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Comment by javert | Hacker News Reader

Yuck. I don't know how to categorize this kind of writing, exactly, but I recognize it when I see it.

It's "intersectionalist," fixated on race, anti-capitalist, and written in a way that is very hard to understand. I'm not sure if that's done intentionally, or if it's actually easy to read for those with the proper training in modern-academic quasi-Marxist thought.

It takes pride in being a little bit sloppy and not following the rules of grammar and writing.

Maybe the right thing to call it is "critical theory?" Genuinely not sure, but that's probably about right.

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Blue herring n. 1. The intersection of shibboleth and affectation that signifies the tribal allegiance of the idea, anterior to the idea itself. 2. Rhetoric rooted in rambling obscurantism without intentional or explicit content, utilizing colloqualisms and complex grammatical jargon.

The rules of grammar aren't gospel. Writing was meant to approximate spoken language and when spoken language changes you would expect written language to change too. Grammar rules are a lagging indicator of accepted speech.

I enjoyed the article and didn't think it fixated on anything, really. It described an artistic style that is based on the cultural experience of a particular group and has values consistent with that group. By your reading we should criticise Dante's inferno for being fixated on guilt, anti-science and hard to understand, rather than appreciating it for what it is

I definitely think there is a correct way to write and speak. (I don't always succeed, but I try.)

I think we should criticize Dante's Inferno for being fixated on guilt and being anti-science. If it is hard to understand (I don't remember)--in the sense of intentionally being obscure just to be obscure--we should also criticize in that grounds.

By the way, there's nothing wrong with fixation as such. At least, I didn't intend to use the word in such a way. It's just that I'm tired of the fixation on race in our society. It's fine if people have something new and helpful to say, but most people don't.

P.S. Upvoting you b/c your comment is gray and I think it's a reasonable and helpful comment and doesn't deserve that.

There is no morally correct way to write and speak, but there are ways to write and speak that are effective for a given audience. For instance an effective explanation to a five year old is much different than an effective op-ed.

The writing and grammar rules which we are taught at a young age are effective for getting good marks on school essays. It is becoming apparent that they are not necessary or effective for writing a national bestseller.

I haven't even talked about regional or national dialects. If you think there is such thing as a correct way to write, who governs that? What right do they have to impose it on people who speak a different dialect?

I think the real problem in this case is that the reader of this article has a different expectation of the standard of writing than the writer did. Is the customer always right? How can a writer ever please all readers? Should they even try to?

What exactly don’t you like about this type of writing?

Exactly the things I said in my previous comment.

It may not have been clear that I dislike those things, but I do dislike them. I think they are ultimately anti-reason and anti-individualist, and also just in bad taste.

Intentionally in bad taste, actually, but that's popular these days in niche parts of the radical left---again, yuck.

This is the literary equivalent of the "fat is beautiful" movement. I think at least some of the authors who write this way would even be willing to agree to that statement.

Maybe you just personally can’t stand opinions you don’t agree with without finding it yucky? I mean, I have also have a subset of opinions I find yucky, so that’s reasonable, I’m just confused that you want to comment about how you find it such without actually adding in anything more than explaining what you don’t like.

I actually love the core ideas of this piece, and I really don't like the style. The OP has a point, this is pretty like critical theory and shares some of the delighting in obscurities hidden in large words.

I posted for the same reason one would call out false advertising.

The article's title looked interesting and it was posted in an interesting place (Hacker News). I had every reason to expect it would probably be a great article, but it wasn't.

It's just agenda pushing and in-group messaging. It's the same thing it's always been.

> and written in a way that is very hard to understand

Perhaps he's trying to make us work a little bit :-)

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