"*shudder* genuine criticism"

Well, I'm not entirely sure they didn't use fools as entertainers in the XVI Ith century. Anyway, you were right: fool means primarily "person of poor judgment". That will teach me not to take everything Terry Pratchett says at face value: I was thinking of the way the word was used in Wyrd Sisters.

As Moliére said, "one would much rather be evil than ridiculous". Anyway, how does that apply to writing fiction?

Pratchett's being poetic there; "wilful idiot" is more like it.

Yeah, why would anyone want to correct foolishness in writing? It's not like writing ever has the potential to cause harm or anything.

It can. But not in that way.

Usually.

Do you have any examples in mind? I mean, harm that comes from sheer, bumbling incompetence, not from malevolence or from having the wrong beliefs (which isn't a matter of foolishness anymore).

edited 27th May '12 2:14:47 PM by TheHandle

Milton Friedman's acolytes' attempt to recreate Chile's economy in a monetarist image would be an excellent example. (The federal institution of monetarism in general would be a good one, actually. Seriously, who lets someone who hates the Federal Reserve run the Federal Reserve...?)

P.S. Yes, that's a very politically charged statement, but even Friedman thought that he pushed too hard during the Reagan years, so it's not exactly an unfair assessment.

edited 27th May '12 2:19:17 PM by JHM

I meant to say, when it comes to writing fiction.

Ever heard of The Turner Diaries?

Three cheers for the power of hate speech.

But that's hate speech. That's being evil, not stupid or a bad writer. Well, for the philanthropically-minded, evil is only a subset of stupidity, but still. Anyway, they wouldn't benefit from a literary critique, only a moral one. Anyway, that's not what people usually mean when they talk about "bad writing".

OK, then how about the philosophically addled? I would say that a certain degree of intellectual and artistic rigour there could have saved this country a lot of grief from the "sheeple-sheeple."

Granted, this is a stretch, but the point remains that obliviousness can be dangerous. It's just much, much less so in the writing of fiction.

P.S. I could argue that letting terrible writing get past the editors in "young adult" literature encourages poor expectations in young writers, but that's different.

edited 27th May '12 2:37:02 PM by JHM

You know, it's Spark who implied letting incompetent writers of fiction could lead to terrible things (who are also stubborn) be rather than making fun of them in public, which, according to him, seems to be a high, chivalrous duty in the service of improving the world. Perhaps he should be the one squeezing his brains for examples. Burden of evidence and all that.

And Ayn Rand... was a bad case of Don't Shoot the Message. Hm. Actually, that fits perfectly: bad writing that works against a good cause.

One need not be incompetent to be foolish and by one's own foolishness help revive one of the worst organizations in the US history, as The Clansmen clearly shows.

EDIT: Oh goodness me yes, JHM, you've reminded me that the apparently well-meant Twilight series created a new wave of "well stalkers just wuv you vewy much". Not to mention, if we are going the incompetency route, that Meyers poor use of symbolism in the book (vampirism for virginity for death, etc except whoops there's actual sex and where was Meyer going with this...) actually manages to undermine her main messages.

Oh, and holy shit let's not forget the attempt by DC to catch up to Marvel in the "oh yeah minorities exist and maybe we can portray them, to hell with what the south says" game that wound up such an embarrassing disaster. Actually this happens a lot with comics in that they attempt well-meaning ideas in the stupidest of ways.

edited 27th May '12 2:55:06 PM by ASpark

Bigotry is stupid.

Really? I think that her ideas about free markets being the "logical" culmination of objective morality (and of the objectivity of morality) are kind of ludicrous.

But again, immaterial here. Perhaps the YA thing was more apropos... though that's still a different topic.

I need some sleep. See y'all on the flipside.

edited 27th May '12 2:49:50 PM by JHM

You mean Klansmen? How so? I must say, I'm unfamiliar with the history of racism in the USA. (And I still don't see what it has to do with badly-written fiction, which remains our primary concern).

You'd be amazed at how many people throw the "objectively wrong" notion around, to give their own opinion weight.

edited 27th May '12 2:54:26 PM by TheHandle

No dude, we’re talking about foolishness in writing, not incompetence. They’re two different things. The nice thing about incompetence is that it's usually self-correcting. It’s also nice that it’s frequently paired with foolishness, which can mitigate it somewhat, but the two are not the same. Also, I mean “The Clansman”, which you may know better as the movie “Birth of a Nation”. I’m sure you can find it on Wikipedia.

