Do You Find Many Writers To Be "Pretentious"?

Can you give me an example of an idea that isn't chained to politics?

I mean, political parties, sure, but politics? Political ideas? The issues related to power and governance, coercion and consent? I think the vast majority of good novels have some perspective on these issues, even if that "perspective" is only that the status quo is fine and doesn't need to be questioned.

 

Politics is what happens when different people hold differing ideas. Politics are ideas and ideas are politics, therefore you can't have ideas without politics.

It means I don't think you know what you're talking about and I'm politely trying to say you should probably do some research before arguing with someone like @J.T. Woody who is clearly better informed on the subject so you don't end up looking like an outright idiot.

Fortunately for them, they exist to educate people, not pander to peoples fractured attention spans.

 

See what he did there? He rigs it so he's guaranteed to be right by appointing himself the arbiter of what novels are relevant to the underlying question: ones he thinks are "good." If he'd said "popular" or "award winning" he'd have lost that advantage.

 

Definition of politics (merriam-webster.com)
1a : the art or science of government
b : the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy
c : the art or science concerned with winning and holding control over a government
2 : political actions, practices, or policies
3a : political affairs or business especially : competition between competing interest groups or individuals for power and leadership (as in a government)
b : political life especially as a principal activity or profession
c : political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices
4 : the political opinions or sympathies of a person
5a : the total complex of relations between people living in society
b : relations or conduct in a particular area of experience especially as seen or dealt with from a political point of view ​

Clearly, you are wrong: there are plenty of ideas you can have without politics.
Entire movies, even, like Castaway.
Unless your not using the same language as everyone else here.

 

Sure. How about something that is impolitic? Would a literary criticism that supports the 19th century concern about Chinese Americans getting voting rights be considered good academia?

Would an analysis of Blade Runner's concern about artificial life being misused get a lot of traction as a criticism of a hypothetical problem? (Maybe.) How about an analysis of the problems of immortality - which is a possibility, just not one anyone is concerned about yet. I think literature could be analysed with an eye to a variety of issues that we currently see as either false, settled, hypothetical or too distant to be considered "relevant", regardless of whether they are realistic or whether the text supports the analysis.

 

Archimedes' principle.
Newton's three laws of motion.
The first few lines of a novel should hook the reader.

Need any more?

 

Newton's laws are so bourgeois!

 

Policy: a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behavior or for a chain of reasoning.

Reasoning: the action of thinking about something in a logical, sensible way.

Thinking: having thoughts.

 

If you were trying to construct a valid logical argument, well, try again.
'Cause that wasn't.

 

Those are only considered non-political because everyone agrees on them (though I do question that last one). There have been periods where governments have disagreed with known scientific facts because it benefited them.

 

I'm not sure what you're saying. Are your questions rhetorical? But if so, what are they trying to prove? I mean... I assume it would be legitimate scholarship to look at the 19th century fiction in terms of attitudes demonstrated toward Chinese American voting rights... but how does that relate to my question about things that aren't political. Are you suggesting that Chinese American voting rights AREN'T political? Or that AI rights aren't political?

Yeah - I'm not getting your point.

 

That may be. Different strokes. I just find their content incredibly boring.

 

No, that's "non-controversial." A different word.
There's a reason English has so wonderfully many words.

Let's not go to far distorting the meanings of words so that they all mean everything, because then they mean nothing. ""Political" has particular meanings associated with it; I posted Merriam-Webster's list of (at least some) of them.

When using a word, let's use it to means what it means, and not distort that just to "win" an argument.
We're authors. If we don't respect the meanings of our tools, who will?

 

As someone actually in literary acamedia, there are two major flaws with this argument. The first is that any reading of a historical text will ultimately be done through a contemporary lens, meaning that the politics of the day it was written in will largely be discarded unless purposefully studied, and even then the study of those political issues will still have the critic making judgements on the politics of the time through their own current lens.

Secondly, literary studies is, as a discipline, about commenting on other people's ideas and how they present them. People with political minds are going to comment politically. However, there are definitely wrong opinions in literature. Most of which is based on things not being around at the time. E.G You can't claim the use of the word holocaust in The Great Gatsby is a reference to the event because the book was written first. You might be able to say "serves as a model for", but at that point most people will throw you out unless you can have a strong case or are speaking about something massively broad.

 

Okay, what if a government then said it doesn't think that Archimede's Principal is real, and will ignore it for the design of all future naval vessels. Is it then political?

 

I'm saying that some things are not part of the contemporary political landscape and are unlikely to be granted acceptance in academia. The Chinese voting rights example would be using Othello to demonstrate that Chinese Americans should not have received voting rights a century ago, which is unlikely to be an accepted thesis as we now consider that a settled matter and the feelings at the time antithetical to current beliefs.

 

[Futile ergo redacted.]

 

But it means the only line between the political and non-political is enough people agreeing on it to get something done. Meaning anything can be political.

 

I think there are lots of incredibly esoteric things being studied in academia, so I don't think "not part of the contemporary political landscape" makes sense to me?

But then your second half seems like you're contemplating some sort of "anti-PC, freedom-of-expression" thing?

I'm definitely not seeing how any of this fits in to your academia should be "purely academic pursuit of ideas unchained to politics" thing. I mean, in neither of your examples are things unchained from politics, right?

Can you clarify what you mean by "politics"?

 

Can be, but that doesn't mean it currently IS political.

 

It just means it comes down to personal opinion, with each person having to decide how many people they think the tipping point is.

 

[Futile ergo redacted.]

 

5b relations or conduct in a particular area of experience especially as seen or dealt with from a political point of view. This is one the definitions you linked earlier, isn't?

Though the number of circular definitions in that list is just awful from a defining perspective.

 

I'm just wondering how many of you bashing literary criticism actually read literary criticism. And I don't see a problem or find it pretentious for authors to say something political and about the times we live in or for people to have done so in the past. Good literature often has something to say and some sort of message. People on this thread have mentioned old works and past writers. I think it's kind of amazing that people today are still finding new ideas and approaches for digesting these works. Literary criticism is not a bad thing. It's often insightful and provides readers with things to reflect on. But I guess my views on this would have some of you calling me pretentious.

 

Yes, let us unbend from our unbending stance and fight with each other instead of with each other. Cleaving to instead of cleaving at. Focusing on what lay before us instead of what lay before us and resign ourselves to resign our differences and table the notion to wind up the acrimony between us. That should leave everyone quite chuffed.

You are not going to be happy when you hear about libertarian socialism.