. In my Poetic License column for the fall issue of West, I return to last year’s New York Review of Books contretemps between Helen Vendler and Rita Dove over the latter’s The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry. When I first wrote about the dispute, I considered the the politics in poetry. In “Diction and […]
The Open Mind V: the Language of Conceptual Clarity
Shrink sounds like an enlightened, empowering doctor, the kind I certainly want myself. Do not condescend. Explain everything I wish to know, which will be a lot. Enable me, and provide me with options. And please – please – know more than I do. And the pilots shall fly the planes, and the aeronautical engineers […]
The Open Mind V: Riposte
ShrinkWrapped has offered his response to my The Open Mind V: the Language of Black and White. Comments are closed here at the sad red earth and should be made at ShrinkWrapped. Earlier installments of this series can be found on the horizontal menu above. The Open Mind V: Riposte Let me see if I […]
The Open Mind V: the Language of Black and White
Ah, siddown. Holster your resentments. I’m not talking about that black and white. I’m referring to the fallacy. (Murmer, murmer, grumble, murmer.) Sometimes labeled, parthenogenetically, the fallacy of bifurcation, more commonly known as the either/or fallacy, this form of thinking also sports the “black and white fallacy” moniker. You get the idea. There are only […]