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StephenSeveroFirstPaper 14 - 19 Sep 2010 - Main.StephenSevero
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Who Said That? | | | By trusting the pedigree of the author, we may be overestimating the value of a work. We cover up our dislike for fear of seeming uncultured or lacking in taste. But at the same time, the pedigree can buoy us up and inspire us to keep mining a difficult work. I can think of many books where the initial goings were rough, but in light of the author I slogged through until my dedication was rewarded. Conversely, the author may be used to discredit the work, much to our own detriment. | |
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< | This way of using the author as "cultural" support primarily influences our aesthetic appreciation of a work, but often we overstep that line and use the biography of the author as "factual" support. An unattributed work may be just the ravings of a pothead, but if we know that Carl Sagan wrote it we give it more credence. Why should it matter whether the unfactual, unsubstantiated opinion is that of a scientist? Perhaps this might suggest a greater sensitivity to reality and "deeper thought" on the issue, but both of these should be secondary to our own personal assessment. | >
> | This way of using the author as "cultural" support primarily influences our aesthetic appreciation of a work, but often we overstep that line and use the biography of the author as "factual" support. An unattributed work may be just the ravings of a pothead, but if we know that Carl Sagan wrote it we give it more credence. Why should it matter whether the unfactual, unsubstantiated opinion is that of a scientist? Perhaps this might suggest a greater sensitivity to reality and "deeper thought" on the issue, but both of these should be secondary to our own personal assessment. | | | The factual support is much more dangerous than the cultural support, particularly where individual quotes are removed from all context and then distributed widely. "Misevaluation" of a cultural sense isn't all that troublesome, as anyone out of the loop in high school could attest. But it can be quite dangerous to rely heavily on the authority of the author in factual matters - some may be genius in one area but woefully misguided when outside of their expertise. Too often people confuse a specific and limited preeminence with a general one. (Tom Cruise is no doctor. | | | * The line between Carl Sagan and pothead may be more blurry than this piece suggests, given Sagan's writing on the benefits of marijuana. It is also perhaps relevant to the theme of this piece that Sagan wrote his essay under the pseudonym "Mr. X."
-- DevinMcDougall - 04 Sep 2010
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> | Thanks Devin, I was going for the reference (could you imagine the coincidence value if I hadn't been?) but I guess it was more obscured than I thought. I'm going to include a link to the original piece to make it more clear. The original anonymity of the piece is why I think it's important. If it stayed as just "Mr. X" it would have been forgotten relatively quickly. | | | \ No newline at end of file |
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