3 ms·

He's treating it as "ha ha only serious": http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html . Haven't

by jerf 6y ago

He's treating it as "ha ha only serious": http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/ha-ha-only-serious.html . Haven't read it myself but he sounds right. Jokes like that aren't funny if they don't have a lot of truth in them.

pvg 6y ago
I'm not sure that's the case, it's certainly not clear from the flabalanche of writing he has loosed. If he got the joke, it's not mentioned in the review.
hc-taway 6y ago
The parts I read that I could directly relate to from my own upbringing (a mix of Middle and mid-to-upper Prole, between the two sides of my family, with my own strong coating of Middle and accidentally-adopted Upper-Middle thinly painted on top) were very accurate and insightful, even when funny. I'm inclined to believe very little of it is manufactured or even exaggerated for entertainment value, despite the wit of the book and the way it sometimes reads as jokey, even when I know for a fact it's relating plain truth. [EDIT] That is, I wouldn't take it as a straightforward academic effort or something like that, but I wouldn't dismiss it because it happens to be entertaining. Not one thing I had first-hand knowledge of in it make me go "oh come on, that's not quite right". I'd guess if it contains such, it's a very small portion of the book.
- jerf 6y ago
  I think this it the type of book that can only be written in a "ha ha only serious" way because anything else will make the reader too defensive to take it seriously. Two other examples of this genre I know of are the original Peter Principle book, and the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity [1]. Both of them wrap some hard truths in this format because it's the only way to get them past a lot of people's filters... [1]: http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit...

by jerf 6y ago

pvg 6y ago

I'm not sure that's the case, it's certainly not clear from the flabalanche of writing he has loosed. If he got the joke, it's not mentioned in the review.

hc-taway 6y ago

The parts I read that I could directly relate to from my own upbringing (a mix of Middle and mid-to-upper Prole, between the two sides of my family, with my own strong coating of Middle and accidentally-adopted Upper-Middle thinly painted on top) were very accurate and insightful, even when funny. I'm inclined to believe very little of it is manufactured or even exaggerated for entertainment value, despite the wit of the book and the way it sometimes reads as jokey, even when I know for a fact it's relating plain truth. [EDIT] That is, I wouldn't take it as a straightforward academic effort or something like that, but I wouldn't dismiss it because it happens to be entertaining. Not one thing I had first-hand knowledge of in it make me go "oh come on, that's not quite right". I'd guess if it contains such, it's a very small portion of the book.

jerf 6y ago
I think this it the type of book that can only be written in a "ha ha only serious" way because anything else will make the reader too defensive to take it seriously. Two other examples of this genre I know of are the original Peter Principle book, and the Basic Laws of Human Stupidity [1]. Both of them wrap some hard truths in this format because it's the only way to get them past a lot of people's filters... [1]: http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/ http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidit...