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-
-
As so
famously Marshall McLuhan
would have it:
“The
medium is the message.”
Indeed,
the massage
in the
mass age! For
pervading characteristics of
whatever medium
constitute message
in their own right,
easily overlooked.
Indeed as Marshal
McLuhan further
expounds, artifacts of
media, not to be
overlooked, do indeed
effect and affect any
society and shape
perception by their
unique characteristics.
As any society's
values,
norms and methods
inevitably become
changed by technology,
social implications of
new media emerge. Indeed
such as asynchronous
text communication.
What then reveals itself
as the inherent message
at the very essence of
asynchronous text
communication? And
likewise
hypertext?
Not to
digress. And
all to
what impact upon
Dialectical
collaboration, so
fundamental to
Eudemonia?
-
-
For characteristics of
whatever medium constitute message in their own
right, easily overlooked.
Indeed as
Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do
indeed effect and affect any society and
shape perception by their unique
characteristics. As any society's
values,
norms and methods inevitably become changed by
technology, social implications of new media
emerge.
Fully leveraging
the
power
of the written word,
asynchronous text
communication
is communication by text,
typed language, with any
delay between response,
which is to say: not in
immediate real time.
Messages are first composed,
and only then made available
to be read at any later time
even soon afterwards, for
response in kind likewise.
Asynchronous text
communication such as in
email and electronic message
posting forums and groups,
with such quick turnaround,
has brought the
unprecedented advent of
correspondence as a
continual and convenient
vehicle of actual
dialogue,
remotely, even
internationally.
Correspondence via
asynchronous text
communication affords timely
and substantive
conversation, but with the
intervening leisure to best
compose ones thoughts.
Thus congenial and
productive alternation
between the outreach and
extroversion of
Dialectical
collaboration
and the introversion and
retreat of solitary
reflection.
Hitherto, before the advent
of the computer revolution,
with traditional postal
delivery, or: “snail mail,”
correspondence as a vehicle
of actual
dialogue
back and forth, was
impractical and
counterintuitive because of
the far longer turn around.
At the same time,
asynchronous text
communication maintains a
record and generates work
product.
Indeed,
even
beyond
entirely
serviceable
modes of
asynchronous
text
communication, traditional
email
and
electronic
message
posting
forums,
groups
and the
like, if
we want
anything
more
fancy,
there
now
exist
also
highly
sophisticated
online
platforms
and
collaborative
writing
tools to
choose
amongst
as need
arising,
even
free of
charge.
Many
incorporating
such
features
as
versioning,
commenting,
and
change
tracking
capabilities
to
support
iterative
processes.
And
thereby
facilitating
multiple
participants
to
simultaneously
access
and edit
an ever
evolving
narrative,
whether
in
business,
creative
writing,
or
anything
else.
After
all, a
business
plan
remains
merely
another
kind of
likely
story at
all
grounded
in
external
reality
as well
as
drama
and
conjecture.
Or so
one
might
hope.
- Of
course,
even
given
nigh instant
turn
around
of
electronic
communication
such as
via the
Internet,
asynchronous
text
communication
remains
notoriously
lacking
in all
manner
of
subtle
cues so
characteristic
of real
time
voice
communications,
let
alone
live
onsite
encounters.
Moreover,
ordinary
conversation
unselfconsciously
features
a
certain
self
correction
process
back and
forth,
only
natural
and so
well
accustomed
to
dialogue.
Whereas
culturally,
capable asynchronous
text
communication
often
requires
a
deliberate
and even
meticulously
attentive
interjection
of
response,
point by
point,
line by
line. Moreover, no matter how frequently replies in turn are posted, asynchronous text communication cannot rely upon short term memory for context. And that is another reason why conversational adequacy in
asynchronous text communication makes demands that might not arise in real time communication. Every reply must address not only others
in the short term, but ones own forgetful future self, consulting the conversational history wherein all previous messages in the thread are preserved and presented in sequence underneath the current message text.
-
- For all such remain among the
characteristics
of the
distinctive
and
unprecedented
medium
of
asynchronous
text
communication,
especially
at the
highest
levels
of
intelligent
exchange.
Without
such
specialized
literacy,
conversation
via
asynchronous
text
communication,
may
become
significantly
impaired
and dumbed
down.
Indeed
precisely
such
impairment
has been
most
notoriously
normalized
within
online
communities
reliant
upon
certain
very
limited
and
limiting
technologies
and
formats
of
asynchronous
text
communication. After all, one of the standing issues in asynchronous text communication such as in email, remains the necessity of communication not only in the short term with anyone else, but in the longer term, of leaving what amount to effective memos for one’s own future self. Different cultures foster greater or lesser aptitude and literacy in this very regard. Indeed likewise different technologies, more robust or deliberately less so, also encourage or discourage any and all such greater
depth of communication. Indeed, the medium quickly becomes a message and expectation regarding culture of communication.
- And specifically here
on
FoolQuest.com,
for
asynchronous text
communication
online
at
its
most
sublime, there remain two
particular creative
endeavors most
strikingly amenable to
Dialectic analytic yet strategic
and to brainstorming
towards creative solution finding
in collaboration among equals.
And these remain Entrepreneurship and
creative writing:
new venture
creation
(various business startup)
undertaken concurrently
with serious collaborative fiction writing.
If only because both
business or project
planning and story
telling are each
deliberative and verbal.
It should be easy to
imagine even worthy
alternatives to
Entrepreneurship and
creative writing,
nevertheless that are
neither verbal nor
exactly deliberative.
Music, for example,
affords an avenue for
creative collaboration
and improvisation, ever
growing online,
requiring however, a
different literacy and a
different keyboard. Few
options however, will
ever be so spontaneous
or routine as never to
require both initiative
and prior deliberation
both practical and
imaginative. Only the
entire gamut of mind
numbing failed conventionality
in such dire need of
subversion!
And hence the
probortunity at hand.
And
more
anon.
The true essence of
Language:
For
Eudemonia
remains ever a
function of human
interaction, in a
word: communication.
And the level of
communication often
accrues, in any
measure, from the
degree of attention
invested. Because
language is more
than cipher.
Language via
whatever vehicle,
remains the medium
of thought and
expression. Indeed,
as Martin Heidegger
propounds,
language speaks the
man:
Because even human
character,
personality, is
constructed from
language. And
moreover to
reiterate, as
Marshall McLuhan
would have it:
“The
medium is the
message”
For characteristics
of whatever medium
constitute
message in their own
right, easily
overlooked.
What then reveals
itself as the
inherent message at
the very essence of
language, indeed even of the English language in particular?
And of what
Relevance
upon
Dialectical
collaboration,
so fundamental to
Eudemonia?
Indeed love of
language, advanced
linguistic
facility, complex
and variable
semiotics, scope and
precision in command
of English, ever
remains crucially
important to robust
communication in the
wordy, nerdy and
heady process of all
creativity and
discovery.
Indeed
by very nature,
creativity
by far exceeds
any merely solitary
individual trait or
characteristic.
First of all, there
is no investigation
so concrete as to
become penetrable
without abstraction
and creativity. All
science begins with
hypothesis, sheer
conjecture,
only then subject to
critical preference,
even
before
Empirical
reality testing.
But more to the
point, creativity,
playful,
pleasurably
engaged
and
meaningful
creativity,
involved
Eudemonia
epitomized in
collaborative
brainstorming
and
solution finding,
ever persists as
uniquely gregarious
and intelligent
human
motivating
social and
intellectual
stimulus struggle
as
consistent
with
the
grand
afterthought
of
Cultural Anthropology.
Indeed,
all
product
of
evolutionary
neurology
and hideous
inbred
mutation
of engorged
human cerebrality
under
'The
Survival
of
the
Sickest.'
And it's
complicated:
Language remains an
active memplex
expressing itself
through a suitable
living host: Indeed
as Heidegger
contends, people
speaking or writing
from the memory of
language forever
echoing in our
minds.
Active Reading and
Listening
frequently and
subversively
exceeds ever popular
but somewhat
misguidedly
halfhearted cretin
philistine maxims
and expectations of
simple writing
style. Of course
the most obvious
danger remains that
of
oversimplification.
And
oversimplification
is such that
merely
for
simplicity's
sake
then
results
in distortion. But
even so said, in and
of itself, indeed treads
perilously close to
oversimplification.
Because,
as
it
turns
out,
even
oversimplification
can
become
such
a
complicated
matter.
Indeed,
true
elegance
and
simplicity
must
be
earned
via
rounds
of
subtractive
and
an
ever
more
tightly
integrative
process
of
editing.
Because, easy to do but difficult to do well,
writing is rewriting,
and
never a waste of
time.
Indeed, reading
comprehension
replete with
diligent
miscommunication
competent
conversational
adequacy
in
ongoing
collaborative
miscommunication repair,
ever turns upon
active cognition and
comprehension,
actually
reading with purpose:
Conscious
effort to hear,
observe or read,
then analyze, assign
meaning
to and react, even
just individually
and
subjectively,
to content of
communication. For
just as the mind
functions as more
than merely a
passive receptacle
of
knowledge,
likewise there is
more to be gotten
out of reading than
most simply
rendition of
whatever text.
Indeed,
Effective
Active Reading and
Listening
strategy,
or in a single word:
literacy,
particularly of
Literature
as distinguished,
narrowly defined and
signified by the
much vaunted capital
'L',
frequently demands
that much more than
simply decoding of
the very words and
then parsing of
whatever phraseology
and even
composition, page by
page, line by line,
word by word. But to
always get it right
the first time, say
very little, and
never anything new.Indeed,
motivation
whatsoever, the
passion persuasive
at all of taking a
focused interest,
remains
indispensable.
Because, easy to do but difficult to do well,
writing is rewriting,
and
never a waste of
time.
And while, of
course, difficulty
does not
automatically confer
greatness,
nevertheless often
worthwhile content
and fuller
experience thereof,
may indeed entail
any greater effort
and focus also on
the part of the
reader, and not only
from authors ever
striving to find,
involve and
engage
their audiences
rhetorically and
dramatically.
Effective
Active Reading and
Listening may
even be thought of
as most richly
engaged
and creative
partnership on the
part of message
recipient, with
message sender.
interpretation in
reading or listening
at a higher level,
the happier and more
capable
for it. There can be
nothing halfhearted
or inattentive in
exalted and all
consuming
Eudemonia, so
fully
engaged.
Indeed reciprocally,
beyond merely any
one way
communication,
Eudemonia
turns
first of all, and
indispensably, upon
Socratic
Dialectic,
the practice of
controversy
being the welcome
and invited exchange
of
criticism,
thereby ongoing
error detection and
course correction,
and in
deliberation
analytic yet
strategic,
creativity
bridging
abstract principle
(generally why) and
concrete application
(specifically how).
Indeed, no one even
much bothers to ask
how
or even what,
until first
understanding,
even
philosophically,
to ponder precisely
why.
Indeed of course the
only true and best
reason why, gentle
reader, all that
matters most in the
human condition,
remains not only in
psychology, but
Axiology:
real
life
drama,
exploration
of whatever
individual driving
motives
entirely of one's
own uniquely.
Indeed, personal
interests and
priorities
interactively to
navigate personal
path through the
present copiously
dense
hypertext,
nonlinear thought
given sprawling
form.
And thence into deep
discussion. And
perhaps at long
last, even as often
frustrating,
proverbially like
unto herding cats(!)
to any
meeting of minds
on common ground in
common cause of true
unmet
friends.
Gentle reader, is
FoolQuest.com
right for you?
-
|
- Yes, it's a smarty party here on FoolQuest.com! Life, computer literacy,
Effective
Active Reading
strategies, Executive Function, and the adroit interrogation of densely branching and comprehensive interactive hypertext: Emphatically and in open and brazen defiance of anti-intellectual reactionary and currently fashionable doctrines of short attention and simple minded simple writing, FoolQuest.com is not simple writing at all. Do not become so baffled merely in being prevailed upon in trying anything differently than howsoever as accustomed. Not if there's a reason for it, while to some so painfully obvious, yet to others quite unheard of. Indeed, inescapable pertinence that bears mention, to indispensable knowledge work skill sets in the modern world, becoming second nature with only a little practice. So let's try something new! FoolQuest.com is not a short attention casual read. Not everything is or should be!
-
- Au contraire, and take it or leave it, FoolQuest.com is literate complicated comprehensive, deferred gratification, knowledge work product, extensive and densely written and branching hypertext charting an ocean of thought interactive for any cognitive deep dive, protracted complex abstraction, detailed research, planning and feasibility study, analytic and yet strategic, in the scope of a complicated and often confusing real world, whereof the entire present exposition but feeble scratches the surface. Not a bug or a red flag, but a feature! Let us then together strive for lucid excellence in hypertext, but never at cross-purpose in weird Luddite opposition to hypertext in very principle. Because any embrace of complexity, will come as anathema to the phobic rejection all thereof.
|
Preliminary to
any further exposition, brief discourse upon
hypertext therefore ensues, copiously
detailed and branching hypertext being,
after all, in thought and expression, the medium of present voluminous
message content, and purposefully so; indeed
actually by resolute authorial intent and fully
conscious
aforethought, and not by any conceivable
vaguery of unwitting error or incidental mishap
merely in need of righteous correction. Indeed
herein, copiously
dense
hypertext,
nonlinear thought given sprawling form.
Not a bug or a
red flag, but a feature! Any
relevant
criticism
then must pertain in context to said intention and
purpose indeed as
characterized
in distinct
motivation
and reasoning as pursuant in any
lucid assay.
•
HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE HYPERTEXT
FAQ
stands for
Frequently Asked Questions,
meaning
questions that continually reoccur. An effective FAQ
is an organized collection of
valuable
information that must be frequently updated to
broadly reflect whatever needs addressed.
RTFW:
Read the Fucking website!
Don't repeat FAQ.
That's just inefficient and
inconsiderate! So goes a prevailing wisdom and
Internet tradition. But there emerges an even
somewhat snarky contrarian view, in condemnation of
FAQ to begin with:
“FAQ
pages are where good content goes to die.”
In
other
words:
Don't publish FAQ. FAQ are bad! Because FAQ
interrupt conversion. Not just sales however, but
any conversion or recruitment, public information,
propaganda,
consciousness
raising or any other conceivable
outreach.
Actually,
FoolQuest.com,
the present hypertext, serves, among other
functions, indeed as more than simply FAQ, and not
merely towards conversion, but interactive
self-selection. Is then
FoolQuest.com
right for you?
And most sincerely, thank you gentle reader. Because
we abide in an ever more tightly strained attention
economy. All the more then, in the immortal words of
Simone Weil:
“Attention
is the rarest and purest form of
generosity.”
Nevertheless and
notwithstanding, does anyone
at all, and
short attention
be dammed, actually never read any complicated
material whatsoever, even no matter howsoever entirely warranted?
And
never
attempt
anything
difficult
or
convoluted?
Yes.
And
they
swear
by
it.
But
also
just
the
opposite
so many people online become absorbed and devote
themselves in the most esoteric and obscure deep dives
and puzzles of every kind, just for the challenge, even
with little at stake.
At least those
pleasurably
entertained, hence paradoxically more
serious yet taking themselves less seriously,
may
therefore find whatever topics more
engaging here on
FoolQuest.com
Divergent and convergent thinking as
reflected in branching and converging
themes
amid hypertext, is not a bug or a red flag,
but a feature! And there will be no information overload, for those
who devour content and
knowledge resource
because they find themselves intensely interested,
motivated
and engrossed in whatever they perceive as being
most
meaningful
to urgent personal concern and
crisis
with which we all perpetually find ourselves so ceaselessly embroiled,
and grapple
ever
tenaciously every day. Nor will information overload
overcome those who can swim the cyber sea
without worrying about dinking every drop,
indeed those who can decide, pick and chose,
whatever content or information that they
seek, howsoever or not any of that may
coincide with authorial intent and purpose in any
meeting of minds actually
towards sought for
collaboration.
- Even in more advanced
and efficient reference from traditional linear text,
instead of simply reading every word in sequence, it may
often be recommended instead to scan the text, and
continually zero in on whatever seems most pertinent to
whatever unfolding purpose at hand and deciding which
details to follow up more closely. Hypertext is merely a
more sophisticated navigation tool to precisely such
techniques of more capable reading
and communication. Hypertext must be composed, published and
linked together in a non-sequential web of
associations allowing users to navigate
through related topics, from one entry to
another via hyperlinks imbedded into the
text that the user can simply click on to
access related content as associated with
whichever hyperlink. Indeed, the World Wide
Web is a global hypertext network of
information residing on servers linked
across the public Internet.
-
- Moreover,
once again as Marshall McLuhan
would have it: “The
medium is the message.”
Indeed,
the massage
in the
mass age! For
pervading characteristics of
whatever medium
constitute message
in their own right,
easily overlooked.
Indeed as Marshal
McLuhan further
expounds, artifacts of
media, not to be
overlooked, do indeed
effect and affect any
society and shape
perception by their
unique characteristics.
As any society's values,
norms and methods
inevitably become
changed by technology,
social implications of
new media emerge. Indeed
such as
asynchronous text
communication.
What then reveals itself
as the inherent message
at the very essence, for
example, of
asynchronous text
communication? And
indeed to the matter at hand, likewise
hypertext? And
all to
what impact upon Dialectical collaboration, so
fundamental to
Eudemonia?
-
- For characteristics of
whatever medium constitute message in their own
right, easily overlooked. Indeed as
Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do
indeed effect and affect any society and
shape perception by their unique
characteristics. As any society's values,
norms and methods inevitably become changed by
technology, social implications of new media
emerge.
-
- To wit:
Hypertext resists the single linear narrative.
- All traditional text,
whether in printed form or in computer
files, is sequential,
meaning that there is a single linear
sequence defining the order in which the
text is to be read. (...) Hypertext is nonsequential;
there is no single order that determines
the sequence in which the text is to be
read.36
-
-
— 'Hypertext
Theory'
by
Thorsten Schreiber
-
- Why use hypertext
?
"Because
in general, humans learn better associatively [...]
hypertext operates very similar to the way our
brains do--in a series of networks, or
associations--as opposed to a linear path.”
-
- —
Hypertext and writing:
An overview of the
hypertext medium by Kimberly Amaral
-
-
- Hyperlinkage
often serves in similar function to
footnoting and attribution. But there can
also be much more to it: Unidirectional linear text
may be likened unto any plodding lecture, whereas
by contrast, sophisticated hypertext prompts and
anticipates different possible avenues of question and exploration
in virtual conversations, interaction with the reader, to ignite and
to supplement human discussion and interaction in turn.
Linear
connection then gives way instead to variable
configuration,
shedding new
light.
Generally
friendly
Netizens researching whatever their own concerns,
entertainment, edification and even howsoever
pandering propaganda validation,
diligently follow
the proverbial bread crumbs accordingly.
Alas likewise also the most
weirdly fanatical hostile reactionary internet
trolls and
flamers, unerringly tracking down whatever
taboo
content, opinion or
expression howsoever deemed
indeed most objectionable in their excruciating fragile sensibilities. By contrast, the desperately sought for star first follower,
blazing the trail, shall herald the true meeting of minds
and
collaboration among equals
in creative solution finding
and Eudemonia
here on FoolQuest.com
For
the star first follower
shall be the true leader, showing others how to relate.
Know thyself! It's all a matter of individual cost-benefit
evaluation
and expected effort. Gentle reader, if there is a better option,
then take it. And if you have a better idea, then
kindly do
come forth and share. But come what may, one way or another, expect
hard work,
futility,
or both.
-
- Linearity of text constrains human
intellect, but far less so than Totalitarian
Interactivity forever leading the complacent safely about by the nose.
By contrast, in their true capacity, Word Processing and hypertext
have expanded human consciousness.
In content and design, hypertext is a
uniquely powerful and even democratizing
information management technology of effective group
support,
collaboration
and endeavor.
A
hypertext
becomes similar to a
dynamic linked list in coding for computer programming.
Because, likewise, and in
different ways, hypertext
may group and connect myriad elements along myriad
vectors of Gestalt reality through clustered mind mapping
constellations, indeed even to be likened unto any central train
depot or rail yard, diverging to
points close by or far and wide with "the
devil is in the details." Indeed,
as only befitting to the
complicated
real world
as it truly is,
and research to reflect
reality, a
detailed
hypertext
is both map and territory,
recursively. But
a detailed
hypertext can not be likened
unto a tour, because a tour must remain
linear with all stops scheduled in sequence. Dramatic plot
ever remains linear, but reality
unfolds in dharma,
in the confluence of situation
and circumstance,
favorable or unfavorable.
Indeed the mythic Hero's Journey
of discovery, even
in real
life, doing anything
really cool together,
no less than in compelling drama,
may begin with some sort of a map. But
a map will be of
little use sans wherewithal for deciding where to go next.
Whereas, in any linear text, content is set
in sequence, in
browsing hypertext, the
site visitor,
Effective Active Reading
strategies
according to individual focus, follows
variable sequence to suit their own sensemaking
on the fly. Therefore,
gentle reader,
navigate
this very hypertext
for yourself, find your own
way, and chart your own path to intellectual adventure!
Just try not to chip a nail clicking the links!
-
- Amazing
how those most virulently complaining of
disorientation in navigation of
FoolQuest.com,
and for all evident and derisive
short attention span,
nevertheless unerringly home right in on
whatever very specific content and minutiae
so evocative to whatever their excruciatingly delicate sensibilities of picayune and
scandalized prudery! Not to digress.
-
-
-
-
- The importance of
salient
literate critique,
and the frustration of stubborn dogmatic blithe
cross-purpose thereto...
-
-
In the words of
Johann
Wolfgang von
Goethe:
“Things
which matter
most must
never be at
the mercy of
things which
matter
least."
Indeed, prioritization becomes more
important than ever, as we each and
all find
ourselves
ensnared in
an
overstressed
attention
economy,
attention
ever spread
so very thin.
Because to
quote
Herbert
Simon:
“What
information
consumes is
rather
obvious: it
consumes the
attention of
its
recipients.
Hence a
wealth of
information
creates a
poverty of
attention,
and a need
to allocate
that
attention
efficiently
among the
overabundance
of
information
sources that
might
consume it.”
And yet, seriously, does
anyone actually never read any difficult or
challenging material whatsoever, even when howsoever
ever even possibly at all deemed warranted or
salutary? Quite to
the contrary, so many people online become absorbed
and devote themselves in the most esoteric and
obscure deep dives, just for the engrossing challenge. Hence an
attack upon effort and difficulty whatsoever, and in its own
right, no matter what, just perhaps somewhat misses
the point. Historically, confusing new ideas
take time to digest into concise and
familiar elegance. All quite regardless of such incessant and unserious
objections to difficulty and effort at all, even often seemingly from all quarters
nowadays. Indeed
tar baby
finally put to rest, being subject herein to
long overdue most
scathing and devastating rebuttal, in order then at
long last ever to continue on topic. Fat chance!
A tar baby after all,
is an issue only ensnaring the unwary in
struggle all the more, drawn in to contend
against it.
-
- Indeed,
such misguided and simpleminded concerns may
often be regarded by many as self-evident
fundamentals of the writing craft
necessarily coming prior to, and even in
obviation alas, of all other more
intelligent discourse. But to quote Mark
Twain: “
Whenever
you find yourself on the side of the
majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Indeed, most
charitably and at very best, actually such miserable maxims
remain applicable for
hack writing in every pejorative of that term.
Indeed,
perhaps however surprisingly to many so dogmatic,
half-assed dilettantes
cocksure and blithely unaware of
controversy
long raging across the Net, herein shall be laid
bare the
poverty of precisely that prevalent rigid view. For
precisely those simplistic
short attention
maxims of simple
writing style,
remain flawed precept as indeed to be found
featuring most prominently on cautionary lists
in explicit
criticism of stock
bad writing advice.
And make no mistake, these list are compiled
by
capable
writers who
know
their craft and care.
-
-
Alas then the ubiquity of such
all consuming
preoccupation with imperatives of
correct webdesign
and/or simple
writing style.
And all quite without regard even to dangers of distortion
from
oversimplification.
And all so as to preclude or obviate even salient and
literate critique or
editing remarks, much less
actually
engagement
on topic.
What disengaged
proselytizing smug self-righteous
invalidation,
even however naively well intended.
Even let
alone actually antagonistic
irrelevant
cross-purposed
soft-flame!
In case actually of reading difficulty ever
as inevitably arising, for
serious
readers
and writers there remains better and more
pertinent and intelligent remedy than in
any such blithe
anti-intellectualism.
-
-
Therefore, thank you gentle reader. Because not withstanding
whatever antics of inveterate complexity junkies, nevertheless
and undeniably, we all live in such a tightly strained
attention economy. And therefore
all the more, in the immortal words of Simone Weil:
“Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”
And
moreover to
quote Karan Gaur:
“Effort is the best indicator of
interest.”
But perhaps most saliently to
Eudemonia,
optimal reciprocal
engagement
accrues the highest return in like kind, for truly
generous investment of precious attention so precious to and
craved by all. Hence
there can be no
short attention
propagandistic
and stingy robotic formula or spouting of misguided
rules, in order to replace the
hard work
and
Active Reading
of simply taking any interest, even given
disagreement. Your Impossible Mission, gentle reader, should
you choose to accept it!
-
In
case of whatever difficulties reading and
understanding text, navigating
hypertext,
or in order to advise or critique prose and
composition, then please
-
first duly consider the following:
In all
good faith striving for clear expression, any
serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and
relevant
to authorial intent to
begin with.
Pertinent
critique
may
therefore first
require
adequate
comprehension
and
Intersubjectivity,
the condition wherein
comprehension of message
content and subject
matter, on the part of
the message recipient,
draws ever in closer in
correspondence to
whatever the intended
meaning of message
content and subject
matter on the part of the message
sender.
Hence this section.
Because much as
argument,
Socratic
Dialectic,
the
art of
controversy
and the invited and
appreciated exchange of
criticism
including
Literary
critique, remains the
discourse possible and
nourishing Dynamic
Discord in case of
disagreement, the
conversationally
adequate
Socratic
Dialectic
of
collaborative
miscommunication
detection and repair,
remains the discourse
possible and nourishing
Dynamic Discord
in case of even
reciprocal
incomprehension.
For one specific problem, given that all
subordinate clauses
remain both integral and
salient, not every long
sentence can or should
be shortened. Not if
thereby merely
oversimplified
and distorted via
whatever injuriously
blithe truncation of
pertinent and integral
salient subordinate
clauses. For only simple
run on sentences, like
unto garden worms, may
even thrive and survive
being chopped up alive,
into the shorter
sentences that they
really are all along to
begin with.
Indeed, key to better
comprehension may be
found in more effective
and fully literate
reading strategy than
just even howsoever
somewhat robotic and
linear parsing.
Specifically, in first
taking an overview and
breakdown of sentence
structure. Indeed in
musical cadence, via
interpretation which
means choosing points of
emphasis in prose much
as in musical notation
of any musical score.
Case in point:
In all
good faith striving for clear expression, any
serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and
relevant
to authorial intent to
begin with.
For
reasons,
someone
takes
action
regarding
something
then further
qualified.
reasons =
Indeed in all
good faith
striving for
clear
expression,
someone =
any
serious
author
action
= retains every
right and bears
full
responsibility
of explicitly
seeking and
specifying most
reasonably and
precisely,
something
= whatever
manner and kind
of coherent
feedback
qualifications
= as they
themselves
perceive the
need and as most
helpful and
relevant
to authorial
intent to begin
with.
Be all such as may:
Alas the deviously
unreceptive mean
spirited and
contemptuous mockery
that is derisive
incomprehension.
Alas that
merely complaining
of
incomprehension,
is not even remotely the same thing as actually
engaging
and genuinely requesting
clarification and then even paying interested attention to
whatever response.
Therefore,
please,
in case of perfectly
honest
incomprehension,
if anything truly
remains unclear:
Rather
than
vaguely
denouncing
whatever
perceived
shortcomings
or
harping
on
formal
errors,
grammatical,
or of whatever expected
and demanded conformity
to
stylistic
conventions and
simplistic
declining literacy... —
Or howsoever otherwise,
indeed even debilitating
soft-flame
tactics of
generally
attacking
writing style
or even webdesign to the
exclusion and evasion of
substance... — Or
even complaining about
anything so
subjective
and indirect as whatever
ones own reaction, even
however trivial; instead
first of all, freely
indicate or question
whatever
in the
message
content,
subject
matter
or
meaning,
that
remains
howsoever
unclear...
—
Indeed, whatever remains
actually not understood.
There will be no offence therein. Quite the contrary.
Therefore, never let doubt silence and paralyze,
much less provoke undue
hostility.
Don't just spout ever
the same inane and
clichéd
bad writing advice, but fully
engage.
Yes, even without
agreeing, unguardedly to
engage
with the new and as yet
unknown.
What a concept:
The
Socratic
Dialectic
of
collaborative
miscommunication
detection and repair.
Because:
Honestly, if only
I already
knew whatever remains unclear in message content herein, how so and why,
I would already have revised accordingly.
Otherwise, I'm bound to
guess wrong, bringing
about only further
confusion. So please, lets just go over it all,
carefully, line by line, as ever necessary.
I do as much for others. So, why all the fuss?
-
Can you believe and
relate?
Disclaimer: ‘Mistakes are the Essence’ The Way of the Sympathetic Copy/Language Editor or beta reader
Sorry to become so brusque, gentle reader, but the point seemingly escapes and somehow repeatedly and persistently fails to come across:
-
Honestly, if only
I already
knew whatever remains unclear in message content herein, how so and why,
I would already have revised accordingly. So please,
lets just go over it all, line by line, as ever necessary.
I
do as much for others. So, why all the fuss?
Accept no substitutes! Not without explicit prior discussion.
Emphatically:
No
alternative
process
however
widely
extolled,
shall
be
taken
up
herein,
without
prior
ratification.
-
- This then is to apologize most profusely and contritely for any and all difficulty in browsing FoolQuest.com
Emphatically, no
writer or speaker
must ever impose
responsibility for
their own expressive
shortcomings, onto
whatever audience so
troubled and put
upon. Yes, all too
true: Every effort
on the part of the
author to write more
clearly, spares
successive readers
needles aggravation.
Such trouble spared
even perhaps by any
somewhat
inconsiderate or
confused writer, even from
antiquity, accrues
multiplied struggle
and needless
irritation plaguing any
such future readers,
even across the
ages, unto the
present day and into
the future.
It's never easy.
Indeed, even just
maybe an actual and
literal matter of
life and
death!
For prime example,
the warrior sage Carl von
Clausewitz lay sick
and dying as he
penned his
celebrated great
work, cut short of
the needed time to
edit and revise his
tortured prose into
anything more
polished. And
no end of mischief
and confusion in
history ensuing,
blood and mayhem
attending thereupon,
ensued only from
his flawed
composition as so
entirely distinct
from his sober
Literary
intent.
But
all such remains only all the
greater imperative
therein, as to why
indeed in all
good
faith striving for clear expression, any
serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of explicitly seeking and specifying
most reasonably and precisely, whatever manner and kind of coherent feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and relevant.
‘Conversational
Adequacy:
Mistakes are the Essence’
wherein
excellence in
Miscommunication Competence
remains crucial.
And so,
with due
gratitude for the
able assistance of
Dr. Chen Yehezkely:
To wit then,
outlined as
following, find a
Socratic
Dialectic
of
collaborative
miscommunication
detection and repair:
-
1. Upon the event of
incomprehension,
ambiguity, communications error or failure, and then
detection thereof, the message recipient alerts the
message sender.
-
2. The message sender acknowledges.
And should the message sender fail to perceive or to
fully comprehend any specifics or nature whereof,
then the message sender follows with further inquiry
thereof.
-
3. Further
fully
engaged response then
on the part of the
message recipient may consist in explanatory
exposition upon whatever ambiguity and/or questions
in regard to whatever unclear message content,
meaning
or subject matter.
Indeed, conceptually, whatever is
not understood in message content and
meaning.
-
And as remaining entirely distinct from
points of grammar or other formal error without
explicit bearing
upon specific ambiguity or authorial
intent.
And also not merely dubious and blithely disengaged
citation in conformity to whatever prevalent
standardized rightthink of general writing advice,
conventions of
style
or
unthinking rules. Indeed, typically so dogmatic and therefore
intelligently debated by
serious
writers across the Internet. But not to digress.
-
4. The message sender may then
request further clarifications and ask any follow up
questions, regarding whatever reply as attempted by
the message recipient.
-
5. Given any degree of
successful
explanation or question elucidating and revealing
whatever initial incomprehension, ambiguity,
communications error or failure, the message sender
undertakes to correct and revise the message
accordingly.
-
6. In case any degree of
incomprehension,
ambiguity, communications error or failure persists,
or further questions arise, then the message
recipient once again alerts the message sender. And
once again, should the message sender fail to
perceive or to fully comprehend any specifics or
nature whereof, then the message sender follows with
further inquiry thereof.
-
7.
And the
Dialectical
cyclical process repeats until the dawning
attainment of better
Intersubjectivity
with the message at last rendered crystal clear.
The above
so flagrantly contradicts any prevailing practice
predicated upon the
somewhat deceptive
pedantry from
Epistemological
and
Methodological
sheer commonsense to
the effect that
ambiguities and
communications
errors and failures
may indeed ensue
from grammatical and
other formal errors
or even from
violations of
whatever favored
uniform
writing style
guidelines or
unquestioned rules. All as
may be pointed out
by the message
recipient,
particularly given
that such factors
remain pertinent to
understanding the
nature of said
ambiguities.
Therefore,
miscommunication repair
and disambiguation
thus is often thought to
be accomplished by
the message sender
correcting whatever
such formal cause of
ambiguities and
communications
errors and failures
as might be pointed out by
the message
recipient.
And alas therefore, no other
feedback or deeper
engagement
shall be forthcoming
in case of
communications
failure, until
whatever such needed
correction, first.
Only afterwards.
indeed if ever, might
ensue any
consideration of
meaning
and authorial
intent.
But even such
frustratingly
limited
engagement
may be deemed more
helpful than merely
regurgitating silly
rules and
exhortation to
simple
writing style.
Not to get ahead of
ourselves, however.
It all comes down to
the distinction
between problems
solving and
solution finding:
When grammatical or
whatever other
formal errors are
detected, then the
problem to solve
becomes how to
correct whatever
such such formal
errors. But such
remains only one
possible means to a
greater end, of
raising signal out
from noise, of
getting a cross an
idea that isn't
coming through. But
solution finding
exceeds mere problem
solving. And all
manner of change and
improvement open up,
from any broader
objective
of clarification,
once ambiguity of
message content will
be brought to light.
And typically, all
with an additional
happy side effect of
correct grammar.
