It's not what you argue, it's how well you argue it (and why that's bs)

There's a phrase anyone pursuing a degree in the English will hear again and again:  "It's not what you argue, it's how well you argue it."  There are two very different interpretations of that statement, and in my experience far too many students and professors follow the poorer.  Ideally, it will be taken to mean that the position the student takes will be considered on its own merits, rather than what the professor personally feels is correct or what the received wisdom may be.  Too often, however, it's taken to mean that the student should provide the best argument for his/her position, regardless of what the position may be, or how strong the best argument is.  To demonstrate the difference, I want to share what was likely the single most frustrating moment of my undergraduate career.  It was the first day of American Literature 1865-1912.  The class was for junior and seniors in the English department, so it should be assumed that everyone there should know what they're doing.  The class had been split up into groups and given a packet of Emily Dickinson poems, and each group had to analyze an assigned poem from the packet.  One of the poems was "I taste a liquor never brewed":

I taste a liquor never brewed,

From tankards scooped in pearl;

Not all the vats upon the Rhine

Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,

And debauchee of dew,

Reeling, through endless summer days,

From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee

Out of the foxglove's door,

When butterflies renounce their drams,

I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,

And saints to windows run,

To see the little tippler

Leaning against the sun!

If I were to ask you what this poem is about, you'd probably answer, pretty quickly.  Nature.  In the most immediate, prevalent sense, this poem is about the great joys and beauty of nature.  So, when the spokesperson for the group assigned "I taste a liquor never brewed" answered that question with "the oppression of women," we were all a bit confused.  The professor asked for an explanation, which he got.  "Well, bees are feminine and landlords are masculine, and the landlords are forcing the bees out."  The professor then asked what it was about on  a surface level.  The answer:  "I don't know."

Simply put, the group, or at least one of its members, went into the poem convinced that it would be about the oppression of women.  So they came up with the best argument they could.  The problem is, sometimes the best argument for a position is still incredibly weak.  Unfortunately, this professor (and at least one other I had) encourages this type of thought and method.  Start with a conclusion, and find the best evidence for the conclusion.  There's a term for this: sophistry.  

The simple fact is, what you argue is important.  Because some positions are indefensible, or rely entirely on ignoring all contradicting information.  This falls into the broader trend of people believing that their opinions are as valid as any other, regardless of how well-informed or supported it is.  The problem is that, in my experience, these people seem to never, or very rarely, get challenged.  So instead of changing their ways or leaving the English department, we get bloated with people who can't actually think critically, and who's only skill is to cherry-pick information and string it into an persuasive essay (persuasive only if you haven't actually read the text yourself, because if you have, the problems with these essays become immediately apparent).

 

A couple fun things

The first item for consideration is this comic from the always entertaining xkcd.com

That last panel led me to what follows, which might surprise you.  That Joyce wrote some (very, very) graphic love letters is well-known.  But have you heard them read aloud?   Funnyordie.com had some actors read Joyce's letters, and the results are funny.  Funny, and definitely NSFW.  

James Joyce's Love Letters with Dave Foley from Funny Or Die

Don DeLillo's BBC Documentary on the new meta-narrative

It's a bit longer than the videos I usually post, but here's an excellent documentary by Don DeLillo about the shift in the American meta-narrative, and the increasing role of television news and film in our identity.  It also includes dramatized scenes and discussions of the origins of some of his novels.

(Note: the documentary contains graphic archival footage of the Kennedy assassination, the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the assassination attempts against George Wallace and Ronald Reagan)

1982 Round Table Discussion with Isaac Asimov, Gene Wolfe, and Harlan Ellison

A half-hour syndicated talk program, covering the nature and marketing of science-fiction (or speculative-fiction) works.   The hosts are named Studs Terkel and Calvin Trillin (which are not, in fact, porn pseudonyms).

A bit of interesting background to the interview can be found in the archives of Harlan Ellison's website. (Check the post for November 1, 2008 11:13:15)

Flash Fiction Friday: The Man in the Shabby Coat

            Why would I steal?  Because when you take something from someone else, you take a little bit of their personality, a little bit of what makes them unique.  Some people, most people I guess, steal because they want food or money or another hit.  They either steal or starve.  I stole because it was a way to take a bit of someone else.  I don’t know, sometimes it feels like everyone else is just chipping away little bits and pieces of me, and I guess I’m just trying to get back what they took.  I’m telling you this because I’ve decided to stop, and a confession is supposed to be a good a way to start the healing process, at least that’s what addicts say.  I don’t know if what I had was technically an addiction, but I know I hit rock bottom.  For me, it wasn’t jail or a near-death experience.  Like I said, I take little bits of people.  Yesterday, I met a man on an elevator, and I took all that was left of him.

            You don’t need to know my name.  I don’t mean to be rude, but you can understand my desire for anonymity.  Call me John.  John the data enterer.  I work on the tenth floor of a thirty floor building, my cubicle is the fifth in a row of twenty, my row of cubicles is second in a series of five.  The digits of my employee number add up to thirty-six, which is close enough to my age to seem portentous.  I work with numbers all day, but I have no idea what they mean.  I’m paid by people who don’t know me to input information for the benefit of people I’ve never met, all towards a purpose I can’t understand.  Everyone hear either has a vice or has taken up numerology.  They study the numbers as if, if they can just find the pattern that must course through it all, they can escape onto the other side of, become the ones that the numbers are about.  To the best of my knowledge, no one’s ever succeeded.

            If you looked at me, you probably wouldn’t look a second time.  I’m not ugly, but I’m not handsome either.  The best description I’ve heard is “unremarkable.”  I couldn’t be more invisible even if I were actually transparent.  People notice when chairs and coffee cups and cigarette butts move of their own volition.  I’m seen more as a piece of scenery, like a cloud.  No one notices clouds unless they’re threatening rain. 

            I work in a building in a nice part of the city.  Everyone above the twelfth floor wears a suit.  We have a doorman.  He also wears a suit.  I can get away with khaki slacks and a long sleeve button-up shirt.  I’m supposed to wear a tie, but I never do.  Everyone who works here has a public way of showing how much they wish they didn’t.  We’re not supposed to wear lapel pins of any kind.  Our shoes are supposed to be shined.  Our sideburns are supposed to end half an inch above the earlobe.  They’re kind enough to give us little rules to break, so we won’t get into trouble breaking the big ones.  We break the big ones on our own time.

            The first time I stole was about a year ago.  My physician has a mug on his desk filled with personalized pencils.  They’ve got his name and business info on them, promotional stuff.  I noticed them when he was in the other room, poring over charts.  If I had asked, I’m sure he would have given me one, but what I felt then and have since proven to myself, is that it’s the taking that’s important.  Something that was someone else’s has become mine, and that person had no part in the process, so a little bit of them is left in what’s taken.  But I didn’t know that then.  When I took the pencil, I thought I was breaking a little rule.  If I had said to the doctor, “Hey, I took one of your pencils when you were out of the room,” he probably would have said, “Okay.  So what?”  Just like if one of my coworkers went to a manager and said, “I’m wearing a flag lapel pin.”  So what? 

            But when I walked out of the doctor’s office, I felt a wave of relief wash over me.  I hadn’t even realized how tense the whole ordeal had made me, how hard and fast my heart pounded, how white my knuckles got.  That’s how I knew that this was a big rule. 

            I hope you weren’t expecting me to be an international art thief, or a cat burglar or something extraordinary like that.  I’m unremarkable.  I break a big rule in the littlest way possible.  Pens, spare change, sticks of gum.  It’s the act of taking that’s important, not what’s taken.  It became a habit.  Once a week, I just had to take something or I’d get restless.  Six days since the last time I’d stolen anything, I was getting itchy fingers as I walked past our suited doorman and into the marble and chrome lobby of my office building.  I joined the small crowd waiting in front of the elevator door, trying to tune out the sound of business chatter and the squeak and scrape of shoes across the waxed floor and the thump of dropped suitcases and the rustling crackle of whipped open newspapers.  Usually this quiet cacophony didn’t bug me so much, but I was restless.  The elevator door dinged and whooshed open and the crowd flowed in.

            I was pressed in near the back, a fat man in a nice suit and bad toupee was squeezed in on my right, a janitor on my left.  Directly in front of me was a  man in a slightly frayed and seriously wrinkled coat and slacks that looked like they’d been  through the laundry a few thousand times.  The janitor’s uniform was nicer than this guy’s attire.  I could only see the back of his head; his oily grey-black hair was uncombed.  He didn’t look like someone who would be employed in this building.  The elevator slowly lurched from floor to floor. 

            I noticed a folded sheet of paper sticking out of the man’s coat pocket.   My right hand started to clench.  I looked to either side of me.  The fat man was tapping out something on his phone, the janitor staring into space.  The man in front of me seemed to be staring at the digital readout above the door, announcing that we were now on the seventh floor.  I waited another few seconds and reached out.  Quickly but gently, I took the paper from his pocket.

            Suddenly everything seemed quiet.  I glanced quickly left and right and made sure that no one was watching me, had seen what I’d done.  Everyone was in their own little worlds, and the doors glided open on the tenth floor.  I squeezed past the others in the elevator, keeping my eyes set downward, not looking at anyone, especially the man in the shabby coat.  Once in the hallway and the elevator out of sight, I relaxed and contentedly strolled to my desk, the pilfered paper still hidden in my closed fist. 

            I dropped the crumpled and folded sheet onto my desk next to the keyboard, cracked my knuckles, and logged in to the system.  I kept looking over at the paper.  It wasn’t a receipt; it seemed to be a piece of eight and a half by eleven printer paper.  I unfolded it and read.  In meticulously neat handwriting:

            To whom it may concern,

                        There’s nothing left.  I’m sorry.  I just want to feel the wind in my hair one more   time.  I don’t want to be a burden.

           

            It was unsigned.  By my estimation, a full ten minutes had passed since I left the elevator.  Too late.  I folded the paper into a small square and put it in my pants pocket, left my desk, went to the elevator bank and rode to the lobby.  As I exited the front of the building, I noticed several people running through the alley, towards the executive parking lot in the back.  It would be mostly deserted at this time of day.

            “I don’t want to be a burden.”

            Did he know that the note was missing when he jumped?  If he did, did he care?  Either he knew that it was gone or he didn’t and in either case, this last message of his, the last piece of himself that he had was in my pocket.  I took that from him. 

            I didn’t go back to work the next day.  I haven’t been there for a few weeks now.  One of my managers called me a few days ago and asked if I was sick.  He called me “John.”  That’s not my name.  I guess you could say I’m in a transitional period.  What I’m transitioning towards is still up in the air, but I’m glad to be moving away from where I was, and I think to really do that I need to get everything out in the open. 

            

Four Quick and Easy Ways to Write a Genius (and Why You Shouldn't Use Them)

            Based on various books and movies and TV shows, I have identified a few ways to introduce a character and make it immediately apparent that s/he is a genius (even if s/he is not). 

#1 Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

            It’s a sunny day in the park.  Kids are playing soccer, young couples are walking their dog, some old ladies sit at a bench and gossip.  Suddenly, a man collapses, clutching his head and screaming.  People turn and stare, someone shouts “Call 911!”  From the gathering crowd, our protagonist emerges, leans down over the thrashing victim.  A moment later, the protagonist stands and declares that, “There’s a foreign body lodged in his vitreous body.”   

            This guy clearly knows what he’s talking about.  I mean, would you be able to determine that just by looking?  Do you even know what a vitreous body is?   This guy must be a brilliant doctor!  But let’s try it again, except with layman’s terms:   

            “Suddenly, a man collapses, clutching his head and screaming.  People turn and stare, someone shouts “Call 911!”  From the gathering crowd, our protagonist emerges, leans down over the thrashing victim.  A moment later, the protagonist stands and declares that, “There’s something stuck in this guy’s eye.”

            Both versions of that statement say pretty much the same thing.  In fact, the latter would probably be more useful simply because the people the protagonist is addressing aren’t medical professionals. 

            This is a good way to display professionalism or an area of expertise, but unless it is backed up by actual evidence of genius (not just competence in a specific field), it’s not enough.  

#2  The Smartest Guy in the Room

            A team of FBI agents are sitting in a conference room.  It’s midnight, they’re all tired and frustrated.  There’s a serial killer on the loose, his calling card based on his ocular fixation.  The agents raided a suspect’s apartment, but it was empty except for a few posters and some old books, all bagged, tagged, and on the table.  Suddenly, a young upstart agent fresh out of Quantico bursts into the conference room.  Ignoring the protests and questioning of the senior agents, our protagonist lifts a copy of a book: The Complete Poems of T. S. Eliot.  He reads excerpts of the eye symbolism in “The Hollow Men,” he reads the stanza about eyes in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”  He picks up a copy of The Great Gatsby and begins a short lecture on the eye symbolism.  This guy’s a freakin’ genius!  

