What do you call this type of person -- I like ideas but not literature

LivingOxymoron · January 21, 2011, 1:47pm

Honestly, there’s not really any point in posting anything more, but I find this thread to be so irritating that I feel the need to say something. Firstly, cormy3, when a person asks a genuine question, they want to hear the answers that others have to give and internalize them. You, on the other hand, seem to have created this thread to justify your laziness and contradict the people who try to answer your question, which was pretty irrelevant to begin with. It’s obvious that you’re going to continue getting your ideas from the work of others and not read the original source. You’ve asked whether doing this is a bad thing or not, and though you kept protesting that it’s perfectly acceptable, I think you know that you’re not truly doing assignments correctly or fully when you refuse to do the reading and use that reading to do you own, personal analysis.

Even though you insist that your professor praise you and give you high marks, I’m sure they wouldn’t be impressed if they found out that not only are you not reading the original source, you’re not even attempting to come up with your own ideas but basing them off of secondary sources.

I’m not going to argue the merits of reading the original text or the value of having analytical skills because you’ll more than likely disregard everything I have to say just as you have with everyone else that disagrees with you. The fact is that you aren’t doing what your professors ask of you, plain and simple. Your grades may not reflect it, but you’re half-assing it and that won’t get you very far in life.

cormy3 · January 21, 2011, 1:53pm

Oh I’ve heard the answers posted in this thread loud and clear. They’re stupid, so why should I internalize them? I’ve disregarded nothing. That should be clear from the beatings I’ve given each and every poster. You want yours? Actually you sound like a nice dude, a little pious but innocent enough. Thanks for your thoughts. Another sermon-lecture to go along with the others.

neltharion · January 21, 2011, 4:12pm

cormy3, if you intend on having an honest-to-god respectful discussion with anyone on this thread, you might want to, at the very least, give off the impression that you’re willing to listen to others. You don’t need to internalize what they say, but you should lend them an ear. They’ve done you the courtesy of taking some time out of their days to answer your question(s), but you haven’t done them the courtesy of listening. You’ve rather, in your own words, “heard the answers posted on this thread loud and clear,” and hearing isn’t the same thing as listening.

However, with that said, I’ll bite and just throw in a half-formed thought here with the caveat that I’ve only skimmed through the rest of the thread. In other words, I apologize if I’m just repeating what someone else has said.

Think of it like reading a book in translation instead of in its original language. Sure, you’ll get something out of reading the translation and depending on what you’re writing about, sometimes it’s enough, but wouldn’t you rather read the material itself, simply in order to gain a better understanding of what’s going on and to take the chance to sharpen your analytical thinking skills?

I guess when it comes down to it, I don’t really understand why you wouldn’t read the material. I personally enjoy sifting through texts and pulling together the threads to make a coherent whole (if only because I like poking holes into the tapestry when I’m done). But, I mean, so long as you’re not an English major (or any other major that requires direct contact with the primary source) and you don’t mind missing out on the opportunity of analyzing the literature directly, I admittedly don’t find much fault with what you’re doing.

But … is it lazy? Yeah, a bit. Are you missing out? In my opinion, yes. Is it unreasonable to hold that you’re not missing out on anything by doing this? Yes. Is it absurd to think you’re superior because you deal only with the ideas laid out in the book and nothing else? Most definitely.

But it’s your decision in the end, so whatever works for you! I mean, so long as you’re not plagiarizing.

wanton · January 21, 2011, 4:56pm

There was a major reformation in academia and knowledge, you may have read a book about a book commenting on it, the Renaissance, in part because Petrarch began the tradition of directly reading texts rather than just reading secondary commentaries of works.

Your “skill” (I consider it a disability, but you seem to think upon it positively) is not valued by society. That’s it. You’re not doing anything particularly revolutionary or sophisticated, you do the same thing every eighth grader who was assigned The Pearl does. You’re just better at writing than they are. If you want to have valued skills, you’re going to have to go against the grain and actually read the texts.

Also, I hope you’re citing all the books you’re getting these ideas from. Otherwise this is plagiarism.

silence_kit · January 21, 2011, 5:34pm

When others write essays using their own interpretations of primary sources, then yes they themselves are contributing more value to the final product than the guy who assembles an essay from wikipedia and sparknotes.

I don’t think that it is a horrible sin that you don’t like to study literature.

I don’t want to be lame about definitions. I don’t believe that you really are confused by my use of the word ‘insight’. If you think that I’m being dishonest or manipulative by using that word, say so.

Someone who reads the book and only the book might have more insight into the story and the use of language. They will be more in tune, emotionally or artistically, with the general themes. They will appreciate the author’s voice. They will have a feel for the texture. They will be able to relate all of this to personal experience. Their connection to the book will in these ways be keen.

