NARMOD OANRMD DNAORM RANDOM

[Anne the Man]

Gah. I wasn't saying the Civil Rights Movement failed. I said 'glib' because I don't think it failed, because duh it's an ongoing process. I'm not being a white person criticising black people for not doing enough. I'm saying that other people speak of the movement as though it accomplished everything and hey racism is over now and Obama's election is the climax of what King was fighting for so let's go home. And are you seriously telling me I'm not allowed to point out sexism within the Civil Rights Movement?

Anyway y'alls seem fairly determined to read crap into whatever I write so I guess I won't post them no more. I only did because you used to like my Occupy pieces.

[Good Intentions]

as for the "scare quotes" - if anyone reads the article, you'll see they're justified.

No. Here, like everywhere else, they should systematically be stripped away, since they serve no worthwhile purpose.

anne's whole argument hinges on the use of the word "failure"

It doesn't hinge on the word, it hinges on whether the movement has or has not in actuality failed. Here, as in every case, what is being asserted by "Cookie Monster says that cookies are 'delicious', but... " is, in fact, "Cookie Monster says that cookies are delicious, but...". Scare-quotes need to be dropped because the thing encased in them isn't actually being used quotationally. In comparison, the quotes in this sentence are right, because their use does genuinely signify the quotational sense: " ‘Beloved community’ is a slightly misleading term; ‘beloved brotherhood’ might be more accurate. "

Since Anne is arguing that the movement hasn't failed (or rather, has done no worse than the movements it has been compared to unfavourably did at a similar stage), that is what she should say.

when applied to activist movements, so why shouldn't it appear in the second sentence? and why shouldn't anne quote it, both to establish the use of the word in a piece she's critiquing, and to draw attention to that word from the outset?

Because, goddamnit, what's at issue isn't words - it's the way the world is in actuality. Also, doing so will eventually kill me.

[Good Intentions]

And are you seriously telling me I'm not allowed to point out sexism within the Civil Rights Movement?

It does run the danger of being concern-trolling.

[fishjim]

Anyway y'alls seem fairly determined to read crap into whatever I write so I guess I won't post them no more. I only did because you used to like my Occupy pieces.

No, keep posting. I still like this piece.

But LPTJ makes an important point. If you're going to write opinion pieces, you've got to make people believe you. And there's nothing that makes a critical reader NOT believe you more than misrepresenting your opposition. You do this in the first graf!

It's hard to find hooks for the kinds of thought-bending pieces you excel at, Anne. Speaking for myself, I just want you to be 100% thought-bending and 100% persuasive. You're almost always 100% thought-bending, so I'm just trying to help with the persuasive bit.  

[Good Intentions]

Anyway, Anne, this piece is no worse than almost any piece of opinion writing, though as I said before I worry that you might be learning the wrong lessons from a form that I, like Jean-Yves, don't see much hope for. The things Thermo complains about are general problems with the form , and he's right if not overly charitable about them (he's wrong about it being badly written - for heaven's sake, Thermo, she even uses semi-colons effectively).

I find it very hard to know exactly what your point is. Is it that we sugar-coat movements past, or that we are too harsh on current movements, or that political advocacy is messier than we like to make out but important regardless? Those are three different points, and whether you accept one affects whether you accept the other, since they entail different standards of success for movements. I think your point should be third of these, but you don't explicitly articulate it, or provide an argument for it - from what you say, we can conclude that all these movements, including the Civil Rights one, is largely a wash. I don't think that's the conclusion you're after, but what you say makes it too easily available.

This lack of a clearly articulated goal makes the piece suffer as it is meandering as a result, moving from one topic to another in a manner which has, at best, vague cohesion. At our department we strongly encourage people to start their pieces with a sentence like 'here I argue that such-and-such', so there is a clear central thesis which everything else can be arranged around. You can quite rightly respond that opinion piece writing isn't academic writing, but I'll retort that opinion writing is a desolate wasteland (with single, precious exceptions) and, as much as a schlep marking is, I'd rather mark 50 student essays written like suggested than edit 10 opinion pieces. The student essays are more interesting, given that they try to present substantive theses, rather than are a compendium of whatever the writer was thinking of at the moment. Like I said, I'm afraid you might be learning the wrong lessons from the abysmal standard of opinion writing.

