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>Morozov is an extremely well-read intellectual (often requiring Wikipedia to grok his allusions) -- he's an important counterbalance to Silicon Valley stupidit

by cube13 14y ago

>Morozov is an extremely well-read intellectual (often requiring Wikipedia to grok his allusions) -- he's an important counterbalance to Silicon Valley stupidity (or perhaps, lack of broader education). Or he is just in love with the allusions. A good essay should not require independent research to figure out an allusion-it should be evident in the essay itself. The article just doesn't have any sort of flow. It feels like Morozov had a pile of things he wanted to talk about, references he wanted to include, and points he wanted to attempt to make, but wasn't able to(or didn't bother to) make a coherent narrative out of the entire thing. The end result is that it feels disjointed and is very hard to read. The 13th paragraph starts talking about O'Reilly's origin. But why is it there? The closest reference to his origin is in the 5th paragraph. The next 8 paragraphs are spent jumping all over the last 15 or so years. Another example is the reference to Neil Postman. The two paragraphs dedicated to him is absolutely worthless, as Postman is used to refer to Alfred Korzybski, who Morozov then related to O'Reilley. There isn't any reason for Postman to be in there other than to have the reference. There is no link to O'Reilly, aside from a throwaway sentence referring to Postman's work 31 paragraphs(and 2 sections) after the last Postman reference.

andolanra 14y ago
The Neil Postman reference is to establish the distinction between stupid talk (i.e. statements which are demonstrably false) and crazy talk (i.e. statements which rely on such a different semantic frame that they are meaningless except in that frame.) This distinction comes up throughout the entire essay, most prominently in the title. No essay can really be understood in a vaccuum. There's always some manner of background information which has to be absorbed in order to understand its gist, even if that background information is just a rudimentary grasp of the language used to write it. The purpose of Morozov's allusions is not to just allude, but rather to give explicit links to concepts he's drawing on. In the Postman case, Morozov wishes to use the distinction Postman drew up, but without spending too long reiterating it (and thus cluttering up an already cluttered essay) he describes it briefly, notes the source, and then figures that if you want to understand the distinction more thoroughly, you can look up the original. I can't argue that it's a bit overwrought and thick—at the very least, I concur it needed some manner of chapter headings or other structure—but Morozov is most certainly not alluding for the sake of alluding.

by cube13 14y ago

andolanra 14y ago

The Neil Postman reference is to establish the distinction between stupid talk (i.e. statements which are demonstrably false) and crazy talk (i.e. statements which rely on such a different semantic frame that they are meaningless except in that frame.) This distinction comes up throughout the entire essay, most prominently in the title. No essay can really be understood in a vaccuum. There's always some manner of background information which has to be absorbed in order to understand its gist, even if that background information is just a rudimentary grasp of the language used to write it. The purpose of Morozov's allusions is not to just allude, but rather to give explicit links to concepts he's drawing on. In the Postman case, Morozov wishes to use the distinction Postman drew up, but without spending too long reiterating it (and thus cluttering up an already cluttered essay) he describes it briefly, notes the source, and then figures that if you want to understand the distinction more thoroughly, you can look up the original. I can't argue that it's a bit overwrought and thick—at the very least, I concur it needed some manner of chapter headings or other structure—but Morozov is most certainly not alluding for the sake of alluding.