Such persons will not, however, have gotten all of their interpretations right. Their approach may be shallow, and will certainly be skewed by personal bias and personal ignorance. They will have no knowledge of the author’s history or social context, nor how said factors shaped the book. They will have no understanding of the literary form and the broader discourse that every book inevitably is a part of, and a response to. Their connection to the book will in these ways be blind.

The either/or situation you are presenting here is not true. You can read both primary and secondary sources about literature. I mean, I haven’t taken more than an intro class in the subject, but I think that courses often have both primary and secondary sources as reading assignments.

My analogy was relevant because you were trying to pass yourself off as being a supergenius at literary analysis despite not reading an entire book since high school. Do you not see how this is silly?

Here’s why your analogy isn’t relevant: students who try to include some of their own interpretation in their essays and who may fall a little short of the mark are much more talented at interpreting literature than the guy who only rehashes what’s found in short summaries of books in his essays.

ECazndb8r · January 21, 2011, 5:40pm

I was intending to let sleeping dogs lie and give up on this thread, but I just want to say, rather hypocritical that when I give a definition, you accuse me of using definitions instead of common sense, when “Classics boy” quotes sources to supplement his points, you accuse him of elitism, and when silence_kit uses the word “insight” you become so enraged that he/she didn’t give you a definition or parameters…which is it, kid?

I think both you and the pother posters have achieved the various purposes any of us have had with this thread. You claim to have had you epiphany, we have had our say. I think it’s time for this to be retired.

tetrahedr0n · January 21, 2011, 8:36pm

I haven’t read the last 2 pages or so, but the OP continually makes this argument:

There’s no justification that I can see for this. OP claims that he sees the theoretical structure of novels better than those who have actually read the novels. How can the OP possibly be sure of this? After all, having not read the novel, he has nothing on which to base the legitimacy of his interpretation. The OP instead appeals to authorities: he does well in class and his professors tend to give him good grades.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t prove anything. The OP might look good in comparison to classmates who are weak writers (or perhaps haven’t read the works themselves, either.) Or the OP might do a reasonably good job distilling the ideas of the “experts” who the prof agrees with. Or, like many situations in college, the prof simply doesn’t care at all. Ultimately, the OP’s confident belief that he understands the underlying ideas in literary works has some very shaky foundations.

There’s some similar claims:

So, basically, the OP has no idea what’s going on in any literary work; he simply distills or summarizes existing interpretations (from such authorities as SparkNotes) in an effort to look good in class. The OP has no knowledge of whether or not these interpretations are accurate, and no interest in investigating either. In order to justify to himself that this “approach” to scholarship is valid, the OP has generated some tedious quasi-philosophical interpretation of literature as a whole.

augustus1 · January 21, 2011, 8:48pm

I’d call him an idiot.

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 1:06pm

Here’s the acknowledgment you’ve been looking for. Go on, take it. Now run along now. Dog.

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 1:24pm

Neltharion

I don’t care for whatever semantic game you’re playing. How can you say I don’t listen to others when I am the one responding to all comers?

I’m not the one who lacks the courtesy of listening to my interlocutors. Nope, whatever discourtesy I have exhibited, it’s a result of people coming in this thread and spewing their facile judgments without giving any thought… without reading what has been written, and never fessing up to their mistakes after I hand them their ass. Then they make a few cheap shots at my character. See: emanhaveel. At most they make a few feeble points about some minor point. See: justtotalk. And then they leave the thread for good.

But more of this kind just keep rolling in. What can I do but shut them up as well?

Thank you for being honest. There’s nothing wrong in admitting your thoughts are half-formed. Our discussion can be more civil this way.

Literary criticism and theory are not like a translation of a book. They are something else entirely, and more than just a mere outgrowth of the book, too. Reading criticism and theory sharpens my analytical skills except my literary analysis skills, and does help me understand what is “going on.” The point of the thread was to determine what I forgo each time I forgo literary analysis. I came to a personal answer to that query on the 2nd page of this thread. I indeed lose something important and will change my behavior accordingly.

What are NOT forgone are things like analysis of literary ideas, a meaningful connection with the book, ability to analyze in other subject areas, and the general satisfaction of having pieced together something complex and having done hard work. The details of this, if you’re curious, can be found in my other posts.

I don’t hold that I’m superior to my peers. I think I’m superior in certain ways, just as they are superior to me in other ways. The only ones espousing an absolute superiority in this thread are my Sparknotes-bitten opponents.

