Hey, I'm pretentious

[HEyHEY]

Oh yes... I am. Or at least that was what my roomies came to as a conclusion based on our argument. I Argued that Tom Clancy and J.K. Rowling aren't as good as Dostoevsky. I said, The first two may be good story tellers and have a decent imagination. But they don't really have an impact on society and unlike the latter, don't have anything about their actual WRITING that makes them special.

Then I attempted to make a comparison between Bob Dylan and Blink 182, I said Dylan's songs had deep meaning, where Blink is just kinda shallow feel good tunes for fun.

I was given the argument, "What about 'Adam's song, it may not mean something to you, but what if someone didn't kill themselves because of it?" Then the got into the "subjective viewpoint" argument.

Subjectivity is an excuse people use for being worthless artists, musicians, writers.

Your thoughts?

EDIT: You know, sometimes it's REALLY hard not to yell incoherrent stuff at people.

[Skittles]

1. can't stand Rowling OR Clancy

no argument from me

[democracyindanger]

2. Were you surprised that your roommates

know a big word like "pretentious"?

How to write a Tom Clancy book:
1) Get a copy of Jane's Military Aircraft
2) White-out half of the punctuation and all of the pictures
3) Put your name on it
4) Ta-da!

[HEyHEY]

3. The thing that made me laugh

And I don't wanna get down on the roomies...cause they are great people. But I made mention of Hunter Thompson. One says "The only reason you think he's so great is because everyone in journalism school raved about him." I laughed because I'd never heard anyone talk about him then. THen I was insulted, that's basically calling me an idiot who can make up his own mid.

I should add this is the girl who said a friend of mine seemed "Sheltered." Now, this friend runs a brothel, lived in the middle east, and has travelled the world, plus holds a degree and currently lives in East Vancouver. - He's 25, somehow this 21-year-old fresh outta university girl thinks she can call HIM sheltered...

oy!

[democracyindanger]

6. God save us from

the know-it-all-ness of 21-year-old coeds. :P

[HEyHEY]

7. No doubt

Can't wait until she hits 25 and realizes how dumb she sounded at 21

[tigereye]

41. wait 20 years and then see how smart you sounded

;)

[Der Blaue Engel]

4. You're a liberal elitist, is what you are

I bet you even like James Joyce's Ulysses. And I bet you only like it just to feel superior.

Next you're going to tell us that filet mignon is somehow better meat than a McDonald's hamburger.

And you know why? You hate America.

Edited for Bush-IQ-level think-o (rather than a typo, cuz I thunk it incorrectly)

(Edited again because I can't even spell so I should just shut up and go to bed.)

[HEyHEY]

5. That was almost what their argument was

"Oh, you're just jaded with all pop culture."

YES I AM CAUSE IT SUCKS

[eleonora]

8. right on!

I couldn't agree more, with all the crap I hear/see today. At the used music store I go to the bargain bin of the used CDs, believe it or not, that's where I find diamonds in the rough, and I'm glad people are too stupid and taken by pop music to notice them.

[HEyHEY]

9. That's true - were it not for such stupidty

I wouldn't have found Bob Dylan's Nashville skyline in good condition on Vinyl.

[NuttyFluffers]

10. it almost worked until you put in james joyce.

for i despise the man and his writing.

i also despise faulker.

but if you said dante or henry james... i'd be with you all the way.

[drhilarius]

13. I'm close to thrashing you in the name of Quentin Compson....

and Stephen Daedelus

[NuttyFluffers]

14. you can kiss my baudilaire :p

:P
:+

[drhilarius]

15. Yeah! Well lick my Balzac!

:evilgrin:

[NuttyFluffers]

53. i'll spank your dumas first!

:spank:
:evilgrin:
:+

you're such a dastardly villon... francois villon.

[HEyHEY]

16. Hey, the Dubiners was good - I like Ulysses too

[Tyrone Slothrop]

32. I can maybe understand being put off by Joyce's writing

It's certainly not for all tastes(although I will go on record as saying that Ulysses is the best piece of writing from the last 200 years, IMHO, and will probably hold that ranking in my mind till the day I die), but what is it about Joyce himself that bothers you?

