Comments below:
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: TOM DILLINGHAM <tomdill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
A: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Data: Monday, November 16, 1998 3:42 AM
Oggetto: Re: disappeared
>As one who has felt despair at the deadpan literal-minded responses
>to _Candide_ (and nearly every other satirical work from the 18th
>century) among my students, I suppose I ought to agree that "in this
>age of irony, irony is dead," but I do not. It's not really the
>subject of this list, but the problems with Daniel's satiric post
>are endemic to e-lists, it seems to me, based on nearly identical
>experiences on lists as disparate as C18-L, NASSR-L, MILTON-L
>and several others. Irony reads either as literal statement or,
>in some cases, nasty and usually unthinking sarcasm in this medium,
>even among readers who ought to (by virtue of their training, if
>nothing else) be more alert to the mechanisms (and charms) of irony.
>I admit that I suspected irony first time through, but had to re-read
>the post be reassure myself that the list was not being flamed.
>It is certainly mere coincidence, but this kind of misreading has
>occurred on three lists in the past ten days, and it reminds me that
>someone with the right tools really needs to do a study of the
>way language functions on e-lists---specifically on those mostly
>inhabited by sophisticated reader/writers--trained academics who
>seem unable to bring their usual sophistication to bear on some
>kinds of posts.
E-mail lists lack the social context needed to make irony effective. Namely,
the Other is only dimly present. And this works two ways: the person sending
the Email is freed of the consequences of rude behavior. The Ego and the
Superego are hobbled by the absence of the usual pressures and so people let
loose. When we write on Email lists we are writing primarily to and for
ourselves. And there's no one we hate more than ourselves! Only fear of
social consequences keeps us from acting on our self-hate -- but these
consequences are close to the zero point on Email lists.
Second way this works: person receiving the Email from
individuals-reduced-to-a-status-very-close-to-the-zero-point is unable to
see another human being there. Sometimes they're signed
'-m' or '--John' or 'Creamsicle'. The tags are pretty much designed to evoke
anonymity. Thus the reader reads the received message as something that
really comes from him or her. He or she is psychologically unable to ascribe
the message to another human being. And there's no error or stupidity that
we hate more than one we are ourselves guilty of, precisely because we're
intimately familiar with the false and discreditable ways we think. Remember
that moment in "Death in Venice" when Aschenbach is writing an essay of
chaste prose on some high-brow literary topic -- while on the beach staring
at pretty little Tadzio! After he wrote it, Mann writes, Aschenbach felt as
though he had just participated in a debauch.
In addition, there has been a decline of the sense of irony overall, don't
you think? Valued instead is the honest person, the person who tells all,
without ornamentation -- and this devaluation of tact and irony is not
restricted to the Internet.
--John
I know that there have been many published
>discussions of language on the net, but I am not aware of any
>analysis of the particular rhetorics of academic lists? Any
>candidates?
>Tom Dillingham
>
-----Messaggio originale-----
Da: TOM DILLINGHAM <tomdill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
A: foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <foucault@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Data: Monday, November 16, 1998 3:42 AM
Oggetto: Re: disappeared
>As one who has felt despair at the deadpan literal-minded responses
>to _Candide_ (and nearly every other satirical work from the 18th
>century) among my students, I suppose I ought to agree that "in this
>age of irony, irony is dead," but I do not. It's not really the
>subject of this list, but the problems with Daniel's satiric post
>are endemic to e-lists, it seems to me, based on nearly identical
>experiences on lists as disparate as C18-L, NASSR-L, MILTON-L
>and several others. Irony reads either as literal statement or,
>in some cases, nasty and usually unthinking sarcasm in this medium,
>even among readers who ought to (by virtue of their training, if
>nothing else) be more alert to the mechanisms (and charms) of irony.
>I admit that I suspected irony first time through, but had to re-read
>the post be reassure myself that the list was not being flamed.
>It is certainly mere coincidence, but this kind of misreading has
>occurred on three lists in the past ten days, and it reminds me that
>someone with the right tools really needs to do a study of the
>way language functions on e-lists---specifically on those mostly
>inhabited by sophisticated reader/writers--trained academics who
>seem unable to bring their usual sophistication to bear on some
>kinds of posts.
E-mail lists lack the social context needed to make irony effective. Namely,
the Other is only dimly present. And this works two ways: the person sending
the Email is freed of the consequences of rude behavior. The Ego and the
Superego are hobbled by the absence of the usual pressures and so people let
loose. When we write on Email lists we are writing primarily to and for
ourselves. And there's no one we hate more than ourselves! Only fear of
social consequences keeps us from acting on our self-hate -- but these
consequences are close to the zero point on Email lists.
Second way this works: person receiving the Email from
individuals-reduced-to-a-status-very-close-to-the-zero-point is unable to
see another human being there. Sometimes they're signed
'-m' or '--John' or 'Creamsicle'. The tags are pretty much designed to evoke
anonymity. Thus the reader reads the received message as something that
really comes from him or her. He or she is psychologically unable to ascribe
the message to another human being. And there's no error or stupidity that
we hate more than one we are ourselves guilty of, precisely because we're
intimately familiar with the false and discreditable ways we think. Remember
that moment in "Death in Venice" when Aschenbach is writing an essay of
chaste prose on some high-brow literary topic -- while on the beach staring
at pretty little Tadzio! After he wrote it, Mann writes, Aschenbach felt as
though he had just participated in a debauch.
In addition, there has been a decline of the sense of irony overall, don't
you think? Valued instead is the honest person, the person who tells all,
without ornamentation -- and this devaluation of tact and irony is not
restricted to the Internet.
--John
I know that there have been many published
>discussions of language on the net, but I am not aware of any
>analysis of the particular rhetorics of academic lists? Any
>candidates?
>Tom Dillingham
>