Comments on: Pedant

By: V Ricks

V Ricks — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 01:23:14 +0000

I think that Doug is right about one’s response being shaped by one’s audience and by one’s aims.

The dilemma arises for me in the classroom — and, for that matter, at faculty meetings — no less than in the public square (or in gatherings with the non-academic parts of my family)!

Actually, as your final paragraph hints, there’s more than one dilemma. The first is about whether to say anything and appear pedantic or to say nothing and betray one’s own values and hard-won professional expertise. The second is whether to say something in a way that’s going to sound impossibly arrogant and nitpicking or to say something in a way that’s condescendingly simplistic. (I’m exaggerating the range of opinions, but I’m trying to capture the way that I experience them from the inside).

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 10:44:39 +0000

I think I’d go so far as to say that the Atlantic should publish someone else. She’s nowhere near as bad as someone like Mark Steyn, but I see her as an artifact of the moment where the Atlantic was misrecognizing across the whole of the magazine what was an attractively provocative or original voice. They’ve pulled back from that some lately.

But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that she’s dangerous and pernicious. More like aggravating, but potentially salvageable if she’d rein in some of the worst parts of her typical formula. 50% less narcissism alone might make her worth reading. I thought Sandra Tsing Loh was a more interesting “post” (or “anti”) feminist voice when they published her, and I take it that this is what the Atlantic is looking for in Flanagan.

By: Doug

Doug — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 07:27:38 +0000

Maybe this is assuming myself as the norm, since I’m an editor when I’m not commenting on blogs, but I read Tim’s analysis to say that Flanagan needed better editing on this piece. I can think of half a dozen reasons off the top of my head why she didn’t get it (unless she did get some and the original piece was much worse), but most of the things Tim’s talking about are questions an editor should have posed: The tone here doesn’t match the tone there, which one do you want to use? This argument points up, this one points down, which direction do you mean to go? Why does this whole section rely on a single source – is it the only one that exists?

I doubt that would change Flanagan’s basic schtick, which is after all what the magazine wants when it commissions (or buys) a piece from her. But better editing would improve the schtick.

As for how you object, I’d say that depends on what you want to achieve. Do you want the Atlantic to publish someone other than Flanagan? Do you want to say in a different forum, “interesting argument, but wrong on the details”? Or do you want to say “dangerous and pernicious bollocks”?

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 23:09:20 +0000

The current scholarly consensus as I understand it is that, first, it wasn’t a single event, and was conflated into one thing by later commenters. Second, later understandings of the event as involving boys are based on a misreading of colloquial Latin reports of the event–that they were in fact young men.

By: Jonathan Dresner

Jonathan Dresner — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:30:54 +0000

I think the last thing we learn, as critical thinkers, is how to critically read our own ideas and writing. Flanagan’s errors are very ordinary ones — simplistic narrativity, undersourced, assuming oneself as the norm — but are very hard to correct once they start to get embedded in writing.

As an aside: the Children’s Crusade wasn’t?

By: JasonII

JasonII — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 21:50:35 +0000

i struggle with this myself. my field is english, so i cringe at a lot of arguments made about texts that involve misreadings (or even an investment company’s misreading of a robert frost poem). my wife usually rolls her eyes. however, sometimes i think its important to say when something isn’t correct. i tend to do that as a person, as well. i would also want to question the value of provocative public writing, since in many cases it doesn’t go beyond fear mongering, and we get enough of that.

as a side note, one often hears sniggering about the english grammar nazi making snide comments about the unwashed masses’ poor skills, but i wonder if the same people doing the sniggering would correct someone for saying 2+2=5?