Re: Lighting Some Flames: Towards conlang artistry

Patrick Dunn wrote:

<snip>

> Well said, but can I add, as a sometimes reader
> of Foucault and an
> occasional dabbler in Derrida that postmodernism
> is not a fallacy in any
> sense of the word.
Postmodernism itself is certainly no fallacy--the strategies
presented by Foucault and Derrida (to use Patrick's
examples) have had a great impact on decalcifying the
critical process and shaking free new insights. However, it
is sadly true that, as with any "school" or philosophy,
Postmodernism is often fallaciously applied by its so-called
proponents. There IS a postmodern fallacy (or rather, there
are a great number of postmodern fallacies), but
postmodernism itself has as much validity as it always
did--in my opinion, rather a lot.

>
> Perhaps, before one assays to present a school of
> criticism, one should do
> some professional criticism of art.  I do
> literary criticism more or less
> for a living (well, it's a condition of my
> teaching freshmen the use of
> semicolons) and we do nothing like what Jesse
> suggests, nor have we since
> around 1400.  Instead we interrogate a text for
> structure, meaning, and
> connections to the outside world.
>
> We certainly have no arbitrary standards of
> "good" and "bad" books.
> Although we do make such judgements (the decision
> of what to read implies
> some sort of value judgement) we make them on the
> basis of multiple
> criteria.  I don't write on Ginsberg because I
> think he's the best poet of
> the 20th C., or even ofthe Beat movement.  I
> write on Ginsberg because I
> think there are many interesting things he does
> in his poetry that can
> also be applied to other works by other authors,
> and I wish to elucidate
> them.
>
The judgment of what to read does unfortunately become a de
facto arbitrary standard, as that judgment is passed on to
students and to the public. Look at Harold Bloom, sighing
and wailing for the loss of a "canon" he created in the
first place. The end result is "Literature is dying because
people don't read my favorite books," and Bloom is listened
to, and quoted, and his ideas of what constitutes THE canon
are disseminated and swallowed whole by a lot of people.

Ob CONLANG:

Anyone have a language which cannot make such value
judgments? No "better" or "worse"?

------------
Paul Edson (conlang@twocannibals.com)

"Logic, like whiskey, loses its beneficial effect when taken
in too large quantities."
-Lord Dunsany

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