From Highclearing’s Jim Henley, who it seems I may have jostled from his carefully affected tone of dispassion into a fit of beef-eating hypermasculinity:
We cannot rule out, on the basis of the text itself, that this is a clever parody of of the bubble mentality of the deadender Right. It’s practical effect will be to make the pro-war position seem absurd to whoever reads, or at least skims it. (I did the latter.) What we can rule out, semiotically speaking, is that sentences of such ornate construction ought to be formatted into such wide columns with a serif font. The semiotics of content, rhetoric and format in combination fairly scream, “Bite me, Gentle Reader! Go on. Bite me!â€Â
Via alicublog
I’d note here that Henley missed the point — but that wouldn’t be fair, given that he admits to only having skimmed the post. And who can blame him? Not only were the sentences constructed “ornately,” but the font and formatting just wouldn’t do.
Evidently, the proper blog should look like some unsavory boxer streak left in the wake of an arugula fart.
We’ll call this criticism-by-way-of-layout-and-formatting the anti-fabulous! factor™ — the latest excuse for not having read something before commenting about what it “fairly screams”.
Be that as it may. Perhaps had Henley bothered to read the entire thing, he would have found that I was actually questioning Dr. Barnes’s reading of “Scott Thomas” as a likely anti-war fraud — and, in so dong, positing that another equally plausible reading was that we were witnessing a kind of rogue false flag op aimed at discrediting Franklin Foer and the anti-war New Republic.
Now, I didn’t believe that to be the case, as I made clear — just as I didn’t believe, as some on the left continue to argue, that the incredibly shoddy TANG memos were released by Karl Rove with the plan that they eventually make their way to Mr Burkett, and then on to some overzealous producer and anchor in the national media. Instead, I was pointing out that the kind of structuralist reading Barnes engaged in required of its analyst a positing of intent in order to complete the profile of the historical author responsible for creating the “Scott Miller” who acted as the (autodiegetic) narrator.
Or, to put it less “ornately”, I was suggesting that we shouldn’t be too quick to posit that “Scott Thomas” was some anti-war fraud simply because of the few verbal tics and other indicators that, statistically speaking, tend to be found in the works of MFA students with macho complexes. And that’s because tendencies, once established, are easily imitated.
The post had nothing really to do with a pro-war (or even an anti-war) position. Instead, it had to do with a critique of structuralism divorced from intent.
Normally, I would expect such a reading might meet with approval from the “left” (and the Mona/Henley/Greenwald wing of “conservative libertarianism”), even as much as such a thing pains me. But then, as I noted in the intro to the post (Henley, in his hypermasculinist rush to get out that marvelous “Bite Me!” punchline must have “skimmed” right over this part), it seems I’m cursed with knowing my opponents all too well:
[Dr Barnes] as he reveals near the end, is a gentleman of the left  though not of the TNR-DNC persuasion […]
 a point I bring up not because it greatly influences his analysis (on a few key points it no doubt does, as when he meanders off into cartoonish suggestions of unsupervised soldiers potentially committing real atrocities that will go unrecorded, for which he is gently and substantively chastised; but overall, his argument is eminently even-handed), but rather because, when you look through the comments, you’ll find many of the respondents are military or milbloggers  more than a few even recognizable as regulars to this site  and the tenor and nature of their responses (complimentary, appreciative, offering only substantive criticism on a few key points) is so very different from the responses I would’ve expected to receive from ideological opponents had “Pasty†written a similar analysis.
I don’t expect Henley or the alicublog crew will appreciate the dazzling irony of their reactions — but then, I don’t expect that they’ll actually read down far enough into the post to discover how asinine they look, either.
One of the benefits of being a “skimmer” who avoids all that icky verbiage and “ornately constructed sentences” is that you can gloss right over those parts of an argument that don’t appeal to your sense of layout aesthetics. Plus — as with Professor Caric’s recent complaint — there’s that whole tangle of words you get to avoid, including those that reveal you as a silly anklebiter who should be spending less time writing and more time polishing his second-rate skimming skills.
But really, who has that kinda time? — especially when you get all busy burnishing yourself into a nice stiff purple-headed lather…?
****
update: Welcome Mona reader. Had I known you were coming I would have done the post in cartoon form — neocons in Nazi garb stabbing at a text’s “truthiness” with a big, hooked knife.
Instead, I’ll just leave you with that visual to hold onto while you hold your nose and “skim.” Which, if you aren’t already practiced at the art, you really aren’t reading Mona the way the Good Lord intended her to be read.
FEAR MY CONTAGION! BOO!
not Miller no? between Scott Eric and Scott Thomas and that guy that played Stifler I’m getting mixed up
The “facts” regarding what you have written don’t matter, Jeff. What matters is how it might be recuperated to buttress what they believe.
Is it just me, or does anyone else hear the internal voice of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons whenever they read something from Henley?
Also, I knew I should have written a parody about a nice purple-headed lather.
It was faintly redolent, as it were, of the kind of bumper sticker that reads, “I’d rather be raping Jane Austen,” with a well-rounded finish and hints of oak and persimmon.
Dude, did that cat just jump in your shit over a fucking font?
Kinda looked that way to me, but admittedly I just skimmed.
Weird, huh?
SB: clod references
signifiers, too
If a mans opponents are reduced to kvetching about the number of words, or the font in a post. I think it is time to declare the bout over and reach for the bottle of Black Bush, a glass and three cubes of ice.
