quote:These people- at least to me- are not intellectual because they are stagnant, they are insulated into worthless groups who help them develop their rhetoric. But that happens everywhere, and the people who do this and claim to be intelligent are obvious frauds. -Orincoro
Earlier in the thread you were saying OSC's brand of intellectual snob didn't exist.
So why do you like hanging out at OSC's official website, if you think he's cartoonish in his characterization of intellectuals?
Because I'm not going to run away from listening to what he has to say- and because I like it here, despite comments like yours.
BTW, I don't think OSC's brand of intellectuals exists because I don't think he is describing intellectuals, he is describing pycophantic idiots- they do exist in some numbers.
edit: Oh and it just occured to me, my wording is "people OSC describes." In this I am allowing that these people do exist as a concept, and then I am reacting to the concept or the fictional person or group he has presented and I am saying that that person is an idiot. For instance, I can say that the Buggers are wonderful creatures, and I can say in the same breath that buggers don't exist. The buggers exist as a fiction and that is enough to respond to.
This also got me thinking about people in real life, and I decided that these people may exist, but that my view of them and OSC's is completely different. I don't see them as legitimate academics, and I feel that anyone like this is too silly and busy preening to actually cause any harm to anyone. His characterization of the idiot scene-member as a dangerous and legitimized member of some powerful heirarchy in academia is, to me, ridiculous, so that incarnation of the person he describes, the one with power and influence, does not exist. I hope that clarifies some of what I am talking about- there are shades between talking about a fiction and an agreed upon reality.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: But this is the Discussions about OSC side. The whole "This community isn't about OSC" line is kind of... silly sounding. I wouldn't say that means you have to only say nice things about OSC. I just wonder why Orincoro is perseverating on this particular topic. Well, and I guess I accused him(?) of lying, also.
I don't need to explain the difference between lying and rephrasing, nor am I ashamed of being called out when I change my stance from one post to another- sometimes the space of a day makes you think about things a little differently, and I would think you'd appreciate me thinking about the topic and evolving my ideas. When someone is "accused" of flip-flopping I laugh, because smart people change their minds all the time, and often for better reasons than political popularity.
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quote:BTW, I don't think OSC's brand of intellectuals exists because I don't think he is describing intellectuals, he is describing pycophantic idiots- they do exist in some numbers.
Touchy semantics aside, I'm going to disagree here. The snobbish characters may or may not be very solid intellectuals, but it's hard to tell because they allow a personal character flaw to dominate their personalities. There are various reasons why people do this, and few of them have anything to do with intelligence.
Whether or not they are legitimate academics is a value judgement you, as a reader, must make, and not really a group consensus thing.
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posted
Does anyone else think OSC acts like a snob sometimes in his Reviews Everything column? He may not be the kind of intellectual snob he himself describes, but he can have the same irritating superior attitude. I'm not against people having strong opinions, but he presents them as if anybody who doesn't agree with him is a complete idiot. Take, for example, the opening bit in his most recent article, where he ridicules people who believe in global warming and alludes to Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," which I doubt he has seen. I don't have any views on global warming myself, nor have I seen Gore's film, but I would give it a chance before mocking it in such a childish manner.
I found it ironic that, in an article a couple years ago (http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2004-05-02.shtml), he criticized Stephen King for ridiculing "American Idol," when OSC does the same kind of thing all the time. It's hard to describe, but it's almost like he's pretentious against pretentious people, thinking he's so wise and down-to-earth by constantly pointing out the elitists in the world.
Does that make me pretentious for calling him pretentious? I don't know. I don't feel pretentious.
I'm sorry if I sound like an OSC-hater. I've been reading his column for years now, so there must be something I like about it.
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posted
Epicanthic: We often find people that echo our own faults in some way the most irritating, if only because it's something we fight against in ourselves.
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