Hello Cracked People, a little help?

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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Tesseracts » Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:09 am

I don't think their status as writers is what does it.

I know writers. I'm an artist, I'm not a stranger to criticism, and I've met plenty of people under far more pressure and public scrutiny than myself. I also run this website, and I have certainly felt the pressure on me for every single decision I have made here.

I commend your effort to understand other people's point of view, but I guess what I'm saying is... I know what pressure feels like, I know how it feels to be sheltered from most social interactions and sensitive to criticism... and I still can't sympathize with people who run things in a draconian way. I believe it's just how they choose to govern their website (which to be fair, is far bigger and more complicated than any website I've ever had). I think some groups choose to run things one way, some groups choose another. I have also spoken to writers who say they have never worked for anyone who has a system which acts like Cracked.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Wed Sep 16, 2015 5:46 am

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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby williamthallis » Wed Sep 16, 2015 2:54 pm

FacetheCitizen, Tesseracts,

Maybe it's just my experiences then. I tend to stick with physical books for reading, and only in the past two years when I've had some pretty bad vision problems and had to limit actual reading and my own writing, have I spent time online or in the comments sections at Cracked. I majored in English before getting so frustrated I walked off campus in 2001 because of the spoiled writer attitude, the same one I have seen online and purposely avoided for 10 years. I played music in the meantime where you had to shut up and play, not talk about the nature of playing for hours on end.

Maybe it is just Cracked, I wouldn't know. I get limited reading time, and most of what I read elsewhere is music or the sciences. I think it's the age of the internet that is bringing the criticism directly to the writers, and I don't see them handling it well. I do know it's always been right in the faces of live musicians who couldn't ignore it. One of the things I have seen recently was a comments section on a blog called 'Not Even Wrong' which usually addresses mathematics related stuff, but reviewed a book (Our Mathematical Universe) by a physicist named Max Tegmark. The author decided to post in the comments section and... yeah, it was ugly. Criticism=attack. And this was from someone who was used to peer reviews.

Tesseracts, I did say I empathized, not sympathized :) I understand it the attitude and can relate, but I don't for a second feel sorry for them or pity them. Anyone who writes is lucky enough to have someone read them at all, so the Draconian stuff isn't excusable from my point of view in any way. It's also not my website, so I don't get a say. I didn't come here to criticize Cracked. Everyone runs organizations different, even musically. I'm glad you understand the pressure Tesseracts, from what I've seen this site is run well. I walked into the Cracked forums as a stranger asking about a question I didn't know and got an unwelcome treatment - here I did the same and was very welcomed. That's a very good sign.

Thanks for letting me know that other people who write are aware of the pressure, not just musicians - that's not something I come across very often and it's easy to draw too broad conclusions, especially since I haven't kept up with writing being more interactive online via comments sections and all that.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby DoglovingJim » Wed Sep 16, 2015 3:11 pm

Anyway, welcome to TCS. Hopefully you get your issue sorted out without any trouble.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:22 pm

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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby sunglasses » Wed Sep 16, 2015 10:32 pm

FaceTheCitizen wrote:
English classes is about literature, the symbolism in them, themes found in them, or talking endlessly about James Joyce.


*are
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby williamthallis » Wed Sep 16, 2015 11:50 pm

Facethecitizen,

Ever heard of deconstructionism? The literary theory founded by Jacques Derrida? I hadn't, and I ended up at a school where he was the humanities professor. We read the Odyssey my freshman year, and all we focused on was how Penelope was being oppressed and what 'the text' really meant when you ignored all other context but the text itself blah blah... I was studying English with the hope of teaching and writing, so I was going to focus on creative writing as well as the literature itself. I took one creative writing class, which was the most useless thing I have ever been a part of. Everyone went up and read their stuff out loud (aka, skipping the writing part, since the intent is to be read not heard) to an audience that was so polite and receptive because they knew when it was their turn, they wanted a polite and receptive reception. Very feel good, no technique, no real focus on writing. I was also taking ancient Greek and planning on switching to a classics major, but they canceled the class for 'budgetary reasons,' and that I needed to continue it the next year. I then applied to and was more or less accepted to the music department at the end of my first year, but was told I'd have to reapply again the next year because despite qualifying, due to budget restrictions, they couldn't take in any more students. I gave English one last shot and was going to console myself with Greek, which they canceled, again.

