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This article probably isn't targeted towards a layperson, but it didn't tell me why he was important to the world, important he may be. Why is literary criticis

by klbarry 16y ago

This article probably isn't targeted towards a layperson, but it didn't tell me why he was important to the world, important he may be. Why is literary criticism so important? My background memory: A while back, didn't someone submit a made-up literary criticism to a journal in the field using false credentials, and have his work lauded? Edit: The above memory doesn't mean anything regarding this subject, scratch that.

quanticle 16y ago
You're probably thinking of the Sokal Hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), where Alan Sokal basically made up a nonsense paper and submitted it to a literary journal and got it accepted. To me, the hoax illustrates the real reason why the "literary culture" has declined so. Its not due to any diminishing of Americans' literary sensibilities, but rather due to the literary world's increasing insularity and elitism. Today the world of "high literature" is so self-referential and abstract as to require a degree in literature to simply comprehend why any given work is good or bad. Most people rightly don't want to put in that kind of effort.
- Homunculiheaded 16y ago
  To be fair 'Social Text', the journal Sokal submitted his article to was not peer reviewed at the time, so it's not really a good representation of consensus of the academic community in that area. Additionally similar hoaxes (cited at the end of that wikipedia article) have been pulled of in the sciences. The hoax demonstrates many of the current problems with academia, but I don't think it provides good grounds to singularly pick on literary criticism.
  - vixen99 16y ago
    It was, I suggest, the aftermath that actually provided good grounds. For instance, several 'giants' of literary criticism were demonstrably shown, because they'd ill-advisedly chosen to stray into topic areas which they were ill-equipped to handle, to be talking nonsense. One topic was mathematics where it was shown very clearly that a certain well-known 'intellectual' was manifestly ignorant of the mathematics she enjoyed quoting in support of her 'arguments.
    - _delirium 16y ago
      I don't think there was much demonstrated in the aftermath, just a lot of mudslinging on both sides. While I thought the parody was hilarious, the "serious" followup, in Sokal and Bricmont's book, is not that great. It mostly boils down to: some random critical theorists make too much use of crappy or stretched mathematical/scientific metaphors. That point was demonstrated much more penetratingly in the parody. The book, though, feels like a literary scholar-pedant finding a metaphorical reference to Faust in a physics paper and launching into a longwinded critique about how the physicist has clearly misunderstood Faust. Well, maybe, and if that were common it'd be an annoying writing style, but errors in interpretation of Faust aren't really the point if it's a physics paper! And to make matters worse, they don't even go after most of the big names--- there are no chapters in the book on Derrida, Foucault, Althusser, Barthes, etc., because they couldn't find any material to critique.
      - quanticle 16y ago
        The problem I have with Derrida, Focault, et. al. is that they're effectively impossible to critique. The density of their writing, combined with their tendency to redefine terms on the fly means that critiques often end up being critiques of interpretation, rather than critiques of the work itself. Of course, the writers would argue that that's exactly the point. The main idea of postmodernism is that the work is inseparable from the interpretation.
yters 16y ago
Why are all the posts on HN about programming languages and dissecting programs so important?
- edanm 16y ago
  1. I don't think all the posts are important. 2. I don't think any programmers think there's a problem with how the majority of the world doesn't get the beauty of C#. 3. There's practical value in dissecting new programs and programming languages. Practical in a way that I don't think you can say about literary criticism. That doesn't make it less valuable, necessarily, but it is a big difference.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    On #2, there is a significant contingent if you replace C# with Lisp. ;-)
    - edanm 16y ago
      I chose C# for a reason ;)
  - yters 16y ago
    Do you believe art has value? If so, do you believe it is valuable for artists to understand their craft so as to make better art?
    - edanm 16y ago
      "Do you believe art has value?" Yes. But in a less practical way than other things people do (including, in some cases, programming.) And no, I can't really define "less practical" rigorously, but I think most people will understand what I mean. And that's not to diminish anything from art, by the way. I'm not saying that more practical is better or worse, just different and worth considering. I love mathematics, for example, a lot of which also has no practical application. And it even resonates with less people than art. "Do you believe it is valuable for artists to understand their craft so as to make better art?" Yes. But from what I've heard of literary criticism, it usually doesn't have much to do with "studying the craft in order to make art better". I could be wrong - I'm certainly basing this opinion mostly on things I've heard/read second-hand (by, for example, Orson Scott Card, my favorite author.)
mynameishere 16y ago
If you read to page 2 you'll understand a little better. Even today, the way people think is derived from how the most prominent people think, whose ideas/methods/conclusions/biases all drip down to the masses. Now, it's Harvard-educated producers and writers working through Hollywood. Then, it was people like TS Eliot and Ezra Pound working through literay magazines. No, they have no power today, but Commentary Magazine (read its byline) is interested in them as a case study. The manner by which high-level thinkers influence the "proles" is largely technical. When schools and churches and magazines lost power, it was mainly because of the invention of television and movies. That influence is changing again.