Oh yeah, and the foolishness in comics that led to the ‘90s collapse. No real bad intent, as I’m sure no one intended to go into bankruptcy, but wow did a series of foolish behavior in the creation of the books pretty much kill off the industry.

Oh and of course maybe lampooning the King is a touch unwise, but, well, it's not his prudence that Wilmot's known for, is it?

edited 27th May '12 3:28:12 PM by ASpark

Woah woah woah, hold the phone, I have got to know: Handle, are you an adherent to objectivism, as several of your posts suggest? While that would explain the bizarre "I know you are but what am I" shot at me earlier, this just puzzles the heck out of me. How are you able to be an adherent of both Rand and Nietzsche? One claims that reality and truth can be objectively and directly known, that “reality—the external world—exists independent of man’s consciousness...The task of man’s consciousness is to perceive reality—not create or invent it”, the other that that’s a load of shit (“all that we actually know about these laws of nature is what we ourselves bring to them”) and that the desire to believe otherwise is just an example of "a proud, deceptive consciousness" because "truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions," that truth is "a movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms". Hell, Nietzsche even states that “what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man” and mocks the idea that knowledge of the “empirical world” can lead to actually truly knowing the truth of things since “Their senses nowhere lead to truth, on the contrary, they are content to receive stimuli”. I mean, Rand believes that the truth exists ("The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it") while Nietzsche says that "even the belief in truth is a delusion" (and in that respect, it’s actually quite funny that you call him a “truthsaying bastard”). How do you hold these two contradictory philosophies in your head simultaneously? I find this fascinating. Anyway, if you're interested in answering, please feel free to take your time because I won't be around for a while.

No, that's okay, I'm happy that you asked: again, the problem with jumping to conclusions. The answer is that I have a postmodern approach (and guess who was the main precursor for that movement), I don't adhere to any philosopher in particular, I just have a loose, adaptable collection of ideas, each of which is susceptible to change before new evidence, and the network is flexible enough to accommodate those changes. When a philosopher has an idea that has some merit, I'll acknowledge it. When they say something quotable that serves my purpose, I will quote them. Not in a "these guys said so therefore it's true", more like "hey, they phrased that thing I believe in such a nice way": they're not authorities, they're authors.

So, yeah, please don't assume that, because I defend someone, it means I am one of them. Randians are often bullied and misunderstood, and I'll stand for them whenever I see them being treated as moral bogeymen. That also applies to actual bad people: I care a lot about fairness.

Finally, in "Reason in Philosophy" Nietzsche tells us to trust our senses and praises Heraclitus and Science, so one would assume that he believes there is something to know in the Real World: the patterns and the patterns behind the patterns and so on, the laws of change. I assume that when he says "truth doesn't exist", he means stuff like immutable truths, platonic ideas, etc: otherwise he falls into a bit of an "all Cretans are liars" paradox. Still, I really appreciate your knowledge, you sound like a true scholar. So here's another Nietzsche quote, which I quote in the context of not wanting to deal with mean critique that's full of bile and isn't very nutritious:

So remember, children, don't read books in the morning, go play instead! And Now You Know. There's also a lesson here for goons who obsess over TVT (are they even having fun anymore at this point?) and tropers who follow their commentary *chuckles*.

edited 28th May '12 3:16:41 AM by TheHandle

Such is what happens when you build a nonsense philosophy around treating the vast majority of people like dirt in order to allow a select few to "reach their full potential" and rule society as they "rightly should."

Though I fail to see what any of this has to do with the thread topic.

But that's not what they do. Muslims don't go looking behind rocks for Jews to kill, Jews don't go around exterminating everyone who isn't them, Zen Buddhists don't actually act like they're already dead, and Christians don't actually think rich people automatically suck. You can't go judging people by the books they follow: look at what they actually do.

edited 28th May '12 4:39:18 AM by TheHandle

Well, by that standard, Objectivists are a non-presence since there are so few of them, and thus they do very little to none at all. Likely because, as I said, it's a silly ideology that has no place in reality. Of course, I'm not saying you should burn Objectivists like witches at Salem, but I certainly would laugh at any of my friends if they decided to be an Objectivist since it is, in fact, full of itself.

And again, how is any of this relevant?

I don't know, the guy who sparkles said he was amazed I spoke well of Nietzsche and Rand, I just explained that both of them could have good points, so why not use them.

Anyway, you're also providing an example of unnecessarily harsh criticism, and, perhaps (I don't know), Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch.

Way off topic and not going anywhere productive. Let's call it a day for this one.