3 ms·

what would the piece look like without them exactly

notpachet 3y ago
I don't think it would necessarily be much different. It could just reflect the light a little differently in places. Largely I think you could just have leaned less heavily on these sorts of negative adjectives to get the mood across, because they can distract from the arguments you are trying to make. So you either need to free your arguments from these adjectives (remove them, tone them down), or you need to back up the adjectives more concretely, which would require more work. What would that work look like? Let's just take the paragraph that starts with: > Andreessen’s thinking is equal parts outdated and childish, .... These are fair points to make, but you could have done a better job of tying these specific adjectives to the supporting content found in the rest of the essay. Okay, his thinking is outdated -- why? You go on later to describe how his manifesto is actually emblematic of a reactionary, versus a visionary, mindset. That gives you a solid argument for him inhabiting an outdated worldview. You just need to tie that argument to its thesis a bit more tightly. As it is, the thesis ("his thinking is outdated") is left dangling for a while without explicit anchors to your supporting arguments for it, while you go on to list other problems within that paragraph. Likewise with "childish". Why is his thinking childish? There's probably a whole separate essay to be made about this point specifically. A reductive desire for simplicity in a complex world. Atlas Shrugged being a staple favorite of young, inexperienced men, and why that is. And so on. Again, you touch on these points, but your arguments are all spread out and overlaid on top of each other in a way that makes it easier for someone to perceive it as just a general airing of grievances. Instead of these tightly-focused corroborated arguments, the first sentence of your paragraph concludes by saying: "...hinging heavily on the idea that the world needs more technology, and the way that we get more technology is through removing any barriers that might stop the tech industry and venture capitalists from monetizing every aspect of the modern world." Well, okay -- but how is that childish? How is it outdated? One could argue that this sort of regulatory dismanting is actually not outdated at all. Immoral and anti-social, yes, but very much a product of our times. This is what I mean when I say that you're not linking your adjectives to your arguments. The second part of that sentence is almost orthogonal to the first part, unless we're just lumping everything together into the bucket of "things that make Marc Andreessen a shitty person". Perhaps a more tightly focused structure would be: "Andreessen may think that his worldview is forward-looking, but it's actually very typically reactionary. Here's what I mean. <arguments showing his similarity to other reactionary thinkers>" Then, somewhat further, you could have a separate paragraph: "Andreessen's manifesto often betrays an immature understanding of the true meaning behind the works that he cites. <examples>" Which again, is effectively what you're doing, albeit in a gaussian-blurred, emotional appeal sort of way. I don't particularly mind that approach, but then again I'm not really in the audience that needs to be convinced that Marc Andreessen is a piece of shit. I'm in the choir. For people who aren't, I think that lumping multiple negative statements together, and then only indirectly substantiating those at various places throughout the rest of the essay, isn't going to do much to convince them. I'm not saying that you should see it as your job to win those hearts and minds, but it will hold you back from doing so.

I don't think it would necessarily be much different. It could just reflect the light a little differently in places. Largely I think you could just have leaned less heavily on these sorts of negative adjectives to get the mood across, because they can distract from the arguments you are trying to make. So you either need to free your arguments from these adjectives (remove them, tone them down), or you need to back up the adjectives more concretely, which would require more work. What would that work look like? Let's just take the paragraph that starts with: > Andreessen’s thinking is equal parts outdated and childish, .... These are fair points to make, but you could have done a better job of tying these specific adjectives to the supporting content found in the rest of the essay. Okay, his thinking is outdated -- why? You go on later to describe how his manifesto is actually emblematic of a reactionary, versus a visionary, mindset. That gives you a solid argument for him inhabiting an outdated worldview. You just need to tie that argument to its thesis a bit more tightly. As it is, the thesis ("his thinking is outdated") is left dangling for a while without explicit anchors to your supporting arguments for it, while you go on to list other problems within that paragraph. Likewise with "childish". Why is his thinking childish? There's probably a whole separate essay to be made about this point specifically. A reductive desire for simplicity in a complex world. Atlas Shrugged being a staple favorite of young, inexperienced men, and why that is. And so on. Again, you touch on these points, but your arguments are all spread out and overlaid on top of each other in a way that makes it easier for someone to perceive it as just a general airing of grievances. Instead of these tightly-focused corroborated arguments, the first sentence of your paragraph concludes by saying: "...hinging heavily on the idea that the world needs more technology, and the way that we get more technology is through removing any barriers that might stop the tech industry and venture capitalists from monetizing every aspect of the modern world." Well, okay -- but how is that childish? How is it outdated? One could argue that this sort of regulatory dismanting is actually not outdated at all. Immoral and anti-social, yes, but very much a product of our times. This is what I mean when I say that you're not linking your adjectives to your arguments. The second part of that sentence is almost orthogonal to the first part, unless we're just lumping everything together into the bucket of "things that make Marc Andreessen a shitty person". Perhaps a more tightly focused structure would be: "Andreessen may think that his worldview is forward-looking, but it's actually very typically reactionary. Here's what I mean. <arguments showing his similarity to other reactionary thinkers>" Then, somewhat further, you could have a separate paragraph: "Andreessen's manifesto often betrays an immature understanding of the true meaning behind the works that he cites. <examples>" Which again, is effectively what you're doing, albeit in a gaussian-blurred, emotional appeal sort of way. I don't particularly mind that approach, but then again I'm not really in the audience that needs to be convinced that Marc Andreessen is a piece of shit. I'm in the choir. For people who aren't, I think that lumping multiple negative statements together, and then only indirectly substantiating those at various places throughout the rest of the essay, isn't going to do much to convince them. I'm not saying that you should see it as your job to win those hearts and minds, but it will hold you back from doing so.