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> he doesn't appear to have caught on the book is supposed to be funny Miss Tsing Loh has a small advantage here by not having been in diapers in the period th
by mariusor 6y ago
> he doesn't appear to have caught on the book is supposed to be funny
Miss Tsing Loh has a small advantage here by not having been in diapers in the period that probably offers context for Fussel's musings.
- pvg 6y agoI think she has the advantage of having a sense of humor, more than anything else. You're making it sound like 1983 is some deep antiquity with an alien culture and long-dead language.
- mariusor 6y agoI'm not sure how to explain further what I meant with my previous statement, so apologies if what follows is not satisfactory. I was trying to convey that people that live through an event oftentimes have the benefit of localized context, over others that only read about it. In this specific example: Miss Tsing Loh had the benefit of knowing the classes described by Fussel as contemporaries - in University, in the shops, at the beach. She might have noticed subtle cues in their behaviour that make obvious to her that the book is only meant as humour, where Scott can only assume it is, which to my reading, he does plenty.
- pvg 6y agoYeah, that doesn't really make any sense to me, it's like saying it's impossible to avoid taking Swift's A Modest Proposal at face value because you haven't lived in 18th century Britain. That's plainly not the case and if you wrote a long analysis on whether the proposal works out nutritionally, people would reasonably conclude you're a bit of a dunderhead. Scott Alexander didn't write a long dunderheaded review of Class because he was too young in the 80s.
- mariusor 6y agoI see that your uncharitable and nuance lacking interpretation extends to my comments too. Cheers. :)