And whereas
any even somewhat
pedantic and
mechanical Rules
Based Reasoning as
of mere problem
solving as of
grammatical
correction, ever
remains more simple
and predictable,
also easier to
modify ever as
needed, in the
alternative,
Case Based
Reasoning, both in general and
particularly such as
extolled herein
throughout to the
matter at hand,
remains ever more
knowledgeable
and adaptable to
complex and
ambiguous data under
ever evolving new
circumstances, with
greater
relevance
achievable via tailored and
personalized
solutions, and thus
greater end user
satisfaction.
Unlike
fully
engaged
Socratic
Dialectic,
such
as
that
of
collaborative
miscommunication repair,
nothing
new
will
be
learned
in
hidebound
and
dull-witted
pedantry
to
formal
correction.
Alas,
normatively
closed
minded
irrelevance
remaining
endemic
in
the
death
throws
ending
the
lifecycle
of
complex
social
systems,
any
embrace
of
internally
efficiency
even
arbitrarily
as
via
whatever
implementation
of
Rules
Based
Reasoning,
comes
in
rejection
of
Case Based
Reasoning with
relevance
and
utility
for
end
users
in
the
outside
real
world
beyond
whatever
bureaucratically
minded
routine.
Any
precept
of,
as
the
only
way,
be
all
and
end
all,
all
such
seemingly
innocent
and
innocuous
tar babies
of
fashionable
anti-intellectual
hack
bad writing advice,
remains
toxic
to
aręte, thought,
and
Literary
richness.
Cretin
folly
all
in
all,
obdurate
and
tastelessly
ill
considered
oversimplification,
entirely
sans
any
truly
literate
appreciation
of
meaningful
depth
and
complexity,
and
entirely
bereft
of
empathy
or
regard
whatsoever,
for
authorial
intent
and
at
cross-purpose
thereto.
Emphatically,
critique even nitpicking
writing style and authorial
voice, or even
hypertext webdesign, is all fine and good, even tremendously
valuable.
But writing, not
unlike
friendship, often
entails ongoing struggle for expression, difficult and complicated
beyond any toxic maxims of
oversimplification or
pedantic obsession with
arbitrary rules of form.
Whether for stories or business/project plans
as herein on
FoolQuest.com,
or anything else under the
sun,
writing is rewriting,
patient
hard work,
and
never a waste of
time.
But
in
searing
ideological
contempt,
superficially
to
lambaste
writing style, authorial
voice,
or
webdesign,
whilst
calculatingly refusing to acknowledge
or
engage with actual message content; well that
remains
toxic.
A
malignant
Anti-Socratic
tactic
of
soft-flame. Never take
the bait.
Indeed, what strange, passive hostile,
short attention backhanded
invalidation ever can there be, more
manipulative and conflicting than whatever craven proffer howsoever ostensibly of such well meaning help and advice, but only while keeping distance? Indeed, without
engaging or becoming involved? Indeed, without
respect or regard toward substance and authorial intent in the first place? Of what
relevance? None.
By
contrast
however,
and
to
reiterate, towards
any
good
faith
philosophical
investigation
and discovery of elusive truth into the generation of lucid and compelling prose, any
serious author retains every right and bears full responsibility of
explicitly
seeking
and
specifying
precisely whatever manner and kind of feedback as they themselves perceive the need and as most helpful and
relevant. And under the human condition,
communications struggle replete with all manner of genuine communications errors and failures, remains nigh inevitable.
Indeed
the
necessity
and
blessing
all
therefore,
of
communications struggle:
Not
a
bug,
but
a
feature!
Only shopworn and well
familiar old ideas are
certain always to come
across effortlessly. The
clear and concise mainstay of science and
philosophy
whereupon we all rely,
was once the cutting
edge of challenging
thought. The well
familiar clear and concise
great
ideas whereupon
we all rely, are
often, historically, the
product of brilliant
minds in lifetimes of
boiling it all down,
volume by volume, page
by page, line by line,
word by word again and
again.
Indeed, like
photography,
easy
to do but difficult to
do well,
writing is rewriting,
patient
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
And to always get it right
the first time, say very
little and dare nothing
new.
What then
best may be done, indeed ever incase as so
nigh
inevitable, of
communications failure and reciprocal
incomprehension?
That is the
question!
And
the
best
answer
remains
nothing
more
or
less
than
full
collaboration
together in ever ongoing detection of
communications errors and ambiguities, all
towards ever ensuing
Socratic
Dialectic
of
collaborative
miscommunication repair,
all as remaining so indispensable to
excellence in
Miscommunication Competence
so crucial towards
Conversational Adequacy.
Can
we
be
serious? As the saying
goes,
no question is too foolish to ask, and no answer too wise to be given.
Therefore question
freely in case of incomprehension.
There is no shame in it, but actually quite
the
opposite:
Dialectical
sharp
attention
and
respect.
Well
may
one
ask:
What
then can possibly be so wrong
merely with anything seemingly so innocuous as
advocating
simple
writing style?
Plenty.
Is
then
simple
writing style
merely a means to an
end after all, or
actually an end in
and of itself, a
proverbial sacred
cow beyond all
admissible reproach
or substitution?
Because if
simple
writing style
remains only a
perfectly sensible
means to improve
writing clarity,
then just perhaps,
simple
writing style
is only one
possible strategy
among any number of
entirely viable
strategies and
alternative for
quality and clarity
in writing. Of
which, barring sheer
dogmatism, the
various merits each
whereof, might be
compared under
varying
circumstances, in
order best to choose
among them, as ever
suitable, case by
case. Indeed, just
to the contrary,
what about actually
enriching the
exploration
and emphasis
of prose, even with
the most needles
ornament and
stylistic flourish,
as have the
educated citizens
and
Literary masters
in days of yore?
Indeed, merely consider the
previous sentence:
It runs a little
long, yet remaining
well balanced.
In the
English language, we
never use five words
when eight will do!
•
On
the
Art
of
Writing:
What
Did
Thomas
Jefferson
Really
Say?
After all,
again to
reiterate,
writing
is like photography: Easy to do but
difficult to do well. Indeed, in whatever context
or application,
writing is rewriting,
hard work and
never a waste of time. But to
always get it right the first time, say very
little and dare nothing new. And therefore
ever the same interminably ubiquitous stock
bad writing
advice, and especially the unending
witless anti-intellectual semiliterate
exhortation only to
simple mindedly simple
writing style,
excluding
any
complexity
of
thought, all
that
be
roundly
damned!
We
have
all
heard
that
stubborn
mantra before.
And
we'll
hear
it
ever
again
and
again,
as
long
as
there
are
such
blithely
unaware
dogmatists
to
repeat
it.
Indeed, to
quote
George
Orwell:
“A
genuinely
unfashionable
opinion
is
almost
never
given
a
fair
hearing.”
Nevertheless,
and howsoever inconceivably to the mindset
of
all
such
blithe rightthink
such
as
to
propel
exhortation
only to
simple mindedly simple
writing style
(indeed
as
many
may
be
heard
to
insist, even
at the level of a
small child or a
moron!!),
some
knowledgeable
and
dedicated
writers
yet
actually
disagree
strongly,
with
precisely
all
such
hoary
blockheaded common
(non)sense.
Therefore,
circumstance
merit
at
long
last,
at
least
some
wider
awareness
and
acknowledgement of
controversy
at
hand.
And
thereby
just
perhaps
at
long
last,
interesting
true
rebuttal
beyond
endless
gainsaying.
Indeed,
any
abetment
in
all
such
lazy
and dogmatic
regurgitation
and
failure
of
imagination,
as
though
no
one
could
even
possibly ever
disagree.
Indeed,
in
actuality,
a
cursory
web
search
will
discover
simple
writing style
featuring
prominently,
on
several lists
conveniently
provided online,
of stock bad
writing advice. And wonder of wonders, there
do remain
notable contrary
views,
instead
in
defense
of
the
richness
and
complexity
of
writing
and
indeed
of
clearest thought
itself.
•
L E S
S I S B E S T ,
M R . N A B O K O V
•
Why
Grammarly
Is
Killing
My
Writing
Style
-
•
Why
grammarly
does
more
harm
than
good,
-
barring
sufficient
expertise
beforehand,
for
distinguishing
bad
advice
from
good...
•
Small
sentences
are
boring
to
read
.
•
Beware,
oversimplification.
•
The
Alt-Right
Playbook:
You Can't Get Snakes from Chicken Eggs
Onward and upward then,
toward the attainment of
psychological
visibility
to penetrate
psychological asymmetry
via
fully
engaged
immersion together into
Socratic
interrogation, error detection and
ongoing
Miscommunication Competent
miscommunication repair,
in
Dialectical
collaboration
among equals.
Because
Mistakes are the Essence.
And because we only learn
and progress from making
mistakes, fresh
bold
conjecture
and new mistakes instead
of only ever repeating
the same old mistakes.
To
quote Anton Chekhov: “... only he is an emancipated
thinker who is not afraid to write foolish things.”
To quote Gian Vincenzo Gravina:
“A
bore
is a man
who deprives you of
solitude without
providing you with
company.”
Alas,
ever more
Existentially
Absurd, we
endure in an unfriendly
and
monological
world,
teeming with
glorified
pack
mammals,
self-sufficiently
Solipsistic
bleating
sheeple,
some quite
famous and
highly
regarded,
even venerated. Who only
talk and
never
listen, not
even to
their own
thoughts (indeed
not even as
perhaps
soliloquizing),
much less to
one another,
to anyone
else. With
no
Point Of View
to offer,
the
inattentive
craving
attention,
void unto
void, making
interminably
vapid
small talk,
talking with
nothing to
say about
anything
whatsoever
in the
entire
universe. And
indeed
Solipsistic
with no
concept of
anyone to
say it to
anyhow.
So: Is that
indeed
Solipsism,
soliloquy? Or is it
just
me?
-
What
best might be done, in case of communications error,
breakdown and failure, indeed in any event of
reciprocal
incomprehension?
That is the question!
-
And there's the rub!
Ensuing directly, on
the one hand,
my own
heart felt urgent plea and
best advice for requested
volunteer beta readers, copy
editors and the like, but on
the other hand, also
delineation of an important
aspect of review and
critique most generally. And then
regards indeed
not
actually
probortunity at hand,
specific priority
agenda
here on
FoolQuest.com
toward
true
fulfillment and
meaning
in close
collaboration
among equals, but rather,
and all too frequently and
frustratingly, what others
so determinedly concern
themselves with instead. An
impasse, then. A frustrating
decoy. A proverbial
tar baby
to ensnare the unwary. And yet,
strangely,
Epistemological
context and even
knowledge
work
ethic.
To
reiterate:
Any
serious
author retains
every right and
bears full
responsibility
of explicitly
seeking and specifying precisely
whatever manner
and kind of
feedback as they
themselves
perceive the
need and as most
helpful and
relevant.
In accordance then with
non justificationism, wherein all hypothesis begins in
unfounded conjecture, and without pedantic prior foundation or
justification,
collaborative
miscommunication
collaborative
miscommunication
repair
and
Miscommunication Competence,
being the method undertaken herein,
fully
engages
in ongoing communications error detection and course
correction. And all as often best accomplished less by
nitpicking mere formal errors, than by meticulously questioning
ambiguities in actual message content.
Alas,
ubiquitous
Anti-Critical Bias
ever remains
toxic to any such worthy endeavor. Indeed, a writer who never
exchanges critique, is no writer at all, indeed barely even
a dilettante. And thin skinned writing communities that
spurn critique, generally amount to
bogus support groups
for
cosplaying as writers. The very term:
'critique'
after all, remains merely a fancy French word for
criticism.
And the
Socratic
Dialectical
practice of
controversy
remains the
welcome and
invited
exchange of
criticism.
For
frank and
open
criticism
remains
nothing
hostile or
threatening,
but
inherently
friendly,
an effort
and
expression
of abiding
respect
and
autonomy
support.