I read (most of) Ellman's excellent biography on him a few years back and am curious as to what makes you dislike the man's actual character.

[NuttyFluffers]

52. nah don't care about actual character

put off by the writing. kinda like how william s. boroughs did absolutely nothing for me even though he's praised from all angles. i tried to read his biography and then a few of his stories... nothing, absolutely nothing. couldn't bother finishing.

same thing with james joyce. i end up throwing the books halfway across the room.

but then, not everything praised suites all. like milton's paradise lost (gag).

[Bouncy Ball]

44. Ulysses??? BLECH.

(And I have a degree in English. Yech, yech, yech. Or am I thinking of Sound and Fury? Or all of Milton's works? Probably all of the above, LOL!)

[theorist]

11. I've been there.

I've read a lot of Thomas Pynchon, and have been called pretentious for it. I try to explain that, although it's difficult to read, the language is just so beautiful and fun to get lost in. Amazing stuff. I just don't get that kind of satisfaction with pop authors.

I always come to the conclusion that we will all be dead and forgotten someday, so just find what you like and stick to it, explore it. If you know you're going to hate the next Ann Rice novel or Staind (sp? hehe...) album, don't buy it. Don't even borrow it.

There's so much good, accessible music and literature from the last couple centuries (at least). If you're a curious enough person, you'll search out what you like. Since we have such a great perspective on the popular culture we live in, is that we know "intuitively" what's crap and what's not. I don't think that's a pretentious stance to take.

[drhilarius]

12. Read a lot of Pynchon? Recognize my name?...

Finally, another Pynchon man! When people ask me who I read, and I tell them Thomas Pynchon, I am met with a blank stare. It absolutely kills me, because Pynchon I probably America's greatest living writer.
Seriously, the entire works of Anne Rice or Tom Clancy do not equal the first sentence of "Gravity's Rainbow".

If liking Pynchon makes you pretentious, then fuck it, I'm pretentious.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

31. I'm a little familiar with Pynchon myself

Ahem.

<pointing up to my name>

[redqueen]

17. If they want to talk subjective taste, then

you might as well not waste your time.

Yeah, people can like what most can readily identify as crap. Big woop. Doesn't change the fact it's still pretty much just crap.

[Wat_Tyler]

18. Good attitude to take.

So much of our modern culture is shit.

[HEyHEY]

19. Try telling them that

I don't like to think people are dumb, especially friends.... but sometimes...

[tigereye]

46. I think it is a function of what you have been exposed to

comparatively. I have a BA in English Lit., so I had to read a lot of old-school, classic writers - Tolstoy, Voltaire, Woolf, Doestoevsky, DH Lawrence, lots of poetry, non-Western writers, etc. So my tolerance for a lot of what ends up on the Bestseller list ( and often good stuff does) is rather thin. But that said, I also like mysteries and the Harry Potter books that we read to my kid, so I don't begrudge people enjoying pop culture in all its forms.

It's kind of like how I feel about commercial radio - I feel sad that so many people never hear the wealth of great music that I was exposed to on non-commercial radio. Commercial radio only gives you the tip of the iceberg, and I suppose mass market culture and paperbacks, etc. do the same.

[hunter]

34. Sturgeon's Law...

To put it in your profane terms, "Ninety percent of everything is shit."

It's not just a phenomena of "modern culture."

Every culture is shit. Your parents' culture was shit, your grandparents' culture was shit, and so on... going all the way back to the beginnings of human culture.

In any case, everyone is pretentious in some way. The very most pretentious pricks on this planet are the ones who pretend they are not pretentious.

The common man is ninety percent full of shit. So is the uncommon man.

You can easily work your way up on the shit scale to become an uncommon one hundred percent full-of-shit "common" man like George W. Bush, and lots of people do that, but it is very difficult to move down the other way the shit-scale.

If you are only eighty percent full of shit people will celebrate you.

