But that’s the standard. If the sensor is calibrated so you have to wave your hands up close enough to the nozzle that some fraction of distracted poo-hands are going to brush up against it, the hygienic project is not only not furthered but is actively defeated.

It’s about not confusing a project of persuasion with a project of emancipation, and I think Crawford really does confuse the two. I think that’s one reason that a lot of cultural conservatives like his book: because this is a confusion that is frequently found among culture warriors (right and left).

Ouch. I can’t deny that cuts deep, Tim.

The easier to know part is something Crawford argues about machinery, but he often slides also into the idea that machines which do not permit craftsmanlike tinkering are both inauthentic of themselves and are preferred by inauthentic people, are a sign of soullessness. This is made worse by the fact that he’s got very little interest really in processes of production or technological innovation, and has a universal prescription for our relationship to machinery which is almost by its nature not scalable to mass society. I prefer my artisanal snobs to be self-acknowledged snobs, I suppose: snobbery which poses as emancipatory, democratizing, down-with-the-people gets under my skin.

I’m working this year as a managing editor of one of the school’s lesser-known law reviews, and the quality of work that passes across my (virtual) desk is appalling. My responsibilities include rewriting footnotes and making the authors’ sources actually make sense (aside: law professors seem to be uniquely bad at writing footnotes – I can only theorize that they know someone like me will fix it for them, and of course the rules make no sense anyway), but I also have a small amount of discretion to make substantive and stylistic changes to the articles when necessary.

Unfortunately, in many cases the necessary changes would far exceed any sort of discretion, to say nothing of the time I have for such tasks. These articles often need to be rewritten from scratch. Legal writing has a reputation for being unreadable, of course, but it bothers me that the problem is so prevalent in the academic legal community. Court filings are an entirely different beast, and I can understand the reasons for short, clipped sentences in court, even if they come off as awkward: we don’t want to be confusing judges or (God help us) juries. But law professors take their chairs based on academic credentials at least as much if not more than on legal experience, and I really wish that they showed more rhetorical ability.

I recognize that your post is more about mixing metaphors and going way overboard with a rhetorical style that doesn’t work for the material at hand, but that is merely an extreme in the other direction. Since high school I’ve been taught that good writing is the most important academic skill (although I make no promises regarding my own writing!), and I really do wish that more people would get the same message.

So, good post, I guess. Tone is a distinct and, I think, more elusive subset of style, but similar principles hold. I think tone is tougher insofar as something can be “well written” but still off-putting to a given reader. You have every right to complain about tone in writing, but I think expecting people to conform to your ideas of tone has a somewhat higher bar than style in general. That said, Crawford is obviously egregious.

And no, I do not have any profound thoughts on public restrooms.