Only imagine then, the hapless consternation and thereby
comedy trope ever at the expense of the well meaning mark,
in any such
Ulterior
Transaction or:
headgame
wherein fervent request for
brutally
honest
criticism
or critique comes only from some empty headed, blithely thin
skinned and no less haplessly injured Narcissist, actually craving only the most unwavering
validation, and
frenetically wounded by anything less.
But frightened tact and comment withheld,
consensus
and ever simmering superficial harmony thus socially
expected in
subtext
of emotional extortion, can no longer exist as true tact of
voluntary, genuine sympathetic consideration for others, sincerely compassionate outgoing sensitivity and
genuine
authentic
friendship.
Instead of only
disengagement,
shunning, hostility, acrimony or merely indifference and
rejection,
controversy,
the welcome
and invited exchange of
criticism,
remains the interpersonal
engagement
remaining possible and even entirely congenial in case of
disagreement as forever prevailing in the human condition.
But people cannot even
actually disagree, in case of communications error, failure,
ambiguity and reciprocal
incomprehension,
also ever prevalent in the human condition. What then? Alas
that some remain in their madness convinced that in the face
of communications error, failure, ambiguity and reciprocal
incomprehension,
stark and sudden utter
disengagement
remains their only viable option, lest miscommunication and
strife therein, only continue spiraling out of control! As
indeed, all too common. But not universal. And more anon.
Because in actuality,
miscommunication remains no more fatal and irreversible than
any other kind of mistake. And no less
valuable.
All not to get ahead of ourselves, however.
Indeed, Proverbs 17:28 KJV:
“Even
a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is
counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips
is esteemed a man of understanding.”
A passable observation or caution,
nevertheless, for all
peril, still a pernicious
recommendation. For as the wiser and better
enlightened saying goes,
no question will be too stupid to ask,
and no answer too wise to be given.
Alas
that such laudable persistence in
questioning, so frequently
triggers such virulent unpopularity that
tastes of hemlock.
For precisely such ubiquitously toxic anti-introspective
anti-intellectual
alienated
short attention
pervades. Alas, if there can be
permitted no cogent discussion or
conjecture or
speculation
upon anything
not as yet well understood, then there can be no
truly novel and original thoughts ever hewn
from the daunting mass of the
unknown
in this life.
Indeed to live error
free and always get
everything right the
first time, even talking
a great deal, say very
little and dare
nothing new.
Should ever one
disapprove because one
misunderstands, then the
better one comes to
understand, then perhaps
thereby the more one
will be reassured and
the less one
might eventually
vex and disapprove. But if one
utterly fails to
comprehend but somehow
so consumed with
alarm and suspicion, already
strongly disapproves,
then because of
confirmation bias, ever the better one
may ever come to understand,
then this may only fuel
resentment all the more.
After all, confirmation
bias arises from
accumulated
corroboration while
tending to downplay or
ignore all refutation in
the form of contrary
evidence. Thus the more
one learns, the more likely only the
more harshly shall one
disapprove! Therefore
gentle reader, are we
already working at
cross-purposes?
Alas, the
self-absorbed
bored,
lonely
and impatient
short attention
inspired and disingenuous bait of
merely complaining of
incomprehension,
is not even remotely the same thing as
actually requesting clarification
and then actually
listening interestedly.
For to
quote Karan Gaur:
“Effort is the best indicator of
interest.”
And most insufferably
Anti-Socratic
of
stone-deaf
power
plays,
remains
the self-absorbed
impatient
short attention
mere feigning of
incomprehension,
but actually only
disapproval.
Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
And confront the
unknown,
squarely. Never evince derisive
incomprehension
in case actually of bitter disapproval!
For derisive
incomprehension
denotes contempt for
anything in particular that
eludes immediate clear
understanding.
Indeed, to
quote
George
Orwell:
“A
genuinely
unfashionable
opinion
is
almost
never
given
a
fair
hearing.”
But perhaps even most
hapless of all, remain those so
profoundly traumatized by
formal
education,
who fall silent and
dummy up, entirely
paralyzed, or simply
pretend to understand,
whenever they do not
understand at all. These
are fools making fools
of us all. And no sacred
fool on any
character
arc
of
growth
in wisdom and sagacity.
Lo and behold how one
may tend to write at
one's own level of
understanding. Not
simply because
individual perspective,
in the first place,
remains how one
understands anything
whatsoever at all in
order then to share with
anyone else, but
because ones own
understanding indeed so often
remains integrally and
exactly the very crux of such
saliently intended message
content of crucial
incisive perspective,
all so urgently to convey in the
first place. Moreover,
instead relating to and
tailoring whatever
message to whatever
expected message
recipient or receptive
target audience, assumes
that one even predicts
at all whom that might
be, much less
understanding them
intimately. And in
reality
that often remains the
great mystery of
lonely
isolation for
intelligent people with
anything new and
different to share.
And so,
unmet
friend,
you be you, and I'll be
me.
And with every
diligence, let us strive
together at bridging
between us in order to grapple
with all that everyone
remains so desperate to
know.
Or else, if all of that
seems just too much
hard work,
then
FoolQuest.com
simply might not be
right for you.
Honestly,
if only
I
already
knew
whatever remains unclear
in message content
herein, how so and why,
I
would already have
revised accordingly.
And so,
this
is to
apologize
ever profusely and
most
contritely for
any and all
difficulty in
browsing
FoolQuest.com
Intersubjectivity
is
achieved when the comprehension of a message
by the recipient, is brought into closer
correspondence with the intended message
content of the sender. Indeed a desired result
which even by itself, often requires
purposeful, interested,
engaged
and adequately attentive and sustained
effort in
ongoing
Dialectically
collaborative
miscommunication detection and repair.
Whereas
bypassing
is blithe
reciprocally unaware
talking at
cross-purpose, is
exchange which is
not genuine
communication
because it lacks
sufficient
Intersubjectivity
and does not carry
at all the same
meanings or even
purpose, intention
or point at all
between the
increasingly
exasperated
participants as
communications
errors frequently
increase and
spiral out of
control, that is, if
only the discrepancy
ever dawns on anyone. Once at
last detected, what
then shall be done
in the event of
communications
failure and
reciprocal
incomprehension?
But
no less than ego,
self and
solitary
reflection
so misguidedly
reviled by all
Mystics,
communications struggle together
also remains
essential in the
human condition.
Because as with
uncertainty most
generally,
communications
errors, failures and
ambiguities are
normal and
inevitable, indeed
indispensable to all
learning,
growth
and
autonomy.
And as with any
other kind of
mistake, ongoing
error detection and
course correction
remains essential. Because
justificationism,
the striving for
firm foundation and
thereby even
relative certainty,
by filtering out or
otherwise preventing
error beforehand,
indeed yes:
including
communications
failures, remains
irresponsible,
disastrously
paralytic,
repressive and
confused. Because
when errors of any
kind inevitably slip
through, what
options does
justificationism
permit? In practice,
only the worst
dysfunction and
acrimony.
Therefore
instead,
as a living
author,
!
remain
ever at your
disposal,
gentle
reader, for
any and all
required or
desired
discussion,
explanation
and
clarification
of content
whatsoever,
for anyone
interested
enough for the effort. Indeed,
effort and
interest of
detailed
editing, actually
combing over
whatever
text
together,
identifying,
locating and
correcting
whatever
communications
errors or ambiguities
as arising
throughout
prose and
composition
herein.
Because,
easy to do but difficult
to do well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work and
never a waste of
time.
And thank you,
gentle reader.
Because
to
quote Karan Gaur:
“Effort is the best indicator of
interest.”
And because
nowadays
more than
ever,
in the
immortal
words of
Simone Weil:
“Attention
is the
rarest and
purest form
of
generosity.”
Indeed perhaps via
asynchronous text
communication,
let us then discuss whatever substantive message content
as yet not readily understood.
No matter what
measures of
clarification taken
beforehand,
fallibility and
mistakes remain
inevitable. And this
includes
communications
failure. But it only takes a little
persistence to ferret out whatever errors or ambiguities
and then improve any texts,
even this one. Indeed, as
shall be seen, such shall
ever remain the cogent
lesson of
needless
real
world
drama.
Indeed, a most
ordinary
probortunity that
(alas because of a
decline in literacy,
what
passes for education,
and a lamentable
wont of
philosophical
habits of clear
thinking), should be
found less daunting
and embraced as more
engaging:
An entirely
manageable problem
redolent with all
manner of golden
opportunity and
growth.
Miscommunication
remains no more
fatal and
irreversible than
any other kind of
mistake. And no less
valuable.
|
-
-
-
-
How best then
persistently to
assist one
another
continually to
bring across and
improve clarity
of initially or
hitherto
howsoever
unclear messages?
-
Barring then
Zen
abject surrender to
Wittgensteinean paralysis,
there
remain at least
three competing general
approaches in
order to
surmount
communications
difficulties:
-
|
|
|
-
1)
To prevail upon
the message
sender, one way
or another, to
communicate more
clearly and
effectively.
-
-
Indeed, all too common
and alas often unhelpful
strategy in what passes
for assistance to
improve another's prose,
may be to fob off the
most general, repeated
and standard writing
advice, so often
misguided, and so
dismissively without
engaging
whatever message in
question, and content
thereof, at all. Or
to point out formal
errors and to cite often
silly rules.
And all in such
uncritical
imitation of all such
pedantry as
whereof we have all been
exposed as dutiful
pupils figuratively set,
metaphorically to jump
through proverbial hoops,
until robotic
proficiency is attained.
Alas,
all of that only goes so
far.
-
-
Worse, a particularly
manipulative
and unscrupulous message
recipient in monumental
bad faith,
may seek
power
over the struggling
message sender, by
blithely refusing to
listen. This toxic
headgame
is named:
The
stone-deaf powerplay.
Or they can tune out
from all thought. And
this may be dubbed:
The stone stupid power
play.
-
-
2)
To prevail upon the
message recipient, one
way or another, to
decode the message more
skillfully and effectively.
-
-
As for example, when a
math teacher asserting
power
and authority,
pressures the
dutifully submissive
student, first to learn
more math, in order thus
better to understand an
equation or math
problem, solve whatever
puzzle, and at last
fully and correctly
comprehend. It remains
however, that any better
pedagogue might be more
helpful, rather than
simply abandoning any
helpless pupil
to their own devices.
For such remain the
evils of
Inductivism.
Not to digress. The
point remaining as to
how
power
relations frequently
remain frustrating,
unilluminating,
oppressive and
counterproductive.
-
-
3)
Or, evidently,
least commonly routine
among alternatives,
for sender and
recipient, without
subtext
or implication of ill
intent and willful
obscurantism, to share
responsibility and strive
together for
clear explanation and
successful
communication. For well
beyond all stubborn and
clueless pedantry, such
remains,
The Way of the
Sympathetic
Copy/Language Editor
or beta reader.
-
-
As indeed
(wait for it!)
perhaps as
allegorically glorified
in the
Science Fiction
motion picture blockbuster:
‘Arrival,’
wherein as rational
actors in all
good faith,
heroes of scientific
discovery,
by
their shining example of
ever redoubled effort,
demonstrate for us all
how to participate in
ongoing
communications
struggle.
Indeed, as
cinematic
rôle
models
by their example
teaching us all how best
to
relate,
human scientists and
outer space aliens as
portrayed on screen,
are seen to
engage
tirelessly together,
persisting for
as long as it takes, in
unflagging and nigh
heroic
communications
struggle.
Persevering indeed, until at last
reaching
Intersubjectivity.
Intersubjectivity
as achieved when the
comprehension of a
message by the
recipient, is at last
brought into closer
correspondence with the
intended message content
of the sender.
Indeed,
in
Socratic
Dialectical
collaboration
among equals.
