On the importance of a bland and deadly courtesy
From Gaudy Night, chapter one, Phœbe and Harriet:
I'm reading Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language and having trouble getting into it, which puzzles me because both the subject matter and the conceit (88 translations of a French poem from 1537, wound round with Hofstadterian essays, and yes, the echo of iumonna gold galdre bewunden was deliberate) sound absolutely my kind of thing.
Still trying to understand that, though the book has already paid for itself by prompting me to get hold of Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, which is quite probably the best book I've read this year.
But Hofstadter is currently lambasting an article by John Searle, and yes, it looks like Searle's article is intellectually dishonest, but the hyperbolic invective creeping into Hofstadter's tone is off-putting. You can hear the tone of incredulous disbelief in his words, and it distracts -- and suddenly I understand that quip in Gaudy Night about a bland and deadly courtesy being more devastating. Hofstadter isn't weakening the truth of his argument, but he is weakening the impact of his argument by descending into the lists and taking a swing. He may have felt goaded into it, but it's a danger. Like some parts of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion: I may agree absolutely with the point that he's making, but his tone makes me feel awkwardly that there must have been a way of expressing it which wouldn't alienate part of the audience.
"...He's writing a paper that contradicts all of Lambard's conclusions, and I'm helping by toning down his adjectives and putting in deprecatory footnotes. I mean. Lambard may be a perverse old idiot, but it's more dignified not to say so in so many words. A bland and deadly courtesy is more devastating, don't you think?"
"Infinitely."
I'm reading Douglas Hofstadter's Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language and having trouble getting into it, which puzzles me because both the subject matter and the conceit (88 translations of a French poem from 1537, wound round with Hofstadterian essays, and yes, the echo of iumonna gold galdre bewunden was deliberate) sound absolutely my kind of thing.
Still trying to understand that, though the book has already paid for itself by prompting me to get hold of Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, which is quite probably the best book I've read this year.
But Hofstadter is currently lambasting an article by John Searle, and yes, it looks like Searle's article is intellectually dishonest, but the hyperbolic invective creeping into Hofstadter's tone is off-putting. You can hear the tone of incredulous disbelief in his words, and it distracts -- and suddenly I understand that quip in Gaudy Night about a bland and deadly courtesy being more devastating. Hofstadter isn't weakening the truth of his argument, but he is weakening the impact of his argument by descending into the lists and taking a swing. He may have felt goaded into it, but it's a danger. Like some parts of Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion: I may agree absolutely with the point that he's making, but his tone makes me feel awkwardly that there must have been a way of expressing it which wouldn't alienate part of the audience.