I got angry one day, walked off and put my energies into playing in a band. Even though I wrote the music, I was with some really good classical and jazz musicians, much better musicians than I was, and I learned way more from that than from any class I took. Part of that was repeatedly having my ass handed to me and being told 'no, that's wrong, do it this way' by people who knew what they were talking about. In the creative writing class I took, the teacher (whose writing was terrible, absolutely terrible), would go on and on about how writers aren't appreciated in our culture and writing is one of the bravest things you can do, and anyone who doesn't admire your noble efforts is uncultured, since you're a precious little superstar. I learned from drunk people in bars that it's a privilege to create something and have someone give you their time. I also learned that you have to practice, practice, practice, manage your time, learn how your own creativity works, learn to manage your time practice technical stuff, practice more, and that good intentions aren't good enough, but it's all in the execution. As Oscar Wilde said, 'All bad art is the result of good intentions.'

I'm not a fan of Joyce, but I do think that taking a class on one writer can prepare you for writing since, to paraphrase William S. Burroughs, you can't teach anyone how to write, but you can teach them how to read. Someone who really wants to write is going to do close reading on what they like, figure out why they like it, then lock themselves in a room and fail until they succeed at what they want to do. I think a lot of writers jump into creative writing without 'woodshedding' as it's called, practicing by reading and dissecting other writers, so they don't have the fundamentals down. I took a class, or should I say took then dropped a class, on Kafka, which I hoped would do that, but I realized when the teacher let a student take up 5 minutes of class time with how he felt the Metamorphosis was about Kafka's feelings about the Nazis (!!!!!) before politely saying, 'thank you, I value your input, that was well said, but unfortunately Kafka died before the Nazi party existed', that it wasn't going to work out. It was all so touchy feely.

I think reading makes you a better writer, but at least when I tried the English major route, we didn't even do that. Even reading someone you don't like, such as Joyce, makes you a better writer, since half of doing something well is knowing what not to do, and Joyce is a good source for that (he thought Odysseus had the etymological meaning of 'every man'...) Also, taking criticism is crucial, as well as focusing on technique. But I'm ranting now, sorry... An attractive Latina does make a class worth it. I'll agree on that.

And thanks DogLovingJim, I hope it does get sorted out. I try to behave myself in the Cracked comment section, so getting banned with trolls is a bit of a disappointment. I'm usually somewhat reclusive by nature, but even if my ban sticks at Cracked I think I may prefer it here for the time I do spend online. Everyone is far nicer and I do recognize some of the same names, and my chances of having an author harass me via PM for saying something other than 'you're wonderful' seems much more remote.
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“Ever since you’ve joined this PC thing, you just bully people, and wait for people to say anything improper so you can just jump down their throats for whatever words he or she used.”
“‘He or she’ is an agender phobic microagression, Sharon. You are a bigot.”
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Revolving Royal » Thu Sep 17, 2015 5:03 am

What kind of schools did you two go to? My English Classes were almost nothing but discussing literary devices! Every day we would disect authors and techniques enough to make me throw myself out the window
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Sep 17, 2015 5:15 am

Weird. My English courses always had a particular central theme. My first college English course covered current events, then I had one centered around human nature, then the Rwandan Genocide and human conflict, then a World Lit class centered around Imperialism, and now I'm taking an Early American Lit class and an Early British Lit class, both with more of a historical theme.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Revolving Royal » Thu Sep 17, 2015 5:37 am

The theme for all my English Classes were "people are terrible" I think the least painful thing to study was Dante's Inferno because it was pretty straightforward.
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"We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out" -Ray Bradbury

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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby williamthallis » Thu Sep 17, 2015 5:58 am

UC Irvine. I was in Catholic school up until that point. It was like going back 2 years (more actually, I had AP English they wouldn't let me use, and all my other AP classes). My high school classes were like ericthebearjew's. One of the more tolerable classes at UCI, albeit not an English class but a philosophy class, consisted of the professor sitting at his desk while we broke up into groups to discuss Plato's Republic. I ended up teaching my group, which I was paying for the opportunity to do, while the professor graded papers. One of the classes that made me give up was class on Feminism in Literature, one I chose to take since I didn't know enough good female writers. Instead, I was taught that, "Zora Neal Hurston was a better writer than Shakespeare because she was a black female and faced adversity he did not." Trying to argue that writers should be judged on what they do not who they were made me "sexist."

