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| date | 2001-001-28:12:35 |
| Writing |
I seem to be being productive this week. I finally got my essay on arguments against the use of gender-neutral language done, which turned out to be more extensive than I expected. I tried to use it as an experiment in Aquinian dialectic, in which I gave the best case for the opposition I could, and then replied to it. As the essay progressed and I learned more and more about the issues and the history of pronouns in English, the more difficult it was to give the objections a respectful hearing, although I think I ultimately managed it. It's easy to forget that people are often putting forward ideas based on genuine and sincere beliefs, and the proper response to that it not impatience and annoyance, but careful factual explanation of why their beliefs, however sincerely held, are wrong. With regard to gender neutral language, Caro's suspicion that the "traditional" usage of "he" as nominally inclusive is fairly recent turns out to be amply justified--despite the assertions to the contrary of a few language cops like Fowler, there is ample evidence that this usage is both recent (less than 200 years old) and that it never caught on all that well. I used to be opposed to the use of gender-neutral language. I was uncomfortable with feminist ideology, as any young, healthy, straight white male who doesn't feel much like an evil oppressor might be. I understood there was an issue with the nominally generic use of "man" and "he", but didn't feel right with the offered alternatives. I experimented with a few different things, notably alternating between "he" and "she", which can be effective in some cases, confusing in others. But I never really settled the issue in my own mind until arguing offline with someone from MDOP about the question, and he raised the issue of how Shakespeare might sound, giving some examples, if he had been restricted to gender-neutral terminology. Something clicked, and I realized that this sort of argument was completely spurious, because the person writing the examples was not Shakespeare, or any one like him. I brought this point up, and he acknowledged at least some of its force. After that I re-examined my own beliefs in detail, and concluded that gender neutral language was the right thing to use. Having the opportunity to re-examine the arguments for and against again, I find that my conclusion has not changed. I've also been working on drafting my notes on the structure of poetry into a paper, which I hope to put into its final form today. Thanks to Bryan Maloney for asking about this, and prompting me to get to this before the ideas went completely stale. Because the talk was developed using notecards against the day when I wrote it down, the actual writing is going very quickly and smoothly. And the most delightful thing has happened in the last week as Caro has started getting into the problem of quantum reality. She is the perfect collaborator for me--she approaches things with an almost child-like intensity and clarity, pointing out naked emperors left and right. Already I can see how to recast my thinking on the problem to answer most of her objections. She thinks in ways that are similar to my own, but much more rigorously and clearly. I think part of this is because she doesn't have the crutch of mathematics to lean on; philosophers have a far harder job than physicists, because we can always retreat the formalism plus some handwaving. Philosophers actually have to think. Caro is also a much more consistent conceptualist than I am, and most of my wrong turnings in my approach to quantum reality are due to latent realism. It's such a easy mistake to make, and I'm very good at making it. Having her unscrew the lid of my mind, look in and point out where I'm not making any sense is of enormous benefit. |
| Play | Snow is just inherently fun. Just in from an hour or more of playing in the snow with the kids--building forts, snowball fights, tobboganing... I'm slightly damp, somewhat cold, and a bit tired. What a wonderful feeling. |
| Reading | Tom Jones is a really boring book. Being me, I'm going to finish it simply because I've come this far and want to see how it turns out, and it holds a sufficiently important place in the history of the English novel that given my ambitions I do need to know about it. But the same story could have been told in about a tenth the length. Fielding is happy using up ten paragraphs to explain why he has omitted action that would have taken five paragraphs to describe. |