Re: The new, improved Sophie's Choice...

Hi Jim,

You write:

"But once I've done that I've set up a hierarchy, intentionally or not."

Yes, and as I've said, we all do this, we all make these judgments all the
time.  And in the very specific terms (pleasure giving half-hours of specific
episodes of South Park) you are discussing, I have no real problem with such
discussions (although here "pleasure" remains to be worked on as a term). As
I've now said too many times, the problems arise when the discussions take place
in more vague and general terms, comparing such different projects as
*Citizen Kane* and *Weekend and Bernie's* and then arguing in favor of some "primary
greater worth" beyond our momentary rankings of pleasure or art or whatever
the criteria of the day might happen to be and outside of our own subjective
conclusions. It's then that I begin to wonder what's behind the desire not only
to create such competitions but then to insist on the "primary" nature of the
conclusions -- and for and to whom?

But you and I agree on this, I think.

And I have no problem, personally, not setting up such battles in such terms.
 In fact, I've never really found such things interesting and have always
been bored by "criticism" (and other writing) that participates in such a process
and such assertions.

I've heard Robbie's arguments, or those very similar to them, for many years
now and I've never found them the least bit convincing.

Of course, I'm sure he's heard mine for years and not found mine the least
bit convincing either.

And that's as it should be, perhaps. In fact, that's how it must be, I
suspect. I'm not at all surprised, obviously.

And, of course, that's why the rest of the discussion between us finally
became both circular and silly.

Thanks for the thoughts,

--John

PS: Barbara Herrnstein Smith's book, *Contingencies of Value*, really does do
the work on this.

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Received on Fri Dec 19 10:56:36 2003