In contrast, find it very easy to see what your hobby-horse is (gender struggle), even though it isn't the point under discussion and you wheel it in with great fanfare but little play-off. Having hobby-horses is, to put it bluntly, tiresome - it's the leading cause of most opinion writing being worthless, contentless bleating. You might be very motivated about this issue, and you might be right to be so, but it shouldn't blind you to the merits of the particular case under discussion (you might argue that all these movements are inevitable only qualified successes if they don't address gender struggles, which is a case you can make, but is a different piece from the one you have here). As it is, you seem to question the worth of the Civil Rights Movement because it didn't address the issue closest to your heart. But the status of a movement doesn't rise or fall on whether it does what you want. The way you wrote it, you leave that conclusion open.

And please, never use scare-quotes again, for any purpose, ever.

This might seem very harsh criticism. But, well, if you're going to put your work out in public, them's the breaks. You're going to have to learn to embrace ciriticism. It is a hard lesson - even for me and my colleagues working in our tiny little field of no wider interest, it can be astonishingly, breathtakingly hard to ask for and process criticism - but you can't do without it. As I say, by the prevailing standards, this piece isn't bad. But it can be better.

[Good Intentions]

Anyway y'alls seem fairly determined to read crap into whatever I write so I guess I won't post them no more. I only did because you used to like my Occupy pieces.

No, keep posting.

Yes, do. But you need a thick, thick skin to do anything in public.

[Thermofusion]

I'm saying that other people speak of the movement as though it accomplished everything and hey racism is over now and Obama's election is the climax of what King was fighting for so let's go home.

The only people I ever see saying stuff like this are commenters at places like Big Hollywood. I'd like to think most people know better.

Anyway y'alls seem fairly determined to read crap into whatever I write so I guess I won't post them no more. I only did because you used to like my Occupy pieces.

Keep posting. For the record, I don't disagree with the basic point (as I remember it) of your first piece (that marriage is kind of a dumb institution), it's just that 1) I didn't find it a particularly original or interesting point and 2) the way you made your point was unnecessarily provocative. With this second piece, the pathway you set out on to rebut Mr. Trotter is really, really weird to me, and there's a Gawker-like voice to the writing that really puts me off. But maybe others don't mind it so much. Also it feels first-draft-y. I think you can do better.

[elpollodiablo]

Also it feels first-draft-y. I think you can do better.

As someone who has to read a lot of first drafts, I would agree with this. I'll bet if you gave that another pass with a clearer picture of your argument you could tighten it up considerably.

[Anne the Man]

No, dammit, I can't keep posting them, dudes who're telling me to keep posting. I was going to write an article about media censorship that's going on here with NZ on Air, but if I publish it it's not going here. I don't think my skin is thick enough to put up with "you getting paid to write them articles?". My dad pointed out over the phone when I was going on about this that I've been here long enough to deserve not to be treated with kid gloves but at least with respect. I'll come reply to all your stuff later when I can do it without crying at my desk.

Thank you for making decent critiques--I'm not saying they aren't valid--but I won't be posting articles here anymore because it's too hard for me to deal with. Maybe that makes me weak. I dunno.

For what it's worth anyway, I really hate it when you guys basically tell me I shouldn't be publishing:

I think it would have been better for you not to publish this piece...you should seriously worry about having your byline on this.

Oh, can you take it down?  That would be great!

you gettin paid to write these articles?

Articles are the only part of the job that I particularly enjoy doing and it's damn hard enough without you guys telling me to not publish my writing. It makes me feel like my work is shit and I’ve done everything wrong. Can't you start with the balanced critiques you offer later rather than launching in with the shitty one-liners?

Posting from a highly emotional place (this is the toned-down version), I will probably regret this, I've probably misrepresented all of you, blah blah. I should seriously worry about having my byline on this post.

I hate that I'm worried about posting even this because I think y’alls will call me pathetic and emotional. I suppose this is the nature of the internet though.

Anyway, I'll see you guys in awhile. I was going to post some polite quasi-flouncing, which basically indicated I’ll probably crack and come back in a week because I suck at silent treatment. Or maybe I won't flounce. Fuck. I don't know. This is too stressful.

[elpollodiablo]

That sucks, Anne. For the record I thought the way the politburo handled this one was a little harsh; with the other article it was my opinion that you were saying things that people could (and did) find very personally offensive. There's no need to be that harsh just because someone's argument isn't as strong as it could be.