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 1:31pm

Wanton

You’re going to have to elaborate a lot more to be taken seriously. Sorry, I’m not taking the time to debunk every loose and superficial analogy anyone puts before me.

Would you grasp how dumb your point is if I made one similar? Here you go: Reading books is not great, because you are basically doing the same thing as every first grader who is assigned Dr. Seuss.

Your talk about ‘valued skills’ is nice and all, but until you pin down what those valued skills are, which, ironically, is the purpose of this thread, you are just using circular logic that says nothing at all. Literary analysis is a valuable skill because it is valued by society. Gee!

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 1:47pm

ezaznd8er

Do you have any real thoughts? Or do you just go around pointing things out? Let me tell you how the situations are different, in very simple terms.

You took a definition and applied it in a way that defies common sense. Just because several skills all fit the definition of analysis doesn’t mean they are going to be the same or related in the human mind.

silence_kit’s appeal to common sense defies a word’s definition. Just because it seems reasonable that book-readers always have more insight than non-readers, doesn’t mean it’s true when you look at the different types of insight that exist.

When definition and common sense align, then maybe I won’t have any objections. It’s that simple.

Classics boy… I don’t even know why you think he’s similar. He’s just an obnoxious know-it-all who happens to know nothing at all. I don’t understand why you brought him up. Don’t really care. Moving on.

So after you run out of steam, you decide the thread should end. But first you take the time to point out something incredibly lame. Something innocent but which you think makes me look like a hypocrite. You’re a sophist, and nothing more.

silence_kit · January 22, 2011, 2:01pm

Someone who reads a book, all other things being equal, will most likely have more insight about that book than the person who does not. Why do you think that this is a controversial statement?

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 2:06pm

silence_kit

New Post:

I address this below.

<hr>

So someone who reads “Heart of Darkness” and writes an essay with an interpretation that doesn’t leave the vicinity of “colonialism is bad” is contributing value. And someone who brings together two of the book’s differing interpretations and attempts to synthesize them according to the dominant theory of the day would not be contributing value. You are sorely misguided. I don’t think I need to say any more.

It’s not about what I like. It’s about what I should do. And besides, I already have the answer now.

I absolutely am accusing you of being dishonest and manipulative.

The point of my comparison about the pros and cons of reading the book was to show that insight can be had in many ways, and definitely not in all of those ways will the book-reader be the more insightful. You should already know this.

You should also be well aware that when left undefined, the word insight is one of those catch-all words that exists more in its connotations of good or bad than in any concrete meaning. Why would you use such a word in such a way when we are having an argument about a controversial topic? People are automatically prejudiced against my position. I have no chance except to be careful with my words. Whereas you can fling around nebulous words for their connotations, and people will just nod their heads. “Reading the book always equals greater insight.” Who is going to question THAT? No one, not until I make explicitly clear the details, which I did. Then your claim doesn’t sound as good anymore. In fact, it sounds like a toss-up – which has been my opinion all along. But the fact that you chose to take advantage of this, intentionally or not, makes me think you were just looking for a cheap hit.

It sure sounded like you were setting up an either-or scenario. Otherwise your initial statement is true, but utterly trivial. So someone has more insight by reading both primary and secondary sources than by reading only secondary. Wow, you got my head spinning there… Is this really what you intended? Or are you in retreat and trying to cover your tracks?

In any case, let this be a response to those shocked that my classes even have secondary sources. Those who said, with satisfaction, that their English classes touch nothing but the novels, as if that were something to be proud of. Let this serve to counter their cult of the original idea.

I never said super genius. I said super student. Which I am. And before you aim your rhetorical question at that, do you not see how silly it is to play this game instead of address something substantively?

There’s a time and place for rhetorical questions. I use them all the time. But not without doing some real work first. At this rate, your posts are going to consist mostly of empty posturing.

My analogy is relevant because it isn’t about who is more talented. It’s about there being two different approaches that could almost be characterized as two different tasks. I’ve said always that other students are better at doing literary analysis. The point is that I consider myself better at doing literary criticism or literary theory. So yes, people are more talented at interpreting literature. What is your point?

Why do I need to say this so late in the thread? Where have you been the whole time? If you haven’t understood the very premise of this thread, stop wasting my time.

zchryevns · January 22, 2011, 2:18pm

Why is it that whenever I make a post or am mentioned, you do what you have since my first post and simply dismiss every point I made without ever creating a real argument, or even attempting to refute my points? For someone who makes an effort to point out the flaws in the arguments of others, you sure do leave a lot of loose ends.

You’ve also apparently never taken a basic psychology course because if you had you’d know that certain skills, such as critical thinking, are cumulative and widespread, and developing those skills in one area can very easily improve your reasoning abilities in other areas.