            To best demonstrate why this is wrong, I’ll use a brief anecdote about how I accidentally convinced an entire class that I was some kind of mathematical genius.  In my Writing about Literature class, we read a play called Proof by David Auburn.  In the first scene, as a proof of the protagonist’s genius, she immediately recognizes the number 1,729 as being the smallest number “expressible as the sum of two cubes two different ways.”  I pointed out in class that this was The Hardy-Ramanujan number and explained the story behind it.  After that, I was asked for my opinion on the veracity of every mathematical assertion in the play.  I’m not a mathematical genius.  I just happened to watch an episode of Q. I. that discussed that number a couple nights prior to the class.   The reason it seemed to be an indicator of genius is that I was amongst English Majors, just like the young upstart FBI agent is among investigators.

            You wouldn’t expect a FBI investigator to know the prevalent themes in T. S. Eliot poems any more than you would expect an English Major to know about the Hardy-Ramanujan number.  The protagonist here isn’t necessarily smarter than the other people in the room, rather, the protagonist knows things that are generally trivial at best for the group being addressed. 

#3 The Smartest Person in the Room (Version B)

            Same situation as above.  The young upstart FBI agent comes in and tells the other agents what they missed.  After hours of racking their brains for clues, the genius protagonist figures out what they all missed within seconds. 

            Even taking into account what was discussed in the previous section, the agents in this example would probably have at least skimmed the books, or found the Cliff Notes on them, or called an English professor, or something.  All too often, the smartest man in the room ends up being the least incompetent man in the room.  Just look at any crime procedural where the protagonist has some special ability (e.g. Psych, Monk, The Mentalist, The Dead Zone, Sherlock, etc.).  Ninety-nine percent of the time, they only solve the crimes because they either don't operate by police procedure (breaking and entering, warrant-less searches, etc) or because the detectives missed something that should have been obvious to them, not because of any particular genius on behalf of the hero.

#4 The Smartest Man in the Room (Version C)

            The protagonist is face to face with the serial killer in an empty warehouse.  A fistfight, a struggle over a gun, a gunshot, and the serial killer crumples to the ground.  A moment later, the FBI agents rush in.  They had received a note from the killer earlier in the day that hinted towards a carrot farm as his safe house.  The protagonist tells the FBI agents that carrots do not actually improve eyesight.  In World War Two, the British fighter pilots had found a way to put radar devices in their planes, and were therefore able to shoot down the German planes at night.  Not wanting to give up their secret, they claimed that eating carrots improved their night vision.  The protagonist knew that someone so obsessed with eyes would know this, and that the carrot farm must have been a distraction.

        This has a lot of similarity to the first “Smartest Man in the Room” entry, but is so prevalent I think it deserves its own spot.  Busting an urban legend or breaking out a neat piece of history is an incredibly common way to show a character’s intelligence by demonstrating that they don’t think like everybody else.  Putting aside the reasons in the earlier “Smartest Man in the Room” entries (which are perfectly valid), you should avoid this one because when people do this they are, very frequently, wrong.  The two big ones that I see a lot are the “truth” behind Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech and the NASA multimillion dollar pen vs. Russian pencil stories.  The former story says that when John F. Kennedy said “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he was really saying “I am a jelly donut.”  While there was a jelly donut called a Berliner, this would be like hearing someone say “I am a New Yorker” and assuming that they’re calling themselves a magazine.  This is repeated not only in countless TV shows, but even in Pulitzer Prize nominated books like Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible.  The (condensed) NASA pen story goes as such: NASA spent millions developing a pen that would write in zero gravity.  The Russians just used a pencil.  NASA didn’t actually spend money on developing the pen.  Additionally, pencils are terrible in a zero gravity situation, because the tips break off and you get graphite and wood dust whenever you write with them.  I guess my point is, this particular method of displaying genius is usually done so poorly that it has the opposite effect of what’s intended.