[lit-ideas] Re: On Nip Thievery
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:09:31 -0700 (PDT)
Everything is whatever people agree it is; the earth was flat because
everybody said it was, racial superiority, religion, history.
Everything is because everybody says it is. And if somebody
says something isn't the way everybody says it is (democracy is on the march,
GW), they're deemed unpatriotic, the fringe, etc. etc. Humans are
lemmings...
--- On Fri, 6/6/08, John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
From: John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On Nip Thievery
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Friday, June 6, 2008, 2:47 AM
Just to do my bit toward driving everyone crazy, allow me to offer a Trick of
the Trade (the trade being sociology) suggested by Howard Becker in a book with
that title (and, by the way, a lot better written than a lot of what passes for
literature).
Literature is....drum roll...whatever people agree it is. Since literature is
an only partially professionalized field (there are academic departments but no
legal sanctions), agreement is rare and no one has enforceable authority to
impose one. Purported definitions thus count as no more than moves in
intellectual struggles whose outcome remains unresolved. No agreement, no
definition, the game may be fun but not to be taken too seriously.
John
(Hunkered down in an air-conditioned house in hot, steamy Corpus Christi,
Texas, waiting on the imminent birth of grandchild No. 2)
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