Doc points to several situations in which snarky reviews had deeper and more malignant results than the authors anticipated; the Orange County Weekly gave the (recently departed Bobby Hatfield’s) Righteous Brothers a last-place rating among all Orange County musicians on a top-bands list, and the author of the column sniped at Steve Goodman just before Goodman himself died.
It’s very, very easy to write something clever and harsh and hurtful about a book or a record or performance; it’s a lot harder to resist the temptation to use a snappy line just because it might hurt the performer or author. I write a lot of book reviews — a lot a lot — and I’m somewhat cranky (or “I have high standards,” the more self-congratulatory way of saying it) and not that many of the books I review excite me. Still, I try to indicate the sort of reader who would enjoy the book, or the purpose for which it would be useful (no, I’ve nver suggested “keeping a loose window open”). I’ve probably snarked inappropriately sometime; I know for certain that I’ve written a few very harsh reviews, in which may well have wounded the authors. I’d like to think that I played it square — that I gave a review that honestly assessed the weaknesses of the book and measured my negative criticism in proportion to the ambition and claims of the book itself (if you say you’ve written the definitive work on a topic and it’s flat-out dunderheaded, better not complain if somebody calls you on it) — but I wouldn’t be the one to judge that.
I did once cite a senior scholar’s book on postmodernism and biblical interpretation, a book that I thought construed postmodernism as a relatively tame version of good ol’ fashion literary criticism; I concluded that adventuresome readers might find McKnight’s postmodernism to be a “sheep in wolves’ clothing.” A year or two later, the book’s author presented a scholarly paper in a session that I was chairing, and he began his presentation by quoting back to me those very words. He was amiable about it, and wasn’t at all sure I wasn’t right — but it was an awkward few minutes.
I’ve tried to remember that situation, and not to write anything in a review that I wouldn’t say to the author’s face, nor that I wouldn’t mind having someone look up years from now. (I myself have gotten a lot of mileage from a furious review written by one of the most respected scholars in my field, thirty or so years ago, where his anger impelled him to some pretty weak arguments against the book.) But heavens, it’s unbearably hard to write responsibly in this complicated world.
Kind of like preaching in that respect.
DRMA: "Funkentelechy" by Parliament (“How do you spell relief?”); "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" by the Propellerheads; "The Scientist" by Coldplay; "Two Tribes" by Frankie Goes To Hollywood.
Reminds me of an idea I've had bouncing in my head for a few months: a consensus moral guide to blog writing. Most of the bloggers I read are Christians (which means they argue pretty furiously sometimes), and I thought it would be an interesting project to come up with a list of agreable principles for discussion and have those who agree to those standards advertise such on their blog pages, thus creating a bit of accountablility. I had no idea how to get such a ball rolling, so its just been collecting dust in my head so far, like most of my brilliant ideas.
Posted by: Paul Baxter at December 3, 2003 04:39 PMI dunno. Kinda reminds me of the truthfulness/authenticity debates, which burned me badly enough that I don't care ever to participate in them again.
I think, as I have always thought, that the way forward is to acknowledge that perfectly responsible writing is impossible, to establish a standard for reasonable behavior on both sides after a mishap -- and to say quite firmly that the impossibility of perfect responsibility is absolutely not a license to act intentionally irresponsibly.
Posted by: Dorothea Salo at December 3, 2003 07:32 PMI've noticed that it's very easy to mess up when I'm seeking an outcome. Sometimes the outcomes aren't obvious to me at the moment of commitment: like when I just hope that I can make people laugh but my humor turns on someone else's pain; or, when I'm trying to manage a situation to create a result that will move a project forward, but I bull my way through without considering nuances that may ripple outward and affect others in a bad way... or rather than rippling nuances, I'l often create great splashing tsunamis of ill feeling through my unpolished, ill-considered drafts.
