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I have been trying for days, since my Mom forwarded this to our family email list, to read this essay -
How the People Got Their Groove Back: What a Bunch of Farmers Can Teach a Bunch of Occupiers About How to Keep on Going
I really do think the writer has good points, but I really, really hate this writing style. To give you a taste of why this is totally a tl;dr - the opening paragraph has taken a quarter of the essay so far, and just when we think we've come to the end of the opening we get this:
But first, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I am not a pure -ism or -ist, but a mutt: part anarchist, part green, part interim socialist. This is no screed for a certain sect, or the fancy footwork of a shill tripping on a movement I don’t move to. This is an essay written by me, a complicated person who desperately wants a complicated movement to succeed in desperate times. Because I care, I critique. A movement is always a bag of new thinking, old thinking, dangerous and helpful ideas. In this mix I am a free agent. I tell the truth as an act of love. This truth-telling should not be confused with the snark of the bourgeois press, who use condescension as credentials and write dismissive missives to fall asleep at night. There is no snark here. I am no reporter, except in the basic sense: I report what I see, what I observe. Call me an embedded editor-anthropologist—someone who tries to understand the culture of a big idea, then challenges it to be bigger, bolder, more beautiful. And of course, I speak as an occupier, not for the occupation. My observations come from my limited experience and my limitless desire to experience more. It's in that spirit I write today, straight from the hum of perpetual noticing.
Have we ever heard the phrase "kill your darlings?" There's a reason for that! Do I have to slog through miles of half-assed poetry in order to learn what your point might be? Do you need to fluff it up because you think you don't have enough to say?
And then there's the ridiculously over the top protestation of being an unbiased observer. I do realize that there are a lot of people out there who won't listen to anyone who seems to be taking a side, but seriously, who ever really is unbiased?
I WILL get through reading this, eventually, because I DO think there's good points here, but right this moment I think I need to go paint my bookshelf, because Eor's teasing me about how fast I'm typing - "My goodness, the internet certainly needs fixing."
How the People Got Their Groove Back: What a Bunch of Farmers Can Teach a Bunch of Occupiers About How to Keep on Going
I really do think the writer has good points, but I really, really hate this writing style. To give you a taste of why this is totally a tl;dr - the opening paragraph has taken a quarter of the essay so far, and just when we think we've come to the end of the opening we get this:
But first, let me tell you where I’m coming from. I am not a pure -ism or -ist, but a mutt: part anarchist, part green, part interim socialist. This is no screed for a certain sect, or the fancy footwork of a shill tripping on a movement I don’t move to. This is an essay written by me, a complicated person who desperately wants a complicated movement to succeed in desperate times. Because I care, I critique. A movement is always a bag of new thinking, old thinking, dangerous and helpful ideas. In this mix I am a free agent. I tell the truth as an act of love. This truth-telling should not be confused with the snark of the bourgeois press, who use condescension as credentials and write dismissive missives to fall asleep at night. There is no snark here. I am no reporter, except in the basic sense: I report what I see, what I observe. Call me an embedded editor-anthropologist—someone who tries to understand the culture of a big idea, then challenges it to be bigger, bolder, more beautiful. And of course, I speak as an occupier, not for the occupation. My observations come from my limited experience and my limitless desire to experience more. It's in that spirit I write today, straight from the hum of perpetual noticing.
Have we ever heard the phrase "kill your darlings?" There's a reason for that! Do I have to slog through miles of half-assed poetry in order to learn what your point might be? Do you need to fluff it up because you think you don't have enough to say?
And then there's the ridiculously over the top protestation of being an unbiased observer. I do realize that there are a lot of people out there who won't listen to anyone who seems to be taking a side, but seriously, who ever really is unbiased?
I WILL get through reading this, eventually, because I DO think there's good points here, but right this moment I think I need to go paint my bookshelf, because Eor's teasing me about how fast I'm typing - "My goodness, the internet certainly needs fixing."