Because,
writing is like
photography:
Easy
to do, but difficult to
do well. Indeed,
writing is rewriting,
patient
hard work and
never a waste of
time.
|
|
|
Consider
how in troubleshooting the appearance, presentation
or functionality of any webpage or other
hypertext,
just as with software in general, it may be helpful and
necessary to describe, and to answer questions about user
interaction and experience. A narrative sometimes referred
to as:
the user story. In attempting end
usage of whatever system, a website or anything else, what
were you trying to do? What did you do? What result did you
seek? What then actually occurred? What result? Then
together,
Dialectically,
investigation and remedy of whatever technical issues, may
ensue. And
as can be seen, troubleshooting
incomprehension
and/or
miscommunication,
remains actually somewhat similar. In reading and working
your way through whatever body or composition of prose, what
were you trying to do? What did you do? What result did you
seek? What then actually occurred? What was the result?
Then
together,
Dialectically,
investigation and remedy of whatever communications errors
and ambiguities, may ensue.
Obviously, even with the help of the
author, trying to figure out what another struggles to
communicate, by analyzing and correcting whatever errors and
ambiguities, will always be more difficult and require more
effort, then simply reading any corrected version
afterwards. But only via the extra effort of
Socratic
Dialectical
collaborative
miscommunications repair, the means by which lucid and
substantive prose ever arises at all, does lucid prose and
composition arise out from the fundamental
Epistemological
human
condition
of perpetual
communications struggle.
All therein,
easy to do but difficult to do well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
Indeed, how poorly people tend to understand one another,
and often so blithely unawares, bypassing. For bypassing
here means, communication at blithely unaware cross-purpose.
As for example, when different people talking together, use
the same word but unsuspectingly mean entirely different
things.
If only appreciation
might finally dawn on folks, just how extreme and pervasive actually
remains the phenomena of bypassing, and just how little
consensus
there truly is, even upon the most fundamental burning
issues. Only then perhaps the less they might all balk at the
necessary effort and diligence of
Dialectical
collaboration
in ongoing
miscommunication detection and repair, replete with
philosophical habits of clear thinking.
For
bypassing, blithe reciprocally unaware talking at
cross-purpose, is exchange which is not genuine
communication because it lacks sufficient
Intersubjectivity and does not carry at all the same
meanings or even purpose, intention or point at all between
the blithely unsuspecting participants. Hence the aware frustration
at the revelation and realization of communication failure
and reciprocal
incomprehension,
constitutes a giant step forward out from that fools'
paradise of blithe bypassing.
Indeed, improved
Intersubjectivity
is achieved when the comprehension of a
message by the recipient, is brought into closer
correspondence with the intended message content of the
sender. Indeed a desired result which even by itself, often
requires purposeful, interested,
engaged
and adequately attentive and sustained
effort in ongoing
Dialectically
collaborative
miscommunication detection and repair. And alas, if all of
that will be too much to ask, even so as to afford merely
whatever most preliminary discussion any chance at all, then
strategic discourse can only choke, sputter, collapse and
dissipate.
I simply cannot abide helpless ninnies
who dummy up when they don't understand, any more than
flagrant obscurantists who obdurately refuse to help when
they are not understood!
As the saying goes,
no question is too stupid to ask, and no answer too wise to
be given.
Never try to fake it. Don't make do just getting the gist
of things. Whenever you don't understand, please just speak
up! Because, rest assured gentle reader, that you can always
rely upon
me
to do as much for you. Always point out and/or correct
ambiguities, linguistic or otherwise, as ever arising.
Indeed,
I
certainly will. Because:
‘Conversational
Adequacy:
Mistakes are the Essence’
wherein
excellence in
Miscommunication Competence
remains crucial.
For the umpteenth
time, yea blistering blockheads!
And you
know
who you are!
Emphatically, the only way for anyone to help anyone else better
to get across whatever they strive to express and to
communicate, is via
Miscommunication Competence
in ongoing
miscommunication repair,
Dialectically,
wherein indeed
Mistakes are the Essence
towards
excellence in
Miscommunication Competence
so crucial for
conversational adequacy.
Indeed, first for the message recipient to detect and to analyze
whatever ambiguity or confusing error. And then somehow for said
message recipient to convey to the message sender any indication
of whatever in particular as may be, that the message recipient
fails to comprehend, how so and why. Together detecting events
of unfolding communications failure in close cooperation, an
interaction most organic and spontaneous onsite in IRL or even
as telepresent in remote real time voice communication with or
without video.
And never
otherwise!
Indeed,
capable
skill of
Active Reading and Listening
strategy,
so much more
conscious
and deliberately
learned within any medium of
asynchronous text
communication.
Because,
easy to do but difficult
to do well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
-
- It will
be easy simply to assume that speaking, writing, or any
other mode of composition and expression, all remain active,
whereas any such mode of message reception such as reading
or listening, all remain passive and fairy automatic in
decoding whatever message even on the fly. Indeed, such ease
remains for many exactly the ideal and standard of clarity.
And yet, nevertheless,
Active Reading
and listening
are indeed far from passive. Intellectual and interpretive
participation entailing construction of alternative
narratives, imagination and visualization, requires
adjustment of emphasis to suit one's own interests, and
assembly of the story or information into whatever the
cognitive schemata and context that make up one's own
systems of
knowledge
and belief.
Indeed, as
Eve Tushnet expounds in
‘Eros
and Education,’
Eros,
so alluring and enticing
and yet so repellant and threatening, is no complacent and
unquestioningly likeminded
fearfully
conflict avoidant
uncritical
willful positivity
and
superficial harmony, but rather to
the contrary, nothing more or less than
meaningful
depth
of
reciprocal
engagement
and connection traversing into profound alien
difference. — Off guard and drawn in, ideas, experience, new
and uncanny
subjective
perception, the familiar made strange, and the strange
familiar,
Ontology,
Phenomenology, poetical
Axiology,
very identity and all. Indeed,
psychological visibility
that penetrates
psychological asymmetry.
For what then can there ever be the more utterly
subversive and
disruptive than the core
motivation
that is named:
Eros?
Alas then that yet another among that plethora of toxic
headgames,
will be somehow to proffer whatever sort of generic help or
assistance,
criticism
or critique, but without
engagement
with actual content, or evidence of even having even
attempted to read that which one critiques. Thus so innocently
professing help and good intention, even in the act of
sly
invalidation
and
disengagement.
And
tactics thereof include all manner
of
pedantic
irrelevance,
silly
rules, hack and robotic and stock
bad writing advice,
indeed particularly such as all braindead exhortation to
simple writing
style.
Even citation of formal errors, may be no substitute instead for
posing interested questions pertaining to, or pointing out
ambiguity in, actual message content. Alas, to reiterate,
merely complaining
of
incomprehension,
is not even remotely the same thing as actually requesting
clarification and then even paying interested attention to
whatever response.
Indeed, via
pertinent questions as to the subject matter of prose. Whatever
remains ambiguous and not understood. Because only then does actually
relevant
feedback indeed become
possible. But without attentively
relevant
feedback, then
simply left to
guess, one remains likelier to guess wrong. And hence in every
effort at better clarification, only sowing and exacerbating
miscommunication ever all the more.
The point herein to drive home, remains that in order to help
another to revise more clearly, first penetration together of
authorial intent remains key. For the most part, what follows
remains less actually difficult, but rather merely systematic
and even at all somewhat laborious, if only given any
perseverance without balking at the effort, focus and
concentration. In other words, just stick with it and give the
process any sort of a chance!
To receive a message means then to decode it. And the key first
of all, to full
engagement
with message content that
one as yet does not comprehend, ever remains in
Effective
Active Reading
and listening
strategy, after all,
an art.
There is no helping another to communicate more clearly, until
first together gleaning authorial intent, or identifying and
locating specific ambiguity, in whatever the author struggles to
express, even in a short sample text. Such remains
optimally reciprocally
engaged
and involved
collaboration
in
the
Socratic
Dialectic
of
ongoing
miscommunication repair. Only then can specific and
cogent rewrites be suggested. And that goes to the very soul of
cogent and sympathetic copy editing/beta reading and critique.
There are no short cuts.
Because,
easy to do but difficult to do well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
Even simplification without
oversimplification,
remains ever fraught with no end of pitfalls.
And in the abiding consternation of Joe Bob Briggs:
“I
can't believe I still have to explain this!”
Alas, there often remains a certain ethos at hand, of passive
hostility, rigid pedantry and stubborn unhelpful demands of
those one does not already understand and agree with.
And all in rejection of faliblism
or non justificationism, indeed at all of the Hypothetico-deductive
model of ongoing error detection and course correction.
Embracing instead the long debunked yet enduring ideology of
Inductivism:
of certainty attained by somehow avoiding mistakes entirely.
Perhaps indeed serving as misguided inspiration for ceaseless
exhortation only to the most
simple writing
style.
Hence refusal fully to
engage
in
Socratic
Dialectical
collaboration
of miscommunication
repair. From the stubborn and obdurate blithe conviction arising
from ever
shorter attention
span, that no effort
from anyone involved, is actually required in communication or
in thinking in the first place. In a word:
anti-intellectualism.
Not
to dispute with
Marshal McLuhan,
but the content, the
meaningful
substance, the
information and ideas,
of any message, "the
payload" as it where,
all remain distinct from
whatever vehicle, means,
media or format of
communication. And even
if substance is somehow
truly obscured by
whatever fine points of
style and presentation,
even so, substantive
questions regarding
content, will likely
remain more illuminating
than pedantically citing
whatever sort of rule,
established, observable
or for better or worse,
merely invented. Let
alone actually
antagonistic
irrelevant
cross-purposed
soft-flame:
Indeed, whatever
lamentably blithe
persistence and
obsession with form to
such adamant exclusion
and disregard of
substance and content.
Because, no matter
why anything is unclear,
in order then to make
sense, first of all,
statement shall be
required, as to
precisely what is
unclear and how so. And
only then, why. Not to
mention perhaps also
specific location within
whatever text or message
body. Or any specific
question or context
unanswered. Only then,
may different strategies
come to bear, in
resolving whatever
ambiguity then emerging
and revealed.
Question
whatever is not
understood. Such,
there can be no adequate
substitute for close
engagement
with substance of
message content.
One cannot actually help
from any position of
aloof distance and
distain, such toxic
headgames,
ambivalence
and needless
real
world
drama.
Alas then that for for
many, clearly such
reciprocal endeavor as
herein extolled, indeed
Socratic
Dialectical
collaboration
among equals,
over all or in whatever
special case, remains no
less utterly unheard of
and quite inconceivable!
Such willful halfwits
expect and demand of
everything to be simple,
superficial, inattentive
and easy. After all,
they do not care to be
challenged or surprised.
And such remains
short attention
anti-intellectualism:
impatient stupidity as
an ideological lifestyle
choice that can hardly
suffice responsibly for
capable
deliberation together in
serious
fiction writing,
much less business and
project planning in
collaboration
towards
new venture creation
precisely, all precisely
as extolled here on
FoolQuest.com
Because
“The
devil is in the details.”
Alas
antithetically to
all as herein
recommended and
requested, there
prevails at large, a
blithe mentality of peer
pressure, under the
inexplicit yet staunch
conviction that the
competent writer on
their own, must write
correctly off the cuff
and without effort, in
stream of
consciousness,
knowing
and complying with all
what is expected of
them. Entirely different
from any mere
acknowledgement that the
writer remains fallible,
as are we all.
Because, and to
reiterate, easy to do
but difficult to do
well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
Alas, despite ever more
lip service to learning
even only from our
mistakes, nevertheless
and all the more, the
dread of error yet
endures, culturally and
psychologically. Not to
mention lamentable
though blithely
unacknowledged decline
in literacy,
Active Reading and
Listening.
