From: zatavu-AT-excite.com
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 16:28:01 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: PLC: Marxist Propaganda



On Mon, 17 Jul 2000 18:15:22 -0500, phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
wrote:

>  And yet. . ., you bit anyway.  Your "more recent example" was a
>  statement of _appreciation_ made as an exaggeration of the deliberately
>  flamboyant tone of the post it was a comment on. There was nothing snide
>  about it. I wrote: "I don't have the foggiest. How about 'Your usual
>  perspicacity'?" Find anything childish about that?  

Not at all. And your childish use of the derogatory "Troy-boy?" I note there
was no comment on that. 
>  
>  Fifty eight, not fifty four.  

My apologies.

>  One of the reasons I asked how a 58 year old "sounds" was that your
>  inability to discern irony goes hand in glove with your inability to
>  _hear_ tone. Several people are  having fun right now on this list
>  playing with language. Having been accused of pomposity we note here a
>  kind of outpompousing contest in reply. You want to see some pompous?
>  How about the utterly humorless "But then, age has little to do with
>  maturity." 
>  
>  If you see language play as evidence of immaturity I would suggest
>  staying away from Joyce, who noted delightedly when told that his puns
>  were trivial, that they indeed were, and some even quadrivial (playing,
>  I'm sure you recognize (in the vast maturity that allows you pronounce
>  on immaturity by simply quoting what you take as an example) on the
>  medieval curriculum, composed of the "trivium" [grammar, logic, and
>  rhetoric]  and the "quadrivium," [geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and
music].
>  
>  And you might ask yourself the next time you find something "immature"
>  or "childish" if you have failed to recognize that it's, like, a joke
>  (hear any valleyspeak tone there?) Did you like the pun on _ad Hominem_?
>  Did you "hear" it. 

MOst of your comments do not sound so much like "playing with language" as
simple immaturity. I think you have a higher opinion of your ablities with
language than you can actually back up. And I do love wordplay, being a
writer myself. That is why I love the surrealists and those who use
stream-of-consciousness, and the postmodern novelists. Like Andre Breton,
Henry Miller, Joyce, Milan Kundera, and Thomas Pynchon to name a few. I am
also a big fan of that genius of wordplay, Don Barthelme. But let me assure
you, you are no Don Barthelme. His is detectable as wit and not as just
being snotty or immature. I personally keep such wordplay in my fiction and
try to use language more appropriate to intellectual
discussion/investigation for topics such as these. I have found most of
these discussions with most of these people very interesting and useful. I
have learned a lot (do not mistake my continuing to argue with an inability
or lack of desire to learn or expand my ways of thinking) from most of the
people here. Well, everyone, to be honest, except perhaps you. Because you
are so much more concerned with "wordplay" (which I just see as an excuse
for bad manners) than you are in making honest inquiry. 

There is something you said earlier (I think it was you, anyway) about being
able to make a call regarding me personally (or my personality) based on my
postings. I would be interested to learn what you (and others) think about
me in that way, just to see how close you actually are. I'll be honest about
how close you are if you're honest about what you think...

Troy Camplin





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