“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Saturday, May 12, 2012

Bambification

Some more words about Bambi. We Lit and Media types are Bambis because we take criticism as about one's style in toto, and we take that to be about our ego. This is not less rigorous than philosophy, but more so, and in a bad way. Nothing is allowed go get away scot free. Whatever is said is taken as a symptom of someone's ego, as ego adornment.

What is interesting about people who grew up in philosophy rather than in English is that they are somewhat prepared not to take things quite so personally.

Of course, this doesn't mean they don't have emotion. They do, but they might be more tolerant of disagreement and debate.

We Bambis however are paid to analyze the total style of a poem or other artefact.

Now again, imagine Derrida on Twitter. Imagine you have just called him a name, or painted him with a style—imagine how much glee you will feel when he reacts frustrated.

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