[Good Intentions]

I don't think my skin is thick enough to put up with "you getting paid to write them articles?".

Well, throw out the moisturiser and starting building up calluses, cause in your line of work you are just going to have to learn to live with this. I know that I'm telling you, in effect, "I will nitpick your work, and you will love it", but what we are doing is taking your work seriously. If that makes you feel bad, you need to be less sensitive. Goddamnit, woman, do you know how many rejection letters all of us here who have tried our hand at writing have collected?! Peer review is a bitch. This isn't an easy gig, not even if you take the eclectic route I did where basically nobody gives a damn about anything you write (for a quick exercise, compare the amount of comments your work has gotten to any of my blog posts or pieces in Scoop). If you want to be a part of the conversation, you need to take the rough with the smooth. At least you're getting feedback, and very constructive feedback at that. You are being treated with respect - this part of what happens when you get taken seriously.

And, in any case, even being bashed is orders of magnitude better than being ignored. I and a lot of other people would love it if somebody even just noticed what we were doing.

[G.C.R]

That sucks, Anne. For the record I thought the way the politburo handled this one was a little harsh; with the other article it was my opinion that you were saying things that people could (and did) find very personally offensive. There's no need to be that harsh just because someone's argument isn't as strong as it could be.

I was spending a while formulating a response when I realised pollo had largely said my thoughts, though FTR I actually liked this article, and feel like there were some bad faith readings of it going on here (which is possibly due to left over feelings regarding your last piece?)
I think Marinus is right too, in that you're working a field where people are going to have highly emotional and often harsh things to say about your work. Hell, this is why I hardly ever draw attention to my own (highly innocouous and uncontroversial) writing, because I know I am pretty much unable to deal with any opinion on it at all. If it is too hard, then don't share everywhere for a while until you grow those callouses - or at least be prepared for if you share stuff here its going to get a mixture of thoughtful criticism and rough denigration. There's no rule saying you need to tell all and sundry about your work.

[DCDave]

I apologize if I came across as patronizing. You are a braver person than I am for writing this publicly. Very few people in the world form airtight arguments about *any* subject, nevermind a controversial one.

[Thermofusion]

Making someone cry is the last thing I'm interested in doing, so I apologize too.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

a tao lin novel would probably break g.i. down totally

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

anyway, probably the harshest criticism i've received about my writing came from a person in these forums, but it also served as kind of a necessary wake up call. it's also something that i think about right before i start writing anything. it's hard, i guess.

EDIT: this second paragraph i wrote was dumb and now it is gone.

i don't totally agree with g.i. that "being bashed is orders of magnitude better than being ignored," i don't really have the constitution to deal with consistent bashing--this year i've managed to tangle with tao lin and the dude from titus andronicus and these were the worst weeks. this is probably just my experience of things though.

[Greg Nog]

What!  When did you tangle with Tao Lin!  You don't have to talk about it if you don't feel like rehashing, but you just piqued my curiosity in a major way!

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

here tao lin summarized it for you for me

[Dick]

I've been reading things you've written for a pretty good while now and it's been really rewarding to see your progression as a writer, Brad.

[elpollodiablo]

Anne if nothing else you can certainly take solace in the fact that your work is aspiring to more than arguments about something on Gawker

[coldforge]

God damn, I'm not a big Tao Lin fan but I have to say, he took you to PIECES.

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

sure, i guess?

[jebreject]

I think he's a jagoff

[Black Amnesia of Heaven]

i mean, i was one person among many who had problems with the m@rie call0way story, i just set off his google alert, and the thing i wrote was short and tossed-off enough to disassemble. it's kind of arbitrary, his taking me to pieces.

[jebreject]

That's to say I think the trend you're talking about is real, and I think that writers like Tao Lin, Marie Calloway, et al. are basically only vehicles of self-promotion, but the self they promote is completely vaccous, signifiers hanging like clothes on an invisible man, the abyss personified. I do feel this gets awfully close to hipster strawman territory but it seems to me to be a very real trend in the so-called internet generation and the types of writers, bloggers and internet personalities that haunt Tumblr and the, um, I don't know, the post-LiveJournal internet that is overly earnest and totally self-important and narcissistic and devoid of any thoughts that do not directly affect only themselves.