by klbarry 16y ago

quanticle 16y ago

You're probably thinking of the Sokal Hoax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair), where Alan Sokal basically made up a nonsense paper and submitted it to a literary journal and got it accepted. To me, the hoax illustrates the real reason why the "literary culture" has declined so. Its not due to any diminishing of Americans' literary sensibilities, but rather due to the literary world's increasing insularity and elitism. Today the world of "high literature" is so self-referential and abstract as to require a degree in literature to simply comprehend why any given work is good or bad. Most people rightly don't want to put in that kind of effort.

Homunculiheaded 16y ago
To be fair 'Social Text', the journal Sokal submitted his article to was not peer reviewed at the time, so it's not really a good representation of consensus of the academic community in that area. Additionally similar hoaxes (cited at the end of that wikipedia article) have been pulled of in the sciences. The hoax demonstrates many of the current problems with academia, but I don't think it provides good grounds to singularly pick on literary criticism.
- vixen99 16y ago
  It was, I suggest, the aftermath that actually provided good grounds. For instance, several 'giants' of literary criticism were demonstrably shown, because they'd ill-advisedly chosen to stray into topic areas which they were ill-equipped to handle, to be talking nonsense. One topic was mathematics where it was shown very clearly that a certain well-known 'intellectual' was manifestly ignorant of the mathematics she enjoyed quoting in support of her 'arguments.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    I don't think there was much demonstrated in the aftermath, just a lot of mudslinging on both sides. While I thought the parody was hilarious, the "serious" followup, in Sokal and Bricmont's book, is not that great. It mostly boils down to: some random critical theorists make too much use of crappy or stretched mathematical/scientific metaphors. That point was demonstrated much more penetratingly in the parody. The book, though, feels like a literary scholar-pedant finding a metaphorical reference to Faust in a physics paper and launching into a longwinded critique about how the physicist has clearly misunderstood Faust. Well, maybe, and if that were common it'd be an annoying writing style, but errors in interpretation of Faust aren't really the point if it's a physics paper! And to make matters worse, they don't even go after most of the big names--- there are no chapters in the book on Derrida, Foucault, Althusser, Barthes, etc., because they couldn't find any material to critique.
    - quanticle 16y ago
      The problem I have with Derrida, Focault, et. al. is that they're effectively impossible to critique. The density of their writing, combined with their tendency to redefine terms on the fly means that critiques often end up being critiques of interpretation, rather than critiques of the work itself. Of course, the writers would argue that that's exactly the point. The main idea of postmodernism is that the work is inseparable from the interpretation.

yters 16y ago

Why are all the posts on HN about programming languages and dissecting programs so important?

edanm 16y ago
1. I don't think all the posts are important. 2. I don't think any programmers think there's a problem with how the majority of the world doesn't get the beauty of C#. 3. There's practical value in dissecting new programs and programming languages. Practical in a way that I don't think you can say about literary criticism. That doesn't make it less valuable, necessarily, but it is a big difference.
- _delirium 16y ago
  On #2, there is a significant contingent if you replace C# with Lisp. ;-)
  - edanm 16y ago
    I chose C# for a reason ;)
- yters 16y ago
  Do you believe art has value? If so, do you believe it is valuable for artists to understand their craft so as to make better art?
  - edanm 16y ago
    "Do you believe art has value?" Yes. But in a less practical way than other things people do (including, in some cases, programming.) And no, I can't really define "less practical" rigorously, but I think most people will understand what I mean. And that's not to diminish anything from art, by the way. I'm not saying that more practical is better or worse, just different and worth considering. I love mathematics, for example, a lot of which also has no practical application. And it even resonates with less people than art. "Do you believe it is valuable for artists to understand their craft so as to make better art?" Yes. But from what I've heard of literary criticism, it usually doesn't have much to do with "studying the craft in order to make art better". I could be wrong - I'm certainly basing this opinion mostly on things I've heard/read second-hand (by, for example, Orson Scott Card, my favorite author.)

mynameishere 16y ago

If you read to page 2 you'll understand a little better. Even today, the way people think is derived from how the most prominent people think, whose ideas/methods/conclusions/biases all drip down to the masses. Now, it's Harvard-educated producers and writers working through Hollywood. Then, it was people like TS Eliot and Ezra Pound working through literay magazines. No, they have no power today, but Commentary Magazine (read its byline) is interested in them as a case study. The manner by which high-level thinkers influence the "proles" is largely technical. When schools and churches and magazines lost power, it was mainly because of the invention of television and movies. That influence is changing again.