The Twilight Saga dilemma (Objectively or subjectively bad?)

Since their "expertise" is functionally unconnected with producing a semirigid working model of how reality works, they're "expertise" is worth the same as that of a psychics and should be treated with just as much respect.

Combined with that, objectivity implies that human judgement is not needed to determine somethings truth value. Unless you can create a list of traits that can be objectively identified in any work and make that work good without resorting to any "I know it when I see it" aspect, you cannot establish something as objectively good.

I've heard of the various restrictions on free speech. I'm quite comfortable with the limits being drawn at "incitement to violence" and such. Promoting ideals is perfectly cool.

The trick is to ensure that teenagers know that anything presented in media is unlikely to be true, and if true, is probably just true through coincidence.

It would also certainly help if the myth of true love were dismissed sooner. That's where a lot of problems seem to come in. As an audience, we're supposed to know that it's True Love and thus anything done in its pursuit is acceptable. That such things are not real is part of the problem since there's no author to state that something is True Love and thus doing horrible things for it is a-okay.

edited 13th Aug '12 10:24:46 AM by Deboss

Beg pardon? Judging the clarity and effectiveness at communicating of a given piece of writing is very much connected with how reality works. Human minds are part of reality. Writing is principally an art, but there is an element of science to it as well.

Moreover, why are you participating in this discussion if you don't even take its topic seriously?

I'm not talking about censorship. I am against censorship. I am talking about standing up, as a society, and telling authors "That's a horrible thing to say to people who don't know any better than to believe it. If you have any sense of decency, cut it out." Public disapproval is not the same as censorship.

Again, good luck with that. At such a young age and in such a media-saturated world, the messages they get from media provide the bulk of their "experience." If they discard those messages, they are left with little else. Healthy human brains learn—they may learn the wrong thing if that's what is presented to them, but they will not simply remain blank.

edited 13th Aug '12 11:07:38 AM by Karalora

So how is Twilight bad writing if it's connecting with these teenagers? It's pretty clearly connecting with them considering their fandom, so it's communicating effectively. Whether or not it's presenting good messages or poorly communicates with a different group doesn't mean it's not communicating.

And to quote you, good luck with that. Or turning into anything worthwhile. Or preventing it from becoming censorship.

You can't keep them from picking up bad lessons, but you can teach them to doubt anything they are presented and to analyze it based on results. If they have little worthwhile data, then the have little data, there's no point to convincing them that fiction is a good source of data when the opposite is true, it just provides them with a false sense of security. A sense of paranoia for anything presented by people that get paid to get attention is a good thing.

I would argue that it's connecting with them despite Meyer's atrocious use of language, not because of it. It's not the minivan sentences and repetition of "chagrin" that the kids are responding to.

'Taint the slope that's slippery, dear boy. It's your feet.

They're kids. They don't have any results (i.e. life experience) to compare it to initially. The only way they're going to know this is bad relationship advice—without being told so by wiser heads—is if they follow it and wind up in abusive relationships. Is that what you're advocating?

Hmm. Looks like the process fell down and we opened a complaint thread.