Revolving Royal, I envy you, I've had to seek out literary criticism on my own. Everyone wanted to talk about the ideology behind the writing. Was it feminist, queer, or dead white european males in which case we can't read it? Watching people debate whether or not it was ok to read Oscar Wilde was funny, because he's certainly dead white european and male, he adored the Hellenic tradition, but he was gay. So he's a gay author, and everything he wrote must be seen only through that lens, and only that lens. I hope it's washed out of schools now, but the marxist view of literature as a struggle between classes where all authors conform to their material surroundings, except those few that 'break out' of their culture and are the good ones that are approved to read, was a nauseating process to endure. Watching someone argue that Alexander Pope's 'Rape of the Lock' is sexist because it trivializes the sexual assault of a woman is funny at first, until you realize it's not a joke, and they don't realize it's an older usage of the word with a different meaning.

Eric, are you an English major or just taking English classes?

The good news is I got unbanned! I still think I'll be checking in here though. Good company.

Another post while I was posting...
Revolving Royal: Dante is one of the greats! His Divine Comedy is essential to understanding the Medieval European view of the world, including the cosmology in the Paradisio, and its basis that stretches all the way back to the Pythagorean school of philosophy, which was adopted by early Christianity. The concentric universe, an entire worldview, that was shattered by Galileo. Dante simply called the three books, inferno, purgatory and paradise, the 'Comedy' because he lived when there was a poor understanding of classics outside of the few Latin that were available (he knew no Greek, only Latin). He believed a tragedy was a story that started off good and ended bad, and a comedy was the opposite - starting off bad and ending good, such as starting in hell and going to paradise. The third book gets a bit boring with him trying to describe Heaven as each level being more filled with light than the rest, but his structure is immaculate and much of the modern European view of the world comes from him, as well as much of the Christian view. He was well steeped in poets like Horace and Virgil, so going back and exploring them, then revisiting his Comedy will be blast.
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“Ever since you’ve joined this PC thing, you just bully people, and wait for people to say anything improper so you can just jump down their throats for whatever words he or she used.”
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Deathclaw_Puncher » Thu Sep 17, 2015 6:10 am

williamthallis wrote:
Eric, are you an English major or just taking English classes?


I'm an English major.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby Revolving Royal » Thu Sep 17, 2015 7:52 am

I actually read Dante's Inferno in the summer before class and was deeply disapointed in the teacher because it was taught at the end of the semester and he was clearly phoning it in. He would keep asking me about the finer details and the symbolism like I was his assistant.

Wow, your education sounds radically different than mine. We learned about the writing basics and we finally got around to discussing more of the interpretation and impact of literature in the Humanities and college courses. I went to public school in Western NC and public collage after. Maybe there was such an emphasis on practicality because the higher ups wanted to make sure the school systems passed all the state mandated writing tests.

Edited again because wow, your school sounds insane.
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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby FaceTheCitizen » Thu Sep 17, 2015 2:05 pm

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Re: Hello Cracked People, a little help?

Postby williamthallis » Thu Sep 17, 2015 11:56 pm

Eric, what do you intend on doing with the degree?

Revolving Royal, isn't that the most annoying thing? Part of teaching at a university means you have all these other obligations, so you end up relying on a student to provide information in class. If you haven't read the entire Divine Comedy yet, I'd highly recommend it. My two favorite translations are John Ciardi's and Mark Musa's. The former tries to keep it more poetic, and although terza rima doesn't work in English, he at least tries the outer of the 3 lines, but Musa is a little more free with it so it's on the literal side a bit. Both good, and Penguin has an edition of Dante's full comedy with La Vita Nuova, but it leaves out much of the supplementary material (maps, illustrations) in order to fit it into one volume, so it's probably better to get the individual books.

Facethecitizen, have you ever come across M.H. Abrams 'Glossary of Literary Terms'? That goes real in depth. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics does, too, as well as Oxford's Literary Terms (which is a little more lightweight). You can pick up older editions cheap, online or in used bookstores. Sometimes the older ones are better because they haven't been contaminated by post-modernist editors. You can spend hours just browsing through those.
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“Ever since you’ve joined this PC thing, you just bully people, and wait for people to say anything improper so you can just jump down their throats for whatever words he or she used.”
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