A lustreless
protrusive eye
Stares from the protozoic slime...
On the Rules of Engagement and Trashy bios
Brien, Brien@WatchRock.net
wrote:
On Wed, 14 Jun 2000 16:38:08 GMT,
Pogo Possum, Ph.D. wrote to Kinbote:
>
>>>>Your use of the
word "pseudointellectual" is interesting. Does it
>>>>mean that you think I am pretending to be
intellectual or does it mean
>>>>that you don't recognize the legitimacy of the
areas of learning from
>>>>which I draw my insights? Care to
elaborate?
>
>>>Does this mean
you're ressurecting Chas from your KILLFILE,
>>>Pogo, or should I continue to be the bridge between
you two?
>
>>Like a bridge over
troubled water...
>>On the subject of this thread : Unlike the vast bulk of
such books
>>on the market today (which rely heavily ir rentirely on
anonymous
>>sources), Bane's "trashy book" is CRAMMED witrh
references and
>>statements from people who actually identify themselves
and references
>>to PUBLIC records which nail down dates and places Laura
wants to keep
>>murky.
>
>>Using Kinbote's description of Bane's book as
"trashy" we might well be
>>led to think Woodward and Bernstein's articles were
"tabliod crap". What
>>do you want Charles, video tapes as well as pictures?
>
>I can understand a general
disdain for the kind of biographies
>about celebrities and other current popular figures, that are
more
>or less thrown together from press clippings and a few
interviews
>with contemporaries of the subject. Whether sympathetic,
hagiographic,
>or a grand slagging, they're usually undocumented,
superficial, and,
>well, trashy.
>According to Chas, however, there
is a more important principle at
>work, his so called rules of engagement, where any attempt to
parse
>a persons thinking, beyond their public words, to gain some
insight
>into or make some sort of assessment of their character and
personality
>is little more than a vain attempt at character
assassination. That
>Ms. Schlessinger does this very thing daily seems to escape
him.
I didn't invent those Rs of E. That's Mitch's
product. It would be silly to claim that we can never gain
any insight into the mind of another person. 99% of serious
thought consists of attempting to do precisely that.
I merely wish to see it done tastefully.
As to the fact that Laura does it, well, that's her job.
People call *her* and ask her opinion. She's not hanging
around a newsgroup posting thousands of articles smearing
callers. She is interpreting the significance of a caller's
dilemma, placing it in a larger context and commenting on it, and
then moving on.
(Now, if you're refering to DL on the APA or the ALA or GLAAD,
etc, you may have more of a point. But I'm not sure what
I'm supposed to say about it. I don't think I've ever
claimed that DL is perfect. I merely think the show --for
all its flaws-- has genuine value.)
>I'm wondering if Chas feels this
way about biography in general, and
>not just about pop biographies like Bane's, or worse, Kitty
Kelly's.
>Do the Rules of Engagement only apply to his ox du jour, or
would
>he also defend John Winthrop from Edward Morgan, or Abe
Lincoln
>from Carl Sandberg?
Obviously there are good bios and bad bios. A sympathetic,
philosophically sophisticated, fully informed reading of a
person's mind and actions, that places that person inside a
three-dimensional world of culture, history, politics and
religion, is radically
different from petty, nastily insinuating, one-sided
gossipmongering.
ck