Nor therefore is evoked
any appeal in veneration
to the timeless
disciplines of the
writing craft. Indeed,
such may even be treated
with contempt. Instead
the implication lingers,
that dutiful writers
must cheerfully abide
with the presumable
infallibility of
prevailing fashion and
dumbing
everything down in order
to spare everyone the
dire embarrassment of
learning and
growth.
That is, if any
standards of writing
quality are even
acknowledged at all. For
so the saying goes:
“De gustibus non
disputandum est:”
There is no
disputing tastes.
So much then, for art
appreciation and
critique, which, after
all, remains nothing
other than the perpetual
dispututation of tastes!
Not to digress.
|
Metacognition,
being the primary
focus of cognitive
philosophy,
arguable historical
precursor to
psychodynamic
psychology, only
means any howsoever
at all systematic
conscious
awareness and
introversion into
whatever one's own
thought processes
and patterns.
Metacognition
remains ever crucial
to any self
assessment of
knowledge
and
capability.
And herein
by extension,
linguistic
metacognition
applies to the
identification, both
over all and
line by line, of the
mechanics not merely
of
reading
comprehension, but
of
incomprehension,
of communications
failure and
breakdown, of
specific failure in
linguistic
comprehension of
whatever message
content received,
indeed as ever
arising. Indeed,
beyond grammar, of
syntax, even going
line by line, or in
over all composition
back and forth as
many times as it may
take. And linguistic
metacognition on the
part of both message
senders and message
recipients, remains
ever crucial to
Active
Reading and
Listening
strategies
with
excellence in
Miscommunication
Competence
and
conversational
adequacy
for
whatever
miscommunication
repair,
for
capably
troubleshooting any
whatever
miscommunication
and
incomprehension,
Dialectically.
Alas also, that a
particular and
daunting
linguistic
metacognitive
fallibility
persists, even in
the most sincere
good faith,
in that
subjectively,
whatever intended
message already all
makes such self
perceived seemingly
perfect sense to the
sender.
And all because
after all, the
sender
already
knows,
or believes to
know,
full well, whatever
it is that
the sender
so struggles to
express and to
communicate to
anyone else. And all
even quite aside
from, additionally,
the human tendency
of projection.
Meaning, as with
empathy, to relate
to others indeed
from ones own
condition, but
erroneously. At any
rate, the sender
then, even in
deepest
contemplation alone,
may be rendered
quite blind to any
undetected narrative
gaps.
And after all,
no
writer or speaker
must ever impose
responsibility for
their own expressive
shortcomings, onto
whatever audience so
troubled and put
upon. Yes, all too
true: Every effort
on the part of the
author to write more
clearly, spares
successive readers
needles aggravation.
Such trouble spared
even perhaps by any
somewhat
inconsiderate
writer, even from
antiquity, accrues
multiplied struggle
and needless
irritation for any
such future readers,
even across the
ages, unto the
present day.
It's never easy.
|
Worse,
what constitutes vital
context for one, perhaps
personage as yet
entirely unacquainted or
even as yet unborn
denizen of whatever far
flung tomorrow, amounts
to belaboring of the
obvious, for another no
less worthy. Vexingly,
whatever needs of any
known
or unknown
immediate or future
recipients of whatever
message, even moment by
moment let alone across
ages of changing times, often remain
such a mystery.
And let alone actually
disagreement. Not to
digress. All hence
ongoing
communications struggle
not
just by trial and error,
but
persistent
critical thinking
and
analysis, remains no
anomaly, but entirely
normal and even salutary
to
the
human condition
and salvation from
self-absorbed
bored,
lonely
and impatient
short attention
into passion, interest
and effort.
Only shopworn and well
familiar old ideas are
certain always to come
across effortlessly. The
clear and concise mainstay of science and
philosophy
whereupon we all rely,
was once the cutting
edge of challenging
thought. The well
familiar clear and concise
great
ideas whereupon
we all rely, are
often, historically, the
product of brilliant
minds in lifetimes of
boiling it all down,
volume by volume, page
by page, line by line,
word by word.
Again, easy
to do but difficult to
do well,
writing is rewriting,
hard work
and
never a waste of time.
And to always get it right
the first time, say very
little and dare nothing
new.
For again to
quote Karan Gaur:
“Effort is the best
indicator of interest.”
And as we
each and all find ourselves
ensnared in an overstressed
attention economy,
attention ever spread so
very thin;
indeed to quote Herbert
Simon:
“What
information consumes is
rather obvious: it consumes
the attention of its
recipients. Hence a wealth
of information creates a
poverty of attention, and a
need to allocate that
attention efficiently among
the overabundance of
information sources that
might consume it.”
In the words then, of Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe:
“Things
which matter most must never
be at the mercy of things
which matter least.”
And thank
you gentle reader.
Because nowadays more than
ever,
in the immortal words of
Simone Weil:
“Attention
is the rarest and purest
form of generosity.”
And
once
at last prose and
composition are rendered
adequately lucid,
good faith
authorial responsibility
shall be well discharged and
fulfilled.
Attacking
writing style,
composition and even somehow
thereby
character
Ad Hominem, while
simply ignoring substantive
content or evading pointed
criticism, used to be
the favored stock
diversionary
soft-flame
pseudoengagement
tactic in order to
sidestep ideas and
information of which,
actually, the reviewer
somehow disapproves. Then
eventually howsoever faulty
webdesign eventually
supplanted politically
objectionable
writing style
and composition as the
favored
red
herring.
It's always
something!
According to
Quote Investigator, in
the words not
as misattributed
to Alexander
Butcher himself merely
quoting, but of George
Orwell no less:
"If liberty means anything
at all, it means the right
to tell people things they
do not want to hear.”
So
let the reader
own their own emotions.
And
quite without any
authorial obligation of
pandering
thereto. Let
alone
slavery to
dullardly precept
of only the most
simple writing
style,
indeed even
at the level of a
small child or a
moron.
That obdurate reduction has
never been, nor will
ever be,
the be all and end all.
Again,
any
serious
author retains
every right
and bears full
responsibility of
explicitly seeking
and specifying
precisely whatever
manner and kind of
feedback as they
themselves perceive
the need and as most
helpful and
relevant. Indeed
rejecting all such
seemingly innocent
tar babies and
fashionable
anti-intellectual
hack
bad writing advice
as the
only
way, be all and end
all.
All in all,
entirely sans any
truly literate
appreciation of
meaningful
depth
and complexity, and
entirely without
empathy or regard
towards authorial
intent.
A
tasteless
ill considered
doctrine.
What
then can possibly be so wrong
merely with anything seemingly so innocuous as
advocating
simple
writing style?
Plenty.
Is
then
simple
writing style
merely a means to an
end after all, or
actually an end in
and of itself, a
proverbial sacred
cow beyond all
admissible reproach
or substitution?
Because if
simple
writing style
remains only a
perfectly sensible
means to improve
writing clarity,
then just perhaps,
simple
writing style
is only one
possible strategy
among any number of
entirely viable
strategies and
alternative for
quality and clarity
in writing. Of
which, barring sheer
dogmatism, the
various merits each
whereof, might be
compared under
varying
circumstances, in
order best to choose
among them, as ever
suitable, case by
case. Indeed, just
to the contrary,
what about actually
enriching the
exploration
and emphasis
of prose, even with
the most needles
ornament and
stylistic flourish,
indeed as have the
educated citizens
and
Literary masters
in days of yore?
Indeed, merely consider the
previous sentence:
It runs a little
long, yet remaining
well balanced.
In the
English language, we
never use five words
when eight will do!
Of course, the point
remaining that
neither
stylistic
opposite
negates the need for
coherent feedback to
the actual text, to
content, rather than
inattentive and
obliviously dogged
fixation upon
blockheaded empty
generalities.
Cretin regurgitation
of all litany, all
such correct
rightthink, remains
no fit substitute to
be fobbed off for
the effort
whatsoever at fully
engaged
and
relevant
cogent
critique or even
beta reading and
copy editing.
To reiterate,
Anti-Critical Bias
ever remains
toxic to any worthy
endeavor. Indeed, a
writer who never
exchanges critique,
is no writer at all,
indeed barely even a
dilettante. And thin
skinned writing
communities that
spurn critique,
generally amount to
bogus support groups
for
cosplaying as
writers. The very
term:
'critique'
after all, remains
merely a fancy
French word for
criticism.
And the
Socratic
Dialectical
practice of
controversy
remains the
welcome and invited
exchange of
criticism.
For
frank and open
criticism
remains
nothing hostile or
threatening, but
inherently
friendly,
an effort and
expression of
abiding
respect
and
autonomy
support.
Only that
relevant
criticism needs
to be attentive and
coherent.
|
In response, post
to the
for
others to weigh in, orif
it's private. |
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the downside
-
Caveat:
Is the
FoolQuest.com
opportunity,
Creativity Should be
Social
the right thing for you?
-
WARNING:
If all of this is quite simply too difficult just to read and
discuss,
-
then
how will be any
easier to follow through and
accomplish??!
-
-
Ask yourself:
What do I want, and what will it take?
-
And what
what can I be happy doing about it?
-
Are you
interested? And why
should you be? Why, for
for my own grand
purposes, of course!
-
-
In truth
however, people who
actually
relate to any content to be
discovered here on
FoolQuest.com,
tend to find interest entirely for whatever their own reasons,
intrinsic
motives
under
whatever their situation
at the time. Stylistic complaint, as traditionally leveled against
writing style or as common
nowadays against webdesign, is a common diversionary tactic instead of
acknowledging, addressing and directly confronting politically incorrect
content. And catering thereto is a waste of time accruing scorn only all the
more.
But
interested readers
don't even notice such trivialities as my admittedly terrible webdesign. Indeed,
they may actually even appreciate my evocative prose. And they don't complain
about making the effort, but actually appreciate the rhizomatic richness of
information, yes the very density of the prose and even the
writing style, my
authorial
voice.
-Not arbitrary stylistic difficulty, but readably intelligent treatment of
complicated ideas and substantive subject matter for an interested and
cooperative reader. That is the target audience for whom the content
significantly raises signal from out of the noise, rather than only drowning a
fading signal amid all the more noise. Alas, for people who aren't really
interested, its all noise regardless. Those who can think for themselves are
often best understood by others likewise capable. But can we work together?
Simply enjoying reading does not guarantee any shared purpose or
vision, much
less effort in common cause. Especially not in the face of
taboo.
-
-
Responsibly thinking
for oneself about such proposal as the one at hand, prompts larger questions:
What is desired? What then becomes the
objective?
Is it feasible? How so? And what
action
shall be required of oneself?
-
-
In that
light, how unreasonably demanding is
FoolQuest.com, truly? If there is an
easier course to
success
than first of all, simply paying attention, and not just more snake oil, then
I
don't
know it. Snake oil is
simplistic. Reality generally turns out the more complicated, not less, and often
daunting. But we can talk it over. By first taking and defining our positions
anywhere on the scale or desired outcome and expectedly necessary effort, we can
hope to move towards common ground. Let us consider that perhaps any correlation
might be expected between organization, performance and results, first of all
with the caliber of planning out from the sustained quality of discourse before
hand. But those who reject such endeavor as hopeless, will never see any point
in the effort and only resent the very idea and all false hope,
expressing their resentment in triviality and disrespect.
Good students are
enthusiastic. They join together into study groups on their own time. They are
brownnosing eager goody two-shoes approval seekers, chomping at the bit to
perform every dullardly fools errand put before them, hence often slyly despised
by the other students, anything but enthusiastic, indeed, actually self-loathing
and bitter in our oppression. But search the web, and alas, study groups are not
found in any other context but schooling,
formal education, what passes for education, in ever much the same
heteronymous
preparation for drone like travail,
eager and grumbling alike, marked all for our stations in life.
