Re: pashun

J J R (jrovira@juno.com)
Sat, 25 Jul 1998 14:06:28 -0400 (EDT) 

Well, that's the thing, tho--once you admit to the value of people who
have

 - who had read more, 
>	lived more, & exposed their sensibilities to a wider range 
>	of experiences than I had

then you open the door to some kind of objective criteria, and you are
just Begging for academics to come in.  

See, most academics have read more than anyone else.  THAT'S why they
became academics, for crying out loud :)  They just happened to be so
good at it people were willing to pay for them to get educated, etc.

My experience with people who dismiss academia out of hand is that they
have read VERY LITTLE academic output, much less works describing the
philosophical stance behind that output.  

Can't have it both ways.  We either completely dismiss academics and
stick to Passion Alone (and there are academics who make this argument,
you know), or we have to allow some room for the validity of critical
judgment.

Jim

On Sat, 25 Jul 1998 07:50:00 +0000 Scottie Bowman <bowman@mail.indigo.ie>
writes:
>
>	I for one find it hard to ignore a cry from the heart such as 
>	Patrick has just sent us.
>
>	All my instincts are on his side.  I doubt if anyone on this 
>list 
>	has been more dismissive of academic critics than I have.  
>	And I certainly share his weariness as the next load of 
>fatuity 
>	arrives from the constructionists or demolitionists or 
>whomever.
>
>	Where I begin to have a problem is his suggestion that it's 
>all 
>	much of a muchness & that his taste or my taste merits just 
>	the same respect as anyone else's.  There were certainly 
>people 
>	in my life - even one or two teachers - who had read more, 
>	lived more, & exposed their sensibilities to a wider range 
>	of experiences than I had.  And whose judgments (of books, 
>writers, 
>	perhaps life in general) I came to see were `sounder' than my 
>own 
>	had originally been.
>
>	I can think of quite a number of books which seemed initially 
>	unreadable but which later became some of my richest 
>possessions. 
>	(Marcel Proust & Thomas Mann to name just four.)  I only 
>persisted 
>	with them because I thought they would be good for me.
>
>	Patrick implies that reading with 'passion' is the thing to 
>do.  
>	I'm not so sure.  A great many people can do that.  Is there 
>any 
>	special merit in it ?  I'd have thought, in a way, this list 
>is 
>	packed with Toms, Dicks & Harriets who read Salinger with 
>passion.
>
>	What's much rarer & much more valuable in my mind is writing 
>	with the stuff.
>
>	Scottie B.
>
>
>

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