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CRITICS_OF_THE_MIND

                                             November 20-30, 2012

  Using actual, historical cultural
  criticism, can be rather limiting.
                                                 AGAINST_THE_MIDDLE

  One gets hung up in the minutiae of
  determining precisely what was said,
  and what was meant, and resolving
  apparent contradictions.

  You very carefully decide
  if you agree or disagree with
  a critics personal reactions.     It's really easy to fall into a
  But what of it?                   trap of bitching about an author's
                                    inconsistencies, but this is
                                    another variation of the "author
                                    intent" problem.  You can get
                                    interested in the author as
                                    subject, and that's not a *wrong*
                                    way to approach things, but it's
                                    not the only way.

                                    What are some others?  One is to
                                    look at the material, and try to
                                    find something *useful* in it--

                                    This is not the same as finding
                                    something you agree with-- though
                                    that's okay: the thought you've had
                                    before that's expressed better can
                                    be of some use.  The thought you've
                                    had that someone else had earlier
                                    than you did is worth tracking for
                                    historical reasons.

                                    It's even possible that you'll have
                                    some use for "argument from authority",
                                    as dubious as that may seem.

                                                FROM_AUTHORITY




  Might we contruct a pantheon of
  possible critical positions
  divorced from the complexities of
  actual critics?

     What are the ranges of possibilities?

                   SEEDS_OF_KAEL




                                                     DWIGHT_MAC

                                  Can one produce a coherent
                                  set of points of view from
                                  Dwight Macdonald's jamming
                                  around in different directions?

                                      Something about avoiding
                                      a literature of
                                      complacency, going for
                                      the revolutionary
                                      jugular instead?




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