Have they then forever
destroyed our capacity for initiative and
collaboration? Do not the oppressed
fathom that we are at war with our condition of oppression, in whatever guise
that oppression assumes, and whatever form that struggle for real freedom,
autonomy
supported by
capability,
may take? Prisoners of war, naturally skeptical towards the authority of their
captivity, defy slave mentality and form escape comities, ever planning,
preparing and finally taking serious
action. So where then are the study groups
and research think tanks of the rebellion, the escape committees from the rat-race? That is who
I write this website for, if they will have
me.
-
“Free
Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow.”
—
George Clinton
So if you must whine,
then at least whine
honestly! Stymied and
intimidated by big words? Really? Bah, humbug! Stand up! Get serious!
In our
arsenal we shall maintain the two taboo
values
of intellectual
autonomy,
that cannot be taken until they are willfully surrendered: Open ended and free
ranging conjecture, speculation
only afterward subject to
critical preference
via
controversy
which is the free exchange of
criticism. But such is abstraction. And therefore serious planning demands
the violation of yet a third taboo actually
against bridging
the distant and abstract with the proximate and practical.
Yes, t he actual
taboo upon
strategic planning:
And what can ever become more toxic than the great divide, sheer failure of imagination, between passive lofty philosophical
inquiry,
inert and never building strategy much less taking action, and practical
discussion willfully and woefully uniformed by abstract reasoning or background
research, and therefore unteachably condemned
only to the most rash, simplistic and misguided action? Riddle me this:
When is the concrete abstract? Answer: Whenever reasoning is argued. All
sound practical consideration resorts to abstract principle, just as all
sound abstract reasoning must be informed by
Empirical
practicality. Otherwise, positions become arbitrary. And it happens all the
time!
A begged
question ever obtaining as to the requisite level of communication to all of lofty ambition
as herein. Not to digress, however.
In the words of George
Orwell:
“The main
motive
for 'nonattachment' is a desire to escape from
the pain of living, and above all from love, which,
sexual or non-sexual
is
hard work.”
Indeed, even
by the present juxtaposition thereby recontextualizing the words of Sophocles:
“Without labor
nothing prospers.”
As
misattributed to Thomas
Alva
Edison:
“Recognizing opportunity is so difficult for most people
because it goes around disguised in overalls, looking like
hard work!”
In the words of Theodore Roosevelt:
“I don't pity
any man who does
hard work
worth doing. I admire him.” And in
the words of Henry Ford:
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is
probably the reason so few
engage
in it.”
Although, to quote Elon Musk:
“No matter how
hard you work, someone else is working harder.”
Or just perhaps thinking and
even loving that much harder! Is then even reading this webpage and responding
actually so terribly difficult thinking? And in comparison to what available
alternatives and to what end? What experience or result?
As the Yiddish saying
goes: “If
hard work
was so wonderful, the rich would keep it all for
themselves.” And indeed, when it is, they do! And pay and/or charge a pretty
penny for the privilege.
Not just lifestyle
entrepreneurship,
meaning greater
fulfillment
and job satisfaction,
coming in trade off at
sacrifice of even
quantifiable maximum
profitability, but
instead of merely going
on vacation, actually
paying a fee for the
pleasurable
transient experience of
ones own dream job!
Indeed, to quote Anthony Marra:
“Work isn’t
meaningful
just because you spend your life doing it.”
After all, in the words of J.M.
Barrie:
“Nothing is
really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”
Or to quote:
Maxim Gorky:
“When work is
pleasure, life is joy! When work is a duty, life is slavery.”
And that may
certainly apply no less to any natural preference towards thinking about
anything else less dystressing. And so, is the
infliction of whatever such supposed reading and thinking difficulty at hand
upon the reader, simply well avoidable by
the author? Is it all my fault? Or might
it be the
agenda
at hand, in and of itself, life itself being at all so difficult? Or is the
agenda
at hand so
boring? Therefore, can we
please just get serious: What else should be of so much greater concern, why and
how so?
All manner of demands and conditions are placed upon the
individual in life, especially as pertaining to specific endeavors, often
needlessly and unreasonably or even quite detrimentally. But there are also
conditions that are reasonably imposed only by circumstances and of actual
necessity. It's all a question of what will actually be required in order to
achieve whatever ends.
And as the saying goes:
"No question is
too stupid to be asked and no answer is too wise to be given."
Conversation
ought not be impoverished by restriction to the clear and familiar.
The question is
of the author's responsibility to their readers. -Of the clarity of the text,
the effort on the part of the author beforehand to spare the readers any
repetition of needless and wasteful aggravation ever after.
I
am not an obscurantist! But over simplification is distortion, not
clarification. Fortunately,
I
am a living author on the Web.
I
am free to continually revise from substantive
criticism.
I
am never bound to abandon my prose as finished and deathless, as were the
printed authors of olden days and pre-electronic darkness!
And what a blessing: The communication and construction of new
ideas is ever a struggle, reciprocally. Therefore failure of comprehension
should not be a conversation killer, but indeed the most
meaningful
conversation starter, often surprising, sometimes frightening. To that noble
end, it is always possible to offer, at the very least, copy editing remarks for
clarification of any ambiguity in syntax and composition, and beyond such,
analysis of concepts as may ever seem howsoever muddled or vague. Even
disapproval begs question all the more so of why! The
reciprocal
engagement in
criticism
that makes for
controversy,
is the very opposite of both the maliciously empty hostility of
flaming
and of the irresponsible denial
so
characteristic of vague hand waving and
pipedreaning.
Critical thinking tools of
Dialectic
include:
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ow to use
FoolQuest.com
and for whom...
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As Marshall McLuhan
would have it:
“The
medium is the message.”
Indeed,
the massage
in the
mass age! For
pervading characteristics of
whatever medium
constitute message
in their own right,
easily overlooked.
Indeed as Marshal
McLuhan further
expounds, artifacts of
media, not to be
overlooked, do indeed
effect and affect any
society and shape
perception by their
unique characteristics.
As any society's
values,
norms and methods
inevitably become
changed by technology,
social implications of
new media emerge. Indeed
such as asynchronous
asynchronous text
communication and
hypertext.
What then reveals itself
as the inherent message
at the very essence of
asynchronous text
communication and
hypertext? And
all to
what impact upon
Dialectical
collaboration, so
fundamental to
Eudemonia?
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-
For characteristics of
whatever medium constitute message in their own
right, easily overlooked.
Indeed as
Marshal McLuhan further expounds, artifacts of media, not to be overlooked, do
indeed effect and affect any society and
shape perception by their unique
characteristics. As any society's
values,
norms and methods inevitably become changed by
technology, social implications of new media
emerge.
- Question
then: What commitment is
sought for or entailed, even quite simply by reading and responding
indeed via
asynchronous text
communication to
the
hypertext
which is
FoolQuest.com?Answer:
Initially, nothing so demanding. No Herculean chore of voluminous
and comprehensive cult scholarship. Find anything of interest? Then
please just begin, gentle reader, with anything at all specifically
on topic for ensuing discussion. Let's talk!
Taking it from there, a most welcome commitment should one so to
chose, might be in simply to continue and to hold up ones end of
conversation even in accord howsoever with individual
motivation and interest.
But a more difficult question must arise eventually, if all goes
well: What will be the nature of whatever necessary commitment in
order to carry out whatever myriad difficult projects together, as
proposed herein, for anyone so inclined?
-
- In that light, the voluminously
comprehensive content of
FoolQuest.com
as might be taken as so daunting to the casual website visitor, in
context of
agenda
and ambition or aspiration, barely scratches the surface. And this
should become obvious. Should we so choose, our work will be cut out
for us. Should the very discussion thereupon then be summarily
relegated to socially awkward thoughtcrime and
taboo? The even forbidden question
then, becomes one of feasible expectations. And what question can
there be of greater practical import to high aspiration? It's
daunting and complicated. What the Hell does anyone expect? The
learning curve will be steep. Anyone who makes it all sound simple
and easy is deluded,
dishonest, or both! And anyone dismissing all as impossible
and therefore trivial, can be no less toxic. And anyone without
anticipation, and foreseeing no gratification, should be seeking
elsewhere. Because perhaps the most important result from all
deliberation in
feasibility study, in business or project planning
and
brainstorming,
may be the dawning realization of the impractical, unfeasible, or
any disapointing danger of utter vexation and just no
fun. But not to jump the
gun:
-
- How then does one read? How does one breath? You are
doing it! Five minutes of full focus will decide
more than a life time grumbling halfhearted
short attention.
FoolQuest.com
is not another casually banal
short attention website,
trivializing
anti-intellectual
(anti)social
media
and ever more
stupid smart phones grinding all of human thought and interaction
down into concise and empty pabulum, out of context
oversimplification, sterile, innocuous, safe and bland, yet
frightening and disorienting, that has become such staple of
veritably hypnotic algorithm driven adamant common expectation
online.
Are you intelligent,
misunderstood,
bored
and
lonely?
Because
FoolQuest.com
only strives at serious content for serious people.
FoolQuest.com
strives to achieve the very antithesis of
alienating
braindead
(anti)social
media
and blithe ideology ever stoked by
empty and provocative clickbait algorithms.
FoolQuest.com
is an intentional
outreach
for
collaboration
cofounder candidates, in something new and unprecedented.
At least those
pleasurably
entertained, hence paradoxically more serious yet taking themselves less seriously,
may
therefore find whatever topics more
engaging here on
FoolQuest.com.
And there will be no information overload, for those
who devour content and
knowledge resource
because they find themselves intensely interested,
motivated
and engrossed in whatever they perceive as being
most
meaningful
to urgent personal concern and
crisis
with which we all perpetually find ourselves so ceaselessly embroiled,
and grapple
ever
tenaciously every day. Because when the going gets
tough, nerds work the problem! For such remains
real
world
drama,
wherein complexity draws us in, no less than in
fiction. Indeed, anyone at
all finding themselves at all the less consumed, however yet
remaining capably
autonomous,
may yet navigate this very
hypertext for themselves
and find their own way, quite without
Totalitarian
Interactivity leading them safely about by the nose.
Further more, no one will be put
off by
writing style,
even however rich and complex,
that resonates personally. However there can be no
guarantees, and your mileage may vary.
But quite aside
from variable reader disposition and satisfaction,
all things to all people, indeed as to any palpable
thrust of specific authorial intent,
here on
FoolQuest.com there remains nothing less at stake in such
desperately sought for
collaboration
among equals
taking
action
together, than literally the most
important
known
intrinsic
social and intellectual human needs and
stimulus
appetites,
so vastly and catastrophically underserved in our
Existentially
Absurd
empty lives. And all indeed in accordance with the
ancient wisdom of the greatest sages of old, as rediscovered under the very cutting edge of modern
science. And so, gentle
reader,
can you
relate?
Are you overwhelmed, but in a good way? Am
I your
unmet
friend?
To wit,
in human interaction, what communication can there
be
more readily
fulfilling of creativity,
imagination and
subversive
transgression and rebellion than story crafting
and
counterpropaganda
together? And in all of narrative, what
vision
can there be more alluring than that of business or
project planning, bringing to bear the
power
of comrades in struggle summoning forth and taking the
reigns of one's own destiny in disruptive
innovation?
Or shall we settle for anything less?
Alas that so far as execution, not everyone is very good
at recruitment let alone implementation of group
projects all from scratch. Indeed to begin with,
some such notions are better, more fully planned,
fleshed out and
more practical than others. And so, gentle reader,
you show me yours and I'll show you mine! Let's
compare notes, gentle readers, and together begin
undertaking no mere fireside
pipedream,
but the steady
hard work
at our own pace,
of rigorously
uncompromising
honest
feasibility study so crucial to joy and
success. The key remains, that creativity
must no longer isolate brilliance.
Creativity can and
Should be Social.
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