[post by Denizen ry]
(I kind of figured that my comments needed further explanation, and started this sitting in a hotel lobby last Friday.)
What do I mean by a ‘grumpy old man’ argument? Most times said old man is really upset about the lack of respect. He doesn’t want to call the cops and send the kids to jail. He wants them to a) acquiesce to his moral values and b) pay him the respect he’s due according to those values. Given that, I’m saying this sentiment is very misplaced in relation to Moore’s work on its own and the movie adaptation thereby.
If it were a ‘lack of respect’ one would have to question the validity of the ‘market of ideas’ paradigm. Is it disrespectful to put forth a counter argument predicated on a wholly different point of view? It shouldn’t be. If it is we’re right back at the point of ‘hate speech’ since certain points of view or ideologies are heresy and cannot be expressed.
Which is why the famous Castle Argghhh! Phrase should be in effect here: It ain’t always about you. Moore’s work was to expose *his* ideology. It is true that his wound up stomping on toes of a good many people. But did he achieve the story he wanted to tell? Did he convey his ideology? Did he convey his fears, which coincided with a large number of the Beret and Biscotti crowd's?
At some point one has to stand back, take one’s self out of the equation, and see what’s there.
I’m going to lift from Zelazny here. From the introduction to ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’:
Inventiveness. Wit. Artistic Integrity. Three very good things to have. To say them, however, is perhaps to talk more about the mind behind the words than the ends to which they are addressed. For to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story results mainly in a heaping of abstractions.
A story is a series of effects. I owned at the beginning the Phil Dick’s effects fascinate me even more than the social discontent pulsing through the neon tube in front of the wrinkled mirror suspended by the piano wire from the windmill of his mind. (Big snip, but maintaining context) The subjective response, however, when a Phillip Dick book has been finished and put aside is that, upon reflection, it does not seem so much that one holds the memory of a story; rather, it is the after effects of a poem rich in metaphor that seems to remain.
This I value, partly because it does defy a full mapping, but mainly because that which is left of a Phillip Dick story when the details have been forgotten is a thing which comes to me at odd times and offers me a feeling or a thought; therefore, a thing which leaves me richer for having known it
Which, even I---he who says that brevity is for the weak--- admit, is a lot of words to say “Don’t care if I hate the idea expressed. It’s valuable if I learned something thereby.” That’s the point of being able to admire Moore’s work even if I hate every shred of every argument he makes. You actually learn something about what the Beret and Biscotti crowd thought and felt. You actually see something of the prism through which they view the world. You see what someone with a true gift for making memorable characters can do regardless of the surrounding political points. So, the answer is to the preceding questions is yes. He tells an honest story. There’s no dues ex machine to make it come out the way he wants, there’s no slight of hand to have it all work out happy-happy ending like. Nuclear war terrified Moore. Fanatics terrified Moore. Does that come across in the story, and cannot that be enjoyed simply for its self?
It is akin to sipping 30 year old single malt to know what good booze tastes like even though you don’t drink. You learned something. You enjoyed it for what it was, even if you hate what it is intrinsically. How is that a bad?
Well, some would have you believe that because you disagree with the political, moral, ethical esthetics of a work, well, it HAS to be horrible. Not true. One can watch the movie Hero, a histodrama about the unification of China from the Three Kingdoms era, and enjoy the interesting visuals (like the scenes done in all blues or all reds), side plots, and minor mystery solving without agreeing to the pro Chinese Communist Party propaganda that underlies the whole thing. It is possible.
Look, just go ask Herr Flea (turns on Flea Symbol). Dang, he isn’t coming. He’s so much better at this kind of thing than I. I guess it’s because he went soft science while I stuck my head in a fume hood.
Analogy. You can admire the bravery and gallantry of Picket’s Charge---while condemning Picket, Longstreet, and Lee for letting or ordering such a foolish thing to happen. A whole piece is not ruined because one element is found to be wanting. A house doesn’t collapse because one brick has crumbled, nor does a Gothic Cathedral. The beauty may be marred, the bravery and gallantry may be wasted tragically, but that doesn’t change that beauty---or bravery and gallantry--- exists there.
I call it being able to live in world without the impossible level of homogeneity of thought necessary a far more rigid view requires. In a sense, it’s why I’m not a bitter, angry man.
But, this being a Gollum post after all, it doesn’t end there! Oh no. There are electrons to flog, and I’m just the Cheetos eating gangrel creature to do the flogging---- John! Why’d you let HF6 abscond the Cheetos bowl, and would you please stop munching the popcorn in my ear!!!!
(There’ll be more on this soon. I gotta go to Bristol, TN and then Windsor, Canada in the next 8 days, driving to both, so I’ve simply got less time than needed to do this. Yeah, I had about five hand written pages set, and I write about 1200 words to a page.. You’d be proud Editor Armorer, and your red pen supply lasts another week.)
(I kind of figured that my comments needed further explanation, and started this sitting in a hotel lobby last Friday.)
What do I mean by a ‘grumpy old man’ argument? Most times said old man is really upset about the lack of respect. He doesn’t want to call the cops and send the kids to jail. He wants them to a) acquiesce to his moral values and b) pay him the respect he’s due according to those values. Given that, I’m saying this sentiment is very misplaced in relation to Moore’s work on its own and the movie adaptation thereby.
If it were a ‘lack of respect’ one would have to question the validity of the ‘market of ideas’ paradigm. Is it disrespectful to put forth a counter argument predicated on a wholly different point of view? It shouldn’t be. If it is we’re right back at the point of ‘hate speech’ since certain points of view or ideologies are heresy and cannot be expressed.