Jeff G –
I’ve been a lurker, booster and commenter here for years, and I just have to say that this blog, teh mighty Protein Wisdom, makes me SMILE.
Carry on, wayward son.
[…] for comic relief, see Jeff Goldstein — in his trademark dazzling display of academese nonsense-speak — deconstuct the text […]
Admittedly, I’m not a big ‘thinker’, or someone who uses his ‘brain’ often. But I have to wonder, what is your infatuation with semiotics? Auto-otics is much better than the semi version.
As I was reading — as opposed to skimming — the post, I thought that Jeff was going to be accused of discriminating against the elderly or visually impaired. Then I thought he was going to be accused of discriminating against people with ADD.
But no; turns out he’s just discriminating against the lazy and stupid. Again.
Kevin – semi-otics don’t encourage wasting your intellectual ammunition like auto-otics does.
Admittedly, this is more of a problem for the inexperienced, but look at Goldstein’s post – no wasted rounds, just a whole lot of hits.
I dunno, Merovign. He said ‘dong’. was that necessary?
(kidding, it’s just a typo :). You’re right about the quality of the post.)
There is also the danger of auto-otic asphyxiation.
So I’ve heard, at least.
Not. Fluffy. Enough.
Perhaps you could make it up to Henley if you sent him a couple dozen words in Wingdings. I think he’d like that, and it probably doesn’t matter which words you use.
If His Majesty says there are too many notes, there are too many notes!
Shorter Henley: “I don’t know these words, and Caric has already used the ‘too long’ excuse, so I’ll blame the font”.
Pablo, I think Henley is more of a “Comic Sans” kinda guy.
SERIFIST!!!
“Purple-headed lather”
I had to Google that one.
They live on the Serangetti Plain, and build their hanging, comma shaped nests exclusively in Sans-serif trees.
I’ve a minor bit of [constructive!] criticism: “Anklebiters” are at least feisty little fellas. I’d say “leg humpers” was the more appropriate term in this context.
TW: non-Mormon this. Indeed.
Who do you think will be first against the wall when Mona takes power — Bush, Cheney, Malkin, or me?
And who will do the shooting?
My money’s on Hilzoy. She seems to be able to rationalize anything.
TW: deadly act.
Generally. Depends on her aim — which, frankly, is pretty fucking scattershot, from what I’ve seen.
Why do you bother responding to criticisms from these tiny, insignificant blogs?
Don’t get me wrong: like the delectable dissection of Herr Caric, I enjoy watching the intellectual decimation. It’s funny enough.
I just wonder why you bother. That guy managed a whopping 5 comments on that thread, half of which weren’t exactly supportive. If you’re going to respond to every two-bit idjit with a blog, you’re going to be a very busy boy.
Just curious. Carry on. And remind me if I ever start a blog to attack you in my first post: you’re a traffic creation machine.
PB: Why do you bother responding to criticisms from these tiny, insignificant blogs?
My guess is low-hanging fruit. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. :-D
I thought Hilzoy would be the one to help you out.
Oh no, wait that’s Kilroy
PB,
Because of the rhetoric, and the opportunity to demolish it. Hey, it’s a public servce and it’s funny.
What more could you ask for?
It’s an important point JG is making, you low-hanging fruit people. The post illustrates that very similar analyses using very similar analytical techniques can receive very different receptions. Do you want to live in a world where we are all Scott Thomas? Well then, to let people just go of the rails with their willful misinterpretations is a great start. Silence is… whatever, I guess.
I say wide columns and the serif fonts reminds one of reading actual books. That’s the semiotics I guess, while a blog in Arial screams “Microsoft!”. It says, I have all of this new fangled software to play with, I think I’ll post a picture of my cat. Set column width for VGA…
I love wide columns, you can actually read something without your hand on the scroll button.
I love the long, insightful, and frankly brutally bloodthirsty (in a philosophical way) posts. It’s no surprise that the wankfesters complain about how hard it is to read.
TW: 528 sittings (heh, heh, heh)
“I say wide columns and the serif fonts reminds one of reading actual books.”
Irony: Books are something these folks don’t read.
I would suggest that it is this same kind of “analysis” that leads these folks to conclude that anything racist written on a left-wing blog must have been left by a right-winger masquerading as a left-winger.
It’s all parody, it’s all irony, no one actually means what they write or say, except in ironic counterpoint.
As Bluto Blutarsky might have said, “Twenty years of ‘scholarship’ down the drain.”
What gets me is the Left is so very ready to spout about ‘war crimes’, be it Abu Ghraib or civilians used as shields by terrorists and blaming those being attacked, that when they actually get reporting on a real war crime, under treaty and enforced by the US Code that they *must* give to higher authorities… well, you can’t do that as it would endanger their ‘authentic voice’. If he is so ‘authentic’ why did they not report him as is their duty as citizens? If TNR really believed it was the truth, then their response is not to publish, but to report wrongdoing and let those wheels of justice turn. And if they don’t believe him, then a different concept raises its head, also handled by the US Code. Either way, justice must be served here.
If not, then we really do have no basis in claiming that we operate by the rule of law.
All the good stuff happens when I’m on vacation.
[…] fact that he either didn’t read my post, or else did some of that “skimming” that worked so well for Jim Henley […]
He kept competing granddad angles. None of them would guess or grotesquely believe the article of shadows that went on behind my bloated blue eyes.
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