Unfortunately this celebration immediately brings most people back up to the ninety percent shit level. Some sweet young woman asks you to autograph her naked breasts, and the next thing you know she is in your apartment, and the press is hovering around outside your door like hungry vultures, and you've accepted a guest spot on "The Simpsons."

Ah well, don't pay any attention at all to me. I'm as full of shit as anyone, and maybe more so, now that I've mentioned it.

[Patiod]

50. And it makes it harder to read crap, in comparison

I was traveling, and had Russell Banks' "Sweet Hereafter". Finished it up, and picked up some piece of junk I had picked up in the airport. It probably wouldn't have been great to read, but it was worse trying to read it after finishing something by Banks.

[miss_kitty]

20. Pretentious? VOUS?

:P

[SOteric]

21. I see it your way, dude.

You're not pretentious,* your roommates are boneheads.







* Well, not for this reason anyway...maybe for those designer shoes you wear.

[HEyHEY]

22. What bugs me the most

Is how she tried to say I only like certain writers because everyone in college did. That fucking pissed me off, because I've always taken a step back to look and be sure I'm not doing that. Then made an honest evaluation.

[SOteric]

24. Mark Twain said

"The greatest regret of a liar is not that no one ever believes him; it's that he can never believe anyone else."

This is a truism that crosses many facets of life, not merely observations on the lie. We all hold ourselves as the primary yardstick of human behaviour when we judge others.

In other words, no one can ever actually tell you anything about you. They can only tell you about themselves. You know your opinions are well-thought out, often examined and tested. We all know it here on DU as well. You can't have posted so long on this website without a well-considered opinion and the ability to re-examine it.

She's likely judged in you her own failings.

[HEyHEY]

63. hmmm

"You can't have posted so long on this website without a well-considered opinion and the ability to re-examine it."

Are you insulting me? ;-)

[HEyHEY]

23. Good epilogue

The two work together and I'm friends with their co-workers. I just KNOW they'll tell them about the argument. ANd I also know their co-workers will totally agree with me and even continue the argument with them. And both of them are more articulate than me, so they're really gonna get nuked.

[bobbobbins]

25. I get called pretentious alot by my friends

I can't help it that they like crap. I'm just vocal about my opinion, and its hard for me to understand why people don't broaden their horizons and dig deeper into topics that interest them. You ask someone what they like to do...alot of people say, oh, I love to watch movies...then you ask what kind of movies, and they throw a bunch of stupid crap at you...I'm of the school of thought that if its something you enjoy, then you want to take it to the next level. some people just want to shut off their brains, but for me, i always want to be thinking...it comes down to, do you want a cerebral experience or a vacuous one, And sadly some people choose the latter.

[Ramsey]

26. For what it's worth

I agree with you 100%. I don't think it's pretentious to belivee that some artists or authors are greater artisans than others. Your comparisons shouldn't have even illicited an argument in that regard.

Quite honestly, your rommates sound a bit ignorant.

[DS1]

27. DS1, covertly hiding in his work office, pressed the submit button and

set off a chain of events that for years would have never been possible.

From the moment his combat-scarred fingertip dutifully applied more than .618 ( Dell were always fond of the Golden Mean ) pounds of pressure on the laptop's left surrogate mouse button, electrons leaped into action. Racing across the EMP hardended circuity before being 128-bit encrypted and compressed for wireless transfer to the Gigibit Cisco System switch like a Mike TV of the 21st century, his sarcastic Tom Clancy slam was instantly available for the world the same instant the recieving server in a secret location outside of Washington, D.C. authenticated his ID and password and checked for cynical snarkiness within his typical tolerances.

mmmm, Clancy techo-masturbation :eyes:

[Schema Thing]

29. lol. perfect.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

35. Awesome n/t

[redqueen]

37. Nicely done

:thumbsup:

Actually it's even better than the real thing, becuase at least this is funny.

[hunter]

39. "Cooking your balls under a laptop..."

You really need to hang out with some hard-core geek women. They'll cure you of "Clancy tecno-masturbation" real quick.

