word again) to being "relatively unfamiliar" with his work. But let's address that one first. Are you asserting that before I could make a judgment (opinion is more accurate, but let's not quibble), I would have to be intimately familiar with every atom of his work? How tedious. And how hypocritical. Few and far between are those who suffer through the swamps of someone's "art" in order to be sure they haven't rejected it prematurely. In other words, life is way too short. I'd be willing to bet you haven't suffered through the hundreds of hours of Ricard Wagner's work, but I'm more than willing to bet you have formed an opinion on them. Finally, I'm not sure why you would think I needed to attend high school drama with Spike to form an opinion on his work. If you are referring to my comment on his best work being in high school, that was derived from an interview I read once in which he talked about being a stage hand or something in his high school drama class. My comment was a satirical extension of those remarks. You and Jonathan Swift will have to have a long talk one of these days if you consider satire to be "flaunting ignorance."
2. You're trying to have it both ways: saying talent is subjective on the one hand, and Hollywood/pop culture is not an adequate judge of talent on the other. What can I extrapolate from that judgement, except this: you want to be the judge of talent and say what you want about it, and defend it how you want.
I don't want to be a judge of anything and haven't made any assertion to that effect. I can offer multiple examples of Hollywood's failure to adequately recognize talent. And there is no objective/subjective disconnect. Your extrapolation is your own, but it is faulty and not supported by any evidence. If we have to start prefixing everything we say with "in my opinion" this blog is going to get tedious. If you read the blog, you will find several exciting discussions regarding what is opinion and what is not.
3. If your goal is to be contra mundum, you're succeeding. My point in saying "we need wise men not bullies" is this: the best polemicists are those with substantive weight behind their invective, like St. Athanasius, Martin Luther, or John Adams. The title of your blog indicates it exists because you want to use the internet to make a statement, "persuasively advocate an agenda"--not gratify your crankyness!
As I said, being contra mundum doesn't bother me, but I would hardly go so far as to say it is my goal. If there is insufficient weight behind my polemics, which are usually rhetoric and not polemic at all, then that is your subjective evaluation and you have offered insufficient evidence to support the assertion. In short, your rebuttal lacks substantive weight and if you would attempt, however indirectly, to hold me to the standards of John Adams, et al, then I submit it would be hypocritical of you to expect me to hold you to a lower standard. The gratification of crankiness is also your assessment, and it is without merit.
posted by Anonymous | 3:26 PM
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