All in all, I seek to improve and I may be less offensive these days for being more intentional. But when I want to make something happen instead of just communicating and letting what-will-happen happen, I almost always create an abrasion. Many of these are a long time healing.
I suppose that in a way writing is like prayer. Gibran wrote:
"You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.
And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.
When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.
Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.
For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.
And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:
Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.
It is enough that you enter the temple invisible."
http://www.columbia.edu/~gm84/gibran23.html
Thanks for the reflection on writing responsibly, AKMA. All in all, I'd say it relates to behaving responsibly and letting go of outcomes. Imagine the sweet air we'd breathe if it was given to us to always do so!
Isn't it funny how one person's writing can spark a train of thought in another that may have little to do with what the writer intended?
That's one reason I'm inclined to think that “meaning” is so much less determined by intention than a lot of modern philosophers of interpretation. “Intention” turns out to be a pretty slippery fish; it looks big and easy to catch, but it’s awfully elusive.
Which itself has little to do with what you wrote, but you started me thinking about it.
Posted by: AKMA at December 4, 2003 10:29 PMEach Stack Frame represents a function. The bottom frame is always the main function, and the frames above it are the other functions that main calls. At any given time, the stack can show you the path your code has taken to get to where it is. The top frame represents the function the code is currently executing, and the frame below it is the function that called the current function, and the frame below that represents the function that called the function that called the current function, and so on all the way down to main, which is the starting point of any C program.
Posted by: Reginald at January 12, 2004 07:14 PMThis variable is then used in various lines of code, holding values given it by variable assignments along the way. In the course of its life, a variable can hold any number of variables and be used in any number of different ways. This flexibility is built on the precept we just learned: a variable is really just a block of bits, and those bits can hold whatever data the program needs to remember. They can hold enough data to remember an integer from as low as -2,147,483,647 up to 2,147,483,647 (one less than plus or minus 2^31). They can remember one character of writing. They can keep a decimal number with a huge amount of precision and a giant range. They can hold a time accurate to the second in a range of centuries. A few bits is not to be scoffed at.
Posted by: Arthur at January 12, 2004 07:14 PMInside each stack frame is a slew of useful information. It tells the computer what code is currently executing, where to go next, where to go in the case a return statement is found, and a whole lot of other things that are incredible useful to the computer, but not very useful to you most of the time. One of the things that is useful to you is the part of the frame that keeps track of all the variables you're using. So the first place for a variable to live is on the Stack. This is a very nice place to live, in that all the creation and destruction of space is handled for you as Stack Frames are created and destroyed. You seldom have to worry about making space for the variables on the stack. The only problem is that the variables here only live as long as the stack frame does, which is to say the length of the function those variables are declared in. This is often a fine situation, but when you need to store information for longer than a single function, you are instantly out of luck.
Posted by: Gentile at January 12, 2004 07:15 PMThe most basic duality that exists with variables is how the programmer sees them in a totally different way than the computer does. When you're typing away in Project Builder, your variables are normal words smashed together, like software titles from the 80s. You deal with them on this level, moving them around and passing them back and forth.
Posted by: Walter at January 13, 2004 10:06 AMThis is another function provided for dealing with the heap. After you've created some space in the Heap, it's yours until you let go of it. When your program is done using it, you have to explicitly tell the computer that you don't need it anymore or the computer will save it for your future use (or until your program quits, when it knows you won't be needing the memory anymore). The call to simply tells the computer that you had this space, but you're done and the memory can be freed for use by something else later on.
Posted by: Jucentius at January 13, 2004 10:07 AMSince the Heap has no definite rules as to where it will create space for you, there must be some way of figuring out where your new space is. And the answer is, simply enough, addressing. When you create new space in the heap to hold your data, you get back an address that tells you where your new space is, so your bits can move in. This address is called a Pointer, and it's really just a hexadecimal number that points to a location in the heap. Since it's really just a number, it can be stored quite nicely into a variable.
Posted by: Samuel at January 13, 2004 10:07 AM