[eyepaddle]

56. Oooh wow, that'sdead on!

You must have read the Sum of All Fears. However, all of you Clancy bashers are really missing out. You need to check out Dale Brown. Man that shit was so tiresome I nearly lost my mind it's about an order of magnitutde more technical and abou twenty times more militaristic that Tom's stuff. I shit you not.

I read about two-thirds of one Brown's books once (it's a long story, but let's just say I was REALLY bored and there was one lying around. I just can't stop compared to Dale Brown, Clancy's dialogue is witty and subtle, and his characters are vibrant and nuanced, and not in the least likely to slip into military/techno-jargon.

And then zig-zagging 180 degrees, can somebody explain Hemmingway to me? Was he on a mission to write using only periods for punctuation. As an example I will cite The Green Hills of Africa.

"We awoke in the morning. Breakfast consited of eggs and coffee. After camp was struck we moved into the hills for the day's hunt. I shot two antelope."

Hey! Does somebody want get in touch with me as soon as that shit gets interesting? Don't even get me started on Across the River and Through theTrees.....

[DS1]

59. The shutter snapped open and closed again in the blink of an eye

In fact, faster than a blink of an eye, one four thousands of a second to be exact. DS1 knew it was really one three thousand nine hundred eighty four thousands of a second due to local altitude and temperature and its inherent effect on shutter speed, but his training at 'The Farm' somewhere outside Langley taught him to compensate by waving his hand over the secondary light source.

Moments later, his recently captured Canon Digic MkII processed image was sprawled across the NORAD monitors that for sixty years displayed the same old world maps, and in fact if it weren't for state of the art nVidia graphics compensation imaging a casual observer would still see the remains of a world war that was never fought. DS1 smiled, his work was done, the intelligence was delivered, he only had to break a few more necks by manipulating the 3rd and 4th vertebrea in what his CIA handler called "The Spock Maneuver" and he was free to enjoy a chilled Martini.

[FizzFuzz]

61. Hahahah! I've never read Clancy and now I won't have to.

You made it perfectly clear.

Wish I'd read all those literature classics, though.
there's just too much to catch up on. Drat!

[Schema Thing]

28. well, all good taste aside. Some times subjectivity

really is just subjectivity.

As well, the cultural apple of c20th with it's mass media, really is different from the cultural orange of centuries past.

IOW, these "deep" conversations are all just so much mental masturbation that keeps young western humanity from getting on with what it really loves; watching a juicy episode of "the Bachelor". :p

[HEyHEY]

30. When I say deep

I don't mean using big words and cheesy cliches I mean just something sincire and real..you know?

[Schema Thing]

40. Yeah, I know

But some people really, sincerly love Tom Clancy.

And all that aside, how deep should one try to take an apples to oranges comparison? IMO, not very.

I hope I'm not coming across as arrogant, but I do think my attitude is sort of a cultural fountain of youth. Comparing generations/art/music/culture past with present, is a calcifying excercize, in my estimation.

And I'm not saying anyone shouldn't hold strong negative opinions about Tom Clancy, or Thomas Kinkaid, for that matter (I certainly do). I'm only commenting on how limited in scope the comparisons to past masters can really be, imo. The world has changed much more profoundly than just reproduction/typesetting technology, and every person is a product of their times.

[hunter]

47. Has "reproduction" technology changed much?

I mean, yes, "every person is a product of their times" but the vast majority of us are conceived the "old fashioned" way.

Sorry, I'm not trying to turn this into a sex thread, but the wording of your post struck me as profoundly funny.

It is also disturbing.

The notion that the "world has changed" is often used as a tool by those who would oppress you. A claim that we live in some "New World" is a claim that the rules of the "Old World" no longer apply.

But humans have always been technological creatures. From Caveman Ogg and his friends traveling up the river on a big canoe to Captain Kirk on the Enterprise traveling across the entire galaxy -- this is a continuum of human behavior.

You can almost always take the works of "past masters" and seamlessly place them in a "modern" context. You can also take present day works and seamlessly place them in a historical context. The human concept of a story, or of art in general, is something that is built into our human genes.