So your argument is that a useful skill that is widely valued by society (e.g. employers, professors, peers, etc.) is not valuable. Logical indeed. How about you take a formal logic course before talking to me about logic.

You’ve shown a complete inability to think critically and accurately throughout this thread. Dismissing one’s arguments, or replacing valid metaphors (although I disagree about the translation metaphor) with preschool level substitutes, does not make you right. Reading is a cumulative skill and falls under crystallized intelligence, the general abilities of which increase throughout one’s lifetime. Therefore, your Dr. Seuss metaphor is invalid seeing as you equated the level of writing to that of Dostoevsky.

Also, regarding the definition of the word ‘insight’:

Seeing as you don’t read the assigned books, you have no proof of your own intuitive ideas (actually there is ample evidence against said intuition, provided generously by you) and are only a tool, regurgitating the thoughts of others who did the readings during their time in college and after.

cormy3 · January 22, 2011, 2:25pm

tetrahedron

I actually see where you’re coming from. It’s altogether not a bad point of view. For someone like you, the book, the original text, is the end-all-be-all of literature. I disagree, and I’ve disagreed from post #1.

Your whole post is assuming that if my essay doesn’t stay faithful to the book, then my ideas are worthless. Furthermore, you assume that my essay can’t stay faithful to the book if I haven’t read the book.

I disagree on both counts.

Literary theory and criticism has taken a life of its own. It’s been deeply deplored by some, but it’s true. Textual analysis is not even the name of the game in some parts.

But regardless of what’s happening in academia, consider this. Dwell on an idea long enough and you realize the idea has value in and of itself. It matters where it came from, but there is also value independent of where it came from. It is true that novels certainly are not mere containers for a set of ideas. Yet ideas are also not simply the novel’s reflection in abstract form, or shouldn’t be valued as such. You can call this quasi- or pseudo-philosophical and tedious, I don’t care.

If I choose to write about Novel X’s ideas, to some degree it doesn’t matter if those ideas were never inscribed in Novel X. Those ideas can be evaluated on their own terms. This should be intuitive. Then the name “Novel X’s ideas” becomes important only as a descriptor. That’s where (it is believed) those ideas came from. NOT that’s why those ideas are important. Because even if Novel X never existed, those ideas can be valued for their own sake. This is how I know I’m doing good work without having read the book.

Your foundation, then, is not really a foundation. Not when I care about the ideas in and of themselves.

Now about your second point. I don’t really need to address it after I talked about your first point. But let me humor you. Suppose I cared utmost about this foundation of yours, which is the book itself. Can I be sure that my essay stays faithful to the text more than my peers who actually read the text? In other words, can I be sure that I know what the hell is going on? Sure I can. That’s because so much of what is going on is more than just words on a page.

Your facile argument is that because I haven’t read every single word in the book, and others have, that I can’t possibly “get” the book, or at least be sure that I have “gotten” the book.

Not so. In some very real ways a book’s contents include the greater social, historical, literary forces of the author’s time as well as the author’s personal life. You cannot understand large portions of a book without being exposed to these forces and histories. In so much as these factors are important, which they are, I am getting a much closer read of the book than, ironically, those who literally read it. And I’m one inclined to say that even those parts of the book which can be understood from the text alone, can’t be understood well from the text alone.

And besides, those portions, what can be found explicitly, objectively, in the ink and paper, they’ve been the first things distilled by literary critics and can be communicated quite accurately, so I have no doubt I have as good a read of those as anyone else. Unless you think professional academics are so fallible that a 20-year-old is going to, as a matter of methodology, need to check up on their work by going directly to the source. Or is this just a quasi-philosophical quibbling of yours, and not a real objection? I think that’s about right.

zchryevns · January 22, 2011, 2:29pm

It’s not a one-or-the-other thing when it comes to primary or secondary sources. I have ample amounts of secondary sources to go along with my primary sources, but I don’t take them at face value and instead formulate my own opinions.

Emaheevul07 · January 22, 2011, 2:29pm

How can you be better at literary criticism or theory when you use no primary sources?

zchryevns · January 22, 2011, 2:31pm

You can’t, which is a point he misses completely.

silence_kit · January 22, 2011, 2:40pm

I want ‘having insight’ to mean ‘knowing stuff about’. What’s so misleading about the word ‘insight’?

I see your point. You are probably still handicapping yourself in literary criticism or theory by not reading the books though. Kind of like the science or math student is handicapping himself if he relies on solutions heavily and doesn’t bother to try to prove statements and work problems himself.

What do you call this type of person -- I like ideas but not literature

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