Re: to thine own self
AntiUtopia@aol.com
Mon, 25 Oct 1999 07:41:56 -0400 (EDT)
In a message dated 10/25/99 2:09:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
facethecrowd@hotmail.com writes:
<< Personally, I find it hard to eliminate the number of I's in my
sentences, so I might be naturally drawn to narcissistic people, like
Salinger himself, and many other writers.
Japhe
>>
Ah, I'd say there's a difference even between writing about yourself and
narcissism. I don't see much narcissism in your writing, even though you do
use the word "I" a lot. I would say that in the post I'm responding to,
you're actually thinking about something other than yourself -- namely, the
context of my discussion with Scottie. You're speaking directly to both his
points and mine. So while you're writing about yourself, you're not thinking
only of yourself.
A really narcissistic writer -- like Hitler -- is tedious. I don't know what
point you seek to make through your overflow of moral outrage at the man (you
think you need to convince anyone? on this list?), but I think that even if
Hitler had been less successful politically (and thus never guilty of
genocide) you'd still find the same tedious qualities about his writing.
I would point out that where your posts really do focus on yourself (your
continual overflow of moral outrage at Hitler) they really do become tedious.
Of course you feel that way. Probably everyone on the list feels that way.
So what's the point? It's like having a discussion about, oh, cauliflower
with people that hate it as much as I do. The conversation runs out pretty
quickly.
Jim