Well I’m always telling people, in my annoying way, that ‘negative’ doesn’t mean bad or critical or disapproving or pessimistic or skeptical or cynical or hostile. That if you want to call something any of those, you should use those words, and not the word ‘negative’ which 1. doesn’t mean any of those and 2. if you do use it as a pointless euphemism for those other words is vague and woolly and non-specific and confusing. By the same token ‘positive’ doesn’t mean approving or friendly or optimistic or patriotic or cheerful or warm or helpful. There’s a bizarre kind of covert thought-control going on in the translation of all words conveying disagreement and dissent into ‘negative’ and all words … Read the rest
All entries by this author
Climbing Trees to Get to the Moon
Jun 2nd, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Steven Pinker on why genetic enhancement is not inevitable.… Read the rest
What Does ‘Negative’ Mean?
Jun 1st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Evelyn Fox Keller and Richard Lewontin discuss some epistemological issues.… Read the rest
Who Mourns the Gepids?
Jun 1st, 2003 | By Robert DavisThe answer to the question in the title is "No one," but it will
take a while to get to the reasons. I thought about the Gepids as I drove through
the Navajo Reservation in Arizona and New Mexico through incomparable scenery,
a lot of history, and often uncomfortable knowledge about the present, much
of it filtered through the novels of fellow Oklahomans, Tony Hillerman and Ron
Querry. Their books and other sources touch on problems of the contemporary
Navajo, but they are more noted for their celebration of the coherence of Navajo
culture and the sense of "hozho," of oneness with the beauty of the
world. This theme is attractive to many Anglos who buy into a nostalgia for… Read the rest
Are Standards and Expertise a Bad Thing?
May 31st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Sarah Bryan Miller wonders, just what is an elitist anyway?… Read the rest
History is Potentially Lethal
May 31st, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Marxist left and Hindu fundamentalist right subordinate history to political goals in India.… Read the rest
Nonsense at Hay Festival
May 30th, 2003 4:17 pm | By Ophelia BensonOh really, what crap. It’s only snobs and supercilious critics who think bad novels are bad novels. Excuse me, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a bad novel is just a bad novel.
Trollope, whose restrained prose is as elegant as the lady herself, poured haughty scorn on the pretensions of the literary genre, and in particular the “grim lit” the critics seem to adore “that makes you want to slash your wrists”.
Well that’s wrong for a start. ‘Restrained’ prose? Well sure, I suppose. That’s one way to describe it. One might say the same of a train timetable, or a laundry list, or a tax code. That couldn’t be a nice evasive way of … Read the rest
Self-serving Argument #478
May 30th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If you think they write bad novels it is because you are jealous, gloomy and snobbish. Of course.… Read the rest
Watching Someone Dig With a Brush is Boring
May 30th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
TV prefers pseudoarchaeology to the real thing.… Read the rest
All Entertainment All the Time
May 30th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Jonathan Yardley comments on perpetual entertainment as a form of leisure.… Read the rest
Debunking Edward Said
May 30th, 2003 | By Ibn WarraqThis is an edited version of the article, Debunking Edward Said – Edward
Said and Saidists: or Third World Intellectual Terrorism, which
is here. For the purposes of ease of reading, references and bibliographical
information have been removed from this edited version of the article, but the
longer version is fully referenced. Interested readers should follow the link!
Consider the following observations on the state of affairs in the contemporary
Arab world :
… Read the restThe history of the modern Arab world – with all its political failures,
its human rights abuses, its stunning military incompetences, its decreasing
production, the fact that alone of all modern peoples, we have receded in democratic
and technological and scientific development – is disfigured by
No Kidding
May 29th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Demanding schools place pressure on students, research shows. Really?!… Read the rest
Hitchens on Blumenthal
May 29th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A Theodore off-White style and keeping two sets of ethical books.… Read the rest
Interview with E.O. Wilson
May 28th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘Ecology’ is about more than saving charismatic large mammals.… Read the rest
Hobsbawm and Hitchens
May 28th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A deferential sparring match at Hay-on-Wye.… Read the rest
Dystopias and Mad Scientists
May 27th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Why is science fiction so pessimistic?… Read the rest
‘Flooding the Zone’ a Mistake?
May 26th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Speed instead of depth, frat boy instead of nerd, football metaphors instead of ethical probity.… Read the rest
MM Logic
May 26th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Television studies are mocked now as Shakespeare was then, therefore television studies are no more time-wasting than Shakespeare.… Read the rest
Conflation of ‘Guerilla Theater’ With Politics
May 26th, 2003 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
A politcs of dramatic gestures, style without substance.… Read the rest
Dyslexic, Perhaps?
May 26th, 2003 12:22 am | By Ophelia BensonBut then, the person who wrote that article concluded it with this bit of wisdom by way of her nomination for the 100 Worst Books list:
To kick off, mine is Wuthering Heights – it has all the emotional depth of sixth-form poetry and I feel an intense desire to give all the characters a good slap and tell them to stop being so self-indulgent. Mysteriously, it’s considered a landmark of English literature by many people whose judgment I usually admire.
So clearly I shouldn’t be surprised if she uses words in a silly way. In fact I should be surprised that she’s writing for a major newspaper, that’s what I should be surprised at.… Read the rest