Which is why the famous Castle Argghhh! Phrase should be in effect here: It ain’t always about you. Moore’s work was to expose *his* ideology. It is true that his wound up stomping on toes of a good many people. But did he achieve the story he wanted to tell? Did he convey his ideology? Did he convey his fears, which coincided with a large number of the Beret and Biscotti crowd's?
At some point one has to stand back, take one’s self out of the equation, and see what’s there.
I’m going to lift from Zelazny here. From the introduction to ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’:
Inventiveness. Wit. Artistic Integrity. Three very good things to have. To say them, however, is perhaps to talk more about the mind behind the words than the ends to which they are addressed. For to say them in all good-intentioned honesty about a story results mainly in a heaping of abstractions.
A story is a series of effects. I owned at the beginning the Phil Dick’s effects fascinate me even more than the social discontent pulsing through the neon tube in front of the wrinkled mirror suspended by the piano wire from the windmill of his mind. (Big snip, but maintaining context) The subjective response, however, when a Phillip Dick book has been finished and put aside is that, upon reflection, it does not seem so much that one holds the memory of a story; rather, it is the after effects of a poem rich in metaphor that seems to remain.
This I value, partly because it does defy a full mapping, but mainly because that which is left of a Phillip Dick story when the details have been forgotten is a thing which comes to me at odd times and offers me a feeling or a thought; therefore, a thing which leaves me richer for having known it
Which, even I---he who says that brevity is for the weak--- admit, is a lot of words to say “Don’t care if I hate the idea expressed. It’s valuable if I learned something thereby.” That’s the point of being able to admire Moore’s work even if I hate every shred of every argument he makes. You actually learn something about what the Beret and Biscotti crowd thought and felt. You actually see something of the prism through which they view the world. You see what someone with a true gift for making memorable characters can do regardless of the surrounding political points. So, the answer is to the preceding questions is yes. He tells an honest story. There’s no dues ex machine to make it come out the way he wants, there’s no slight of hand to have it all work out happy-happy ending like. Nuclear war terrified Moore. Fanatics terrified Moore. Does that come across in the story, and cannot that be enjoyed simply for its self?
It is akin to sipping 30 year old single malt to know what good booze tastes like even though you don’t drink. You learned something. You enjoyed it for what it was, even if you hate what it is intrinsically. How is that a bad?
Well, some would have you believe that because you disagree with the political, moral, ethical esthetics of a work, well, it HAS to be horrible. Not true. One can watch the movie Hero, a histodrama about the unification of China from the Three Kingdoms era, and enjoy the interesting visuals (like the scenes done in all blues or all reds), side plots, and minor mystery solving without agreeing to the pro Chinese Communist Party propaganda that underlies the whole thing. It is possible.
Look, just go ask Herr Flea (turns on Flea Symbol). Dang, he isn’t coming. He’s so much better at this kind of thing than I. I guess it’s because he went soft science while I stuck my head in a fume hood.
Analogy. You can admire the bravery and gallantry of Picket’s Charge---while condemning Picket, Longstreet, and Lee for letting or ordering such a foolish thing to happen. A whole piece is not ruined because one element is found to be wanting. A house doesn’t collapse because one brick has crumbled, nor does a Gothic Cathedral. The beauty may be marred, the bravery and gallantry may be wasted tragically, but that doesn’t change that beauty---or bravery and gallantry--- exists there.
I call it being able to live in world without the impossible level of homogeneity of thought necessary a far more rigid view requires. In a sense, it’s why I’m not a bitter, angry man.
But, this being a Gollum post after all, it doesn’t end there! Oh no. There are electrons to flog, and I’m just the Cheetos eating gangrel creature to do the flogging---- John! Why’d you let HF6 abscond the Cheetos bowl, and would you please stop munching the popcorn in my ear!!!!
(There’ll be more on this soon. I gotta go to Bristol, TN and then Windsor, Canada in the next 8 days, driving to both, so I’ve simply got less time than needed to do this. Yeah, I had about five hand written pages set, and I write about 1200 words to a page.. You’d be proud Editor Armorer, and your red pen supply lasts another week.)
[munch, munch] Yet still, somehow, you managed to find 1000 words thus far...
One criticism of all this text, Ry, is that I get a sense of buying the cloud to get the silver lining here. Besides, some silver linings are quicksilver.
PS Inhaling the fumes is a Really Bad Idea (tm)
Hey, you try doing inert atmosphere work with all the aparat compliant with OSHA and Calfornia earthquake codes *without* leaning into the 'hood!
Actually, Argent, I think you'd not see Watchmen as a cloud at all.
Though I agree about 'true believers'. That's why I'm glad John's a squish(and you are too). He can do a lot of damage(physical as well as rhetorical) if he wasn't.
But, note that it's a meta-argument. It isn't about Moore himself per se. It's more about the very narrow view stuff. The if it doesn't fit my narrow tastes(and, by admission, mine actually are pretty narrow) then it must be sheetuh. I got it from the Beret and Biscotti crowd and now I get it from those who rail against the monopoly of Hollywood types too. It sucks being green. Who knows the words to the Rainbow Connection?
I'd suggest just going to the local library or shaking down some 13 year old in front of the local comics shop for the graphic novel if I was you, Argent. The movie can be a bit disorienting if you don't know the material first.
Hey, I read slow, but I write fast---which presents it's own set of problems---Homes. I take a note book with me when I have to sit around for an hour or more waiting on people. I'll likely have a tonne(metric even) of stuff next weekend. Are you scared?