Continuing the Conversation: More Althouse, More Ari

Just dispatched the London chapter—which, by the by, clocked in at a healthy-for-me 38 pages—so I'm a little distracted.  I may have something else up tonight, or I may never write another word again so long as live.  Fortunately, other people are picking up the slack:

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen, Karl Steel, Eileen Joy and Dr. Virago continue the deserved pelting of Ann Althouse for her views on what is and isn't literature.  I'm sure she thinks this continued attention proof positive of some sort of vortex, but honestly, it is pure sport.  No more, no less.  That said, if you failed to read her exchange with Kugelmass on this post, you're missing out.  It went like this:

Althouse: I read JK's thing. I thought it was laughably imperious, windy, and obtuse.

Kugelmass: Your reaction at my blog was quite different, but no matter; what it has in common with this is the belief that throwing down a series of random negative adjectives is the same as offering a counter-argument.

Althouse: Thanks for coming over here and showing what a fusty old fart you are. Why should I spend my time writing out arguments responding to you? Who are you? Not a good writer. Not someone with ideas that impress me. Why should I spend my time like that?

Shouldn't a lawyer know better than to prove the validity of the point she countermands?

Speaking of Kugelmass, he finished his second written exam today.  Stop by his place and congratulate him on a job (no doubt) well-done.

Finally, Sisyphus responds to the podcast on blogging, complete with a tribute to Yours Truly.  Were I not tired of words and their meanings, I'd respond to this bit in particular:

What I really want to do is ask the other panelists what their reaction was to the last dude, who was very energetic and funny, but in a rather cutting, mean way, tromping all over the utopian-access-to-the-public-sphere vibe of the other speakers (and he seemed to be trained as a speaker, whereas everyone else is renowned for their blogging, i.e. their writing style, which doesn't seem quite fair in a matchup. Why were they brought in live, instead of to blog things?). But if they were to respond to my questions about the final dude, on their blogs, how truthful would they be able to be? Wouldn't they feel an impulse to be polite, or at least strategic, in their responses about someone they had actually met in real life?

It would go something like: "I don't think Ari was being mean, but then again, when I hear the name 'Ari,' this man springs to mind."  A more serious response later, when I'm capable of responding seriously.

Comments

[Sisyphus]

Heh! That would be one of the many shows I'm not following; do you have to keep finding cultural objects I feel compelled to study up on? Ah well. Irtnog!

And I wasn't responding to Ari as Ari so much as using him as a useful placeholder from which to make a rhetorical point. Which will help further my secret plot to take over the world.

Looking to the right hand of your screen ... did S. Weir Mitchell actually write a book about how to make fat and blood? So weird. (and creepy.)

And most important, congrats on turning the chapter in! (he turned the chapter in?? Crap crap crap! Where the hell did May go? Where's my chap.? Crap, where are my Magic Dissertation Elves?)

[Alex]

I'll give it oooo five minutes before Alt-Face-Delete Technorati-s her way over to this joint, and squeezes out another entirely pointless non-argument.

[Joseph Kugelmass]

Scott,

Congrats on finishing your chapter! Everything I've heard about your work on London makes me frankly jealous.

Here's what I had to add over at Althouse's place, after seeing (via your post) that she'd responded:

In all seriousness, Ann, what is going on here? Now I'm a "fusty old fart"? Go ahead, call me a doofus too, and a stupidhead. I'm not too proud to shed tears. You're completely terrified of responding substantively to my post, and your image of yourself as some sort of host for "America's Next Top Intellectual" is a joke that just keeps getting funnier.

[Amber]

Interesting that she would fling "fusty old fart" around and then advise other bloggers not to "fall into the lazy blogger approach of calling your opponents f*ckwits and assh*les. . . . Think of better, more original ways to express yourself. You should want to distinguish yourself through writing. Calling people assh*les... it's been done."

[Mike S]

Scott, I think having Ari go last did sort of undermine the collective pro-blogging sentiment of the first three panelists. It also seemed that there were more in the room sharing Ari's skepticism than there were sharing your optimism.

Ari didn't come across as mean. He just seems genuinely unconvinced of blogging's potential to influence scholarship in a valuable way.

[Ginger Yellow]

From Althouse's follow-up post: "Another thing I'm not saying is that we shouldn't have literature classes. I've been talking about reading classes, those learn-to-read sessions very young students have. "

First of all, this is an obvious lie. She was clearly talking about reading literature critically in schools. Second, is she now saying that children shouldn't be taught to learn how to read? Is there no position too asinine for Althouse to take in the name of contrarianism?