Pick up any of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, and just for fun, try to project them into the past, and into the future. (I've chosen James Bond because even folks who suffer extreme forms of techno-geek blindness will recognize most archaic aspects of the original James Bond stories.)

You can do this with any human art -- just for fun, try to create a fifteenth century version of say, hmmmmm, the band Modest Mouse.

Obviously, I do not agree with you that "Comparing generations/art/music/culture past with present, is a calcifying excercize."

I blame your misconception on our current educational sytem. The purpose of our "standardized" multiple-choice true-false dead-essay educational system is to kill history, art, and science -- not to nurture it. Everyone is made to believe that any lively examination of reality is a "calcifying excercize."

Damn. If you live in the United States and you really want to have a "calcifying" experience, turn on your television or radio to most any station, PBS included...

-- end of rant --

[Schema Thing]

54. Weird. You used some of the same words I used

But in a whole new context. A strange context, that has left my words shivering and fearful, unsure of themselves. You're a bad man Hunter! A bad and pretentious man!


J/k. I must really suck as a communicator. But I suck even worse as a debater, so I'll leave this be.

[hunter]

57. If we can't be pretentious on DU, all is lost!

I don't drink cheap beer either. Especially cheap "Lite" beer.

[HEyHEY]

58. Same - no cheap beer, pasta, food...anything really

I just associate poor quality with bad ingredients

[kmla]

33. Yeah, that's all well and good....

... but none of them can hold a candle to Stephen King!

*ducks to avoid the brickbat thrown at the general direction of his head*

"The Tommyknockers" has got to be one of the best things ever transcribed to paper!

*ducks again*

[Tyrone Slothrop]

36. Whenever I've been called pretentious,

I take it as a compliment and assume two things:

A) I had a much better education than they did

&

B) I got much more out of my education than they did.

So there.

[JVS]

38. My people call it literate

[JVS]

43. They need some good books and fast! Send them here

http://store.doverpublications.com/by-subject-literature-dover-thrift-editions.html

Good literature on the Cheap

[Bouncy Ball]

42. Tell them there's a good reason people STILL READ Dostoevsky.

I have a book called "Rigor for All" about the importance of teaching the classics to kids. Wish I had it here, it's got some great quotes about why classical (and that doesn't always mean "antique") literature is so important.

[XNASA]

45. Consider Eco paraphrasing Proust....

"Life is represented better by bad music than by a Missa Solemnis (Beethoven). Great Art makes fun of us as it comforts us, because it shows us the world as the artists would like the world to be. A dime novel, however, pretends to joke, but then it shows us the world as it actually is - or at least the world as it will become."

[ProfessorGAC]

48. You Call That Pretentious???

Hey, HeyHey! I'll do the pretentiousing 'round these parts! Dostoyevsky, indeed. A Hack! (Is that pretentious enough?)
The Professor

[HEyHEY]

55. I'm hopinh we'll fight about it more later!

Then I'll throw down!

[UdoKier]

49. You're not pretentious because that is a valid, sincere viewpoint.

But you are probably a bit of a snob.

[Patiod]

51. My boss called foreign films "pretentious"

I said I tended to like them not because they were foreign, but because they were probably in the top 2-5% of the country's film output. We are exposed to everything Hollywood pukes out, which includes "Apollo 13" and "Gigli" and "Schindler's List" and "Cat in the Hat". But if we see a French or Italian film over here, it's probably one of their very best.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

60. In my experience,

people who are unsure of themselves tend to be afraid of things that are different from their limited frame of reference, and so they call them names. "Pretentious" is a mighty big word from such tiny little folks, don't you think?

Robin Williams, of all people, said something that I'll paraphrase here, which was "Look, just because your porch light is burned out, don't you dare come over to my house to tell me to turn out my light because it's too bright."

[NightTrain]

62. I must be pretentious too, then. "Karamazov" is my favorite novel.

[Kire]

64. "what if someone didn't kill themselves because of it?"???????

THAT is pretentious

look up the definition