CHAT: DeGracean theory (was: RE: CHAT: The Fabulous Personalities of Conlang

Stephen DeGrace:
> > Seeing as the thread is properly labelled CHAT, how
> > about you indulge us with an exposition of your
> > theory? There must be quite a few of interested,
> > given the number of people telling us their M-B type.
>
> Um, all right :)
>
> ::cringes:: I hate this putting my money where my
> mouth is stuff, it is so much more easy and pleasant
> to just be a critic ;)
>
> It's really too long to go into, but you can find an
> (I am told) rather dense essay on it at:
>
> http://www.geocities.com/stevedegrace/personality
>
> I wrote it up, even though it falls in the category of
> Things People Should Never See <g>, because it was
> quite taken with it when the idea came to me (you know
> what these inspirations are like)... and I wanted to,
> hmm, _create_ it, so writing it down in a public way
> was like doing that. I'm not sure if I birthed it
> right though :).
Thanks. I've read it with interest and find it about on
a par without most of the other serious-minded stuff on
personality that I've seen on the web -- the same balance
of denseness and clarity, the same degree of insightfulness,
the same degree of empirical support (though your text
is more upfront about it).

Thanks to these discussions, I've realized that what I'm
after is not a theory of types or a theory of the dynamics
of personality, but rather a map of personality space.
The distribution of individual personalities within that
space is an empirical matter for which I suspect no decent
data exists.

I have to confess, Stephen, that although, as I said, I
did read your essay carefully and with interest, the thing
that sticks in my memory is your contention that correct
spelling is not an art for a gentleman. You are right,
but nor is art an art for a gentleman, and nor is
scholarship, philosophy, science or anything else useful
to society and civilization. The true art of a gentleman
is to cultivate complete parasitism on the Labour of
others. Accordingly, I reckon you neither orthographer
nor gentleman.

--And.