It isn't difficult for a reasonably well-educated and intelligent person to put words in the proper order and have coherent sentences pop out. As you note, though, those sentences could come in almost any order and make as little sense. As I read your quoted paragraph, it struck me that it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah, the words are in the proper order, but as you say, there isn't any coherent message behind the words.
To me, experience is what gives a person depth. One can be intelligent but still almost two-dimensional in outlook. It is experience that gives one the background against which to measure the world around one. Facts in isolation are meaningless, and it is only facts that Kyle Williams has. My gut reaction is that the kid is parrotting the viewpoints of one or more of the adults around him. Sure, he can spew facts to support his argument, but his opinions have no depth.
Further, Kyle Williams still simply has some growing up to do. Stuff is still happening inside his head, neurological connections are still being made and he's only just now encountering the wonderful, heady mix of hormones that make adult life so damned interesting. In my opinion, no fourteen-year-old is a complete person, nor can they possibly be so.
And as for a fourteen-year-old having "deeply held political convictions," ah, well, no. No more than I did at that age, or even when I was five or six years older. Deeply-held political convictions are, almost by definition, those that one holds for a significant portion of ones lifetime, those around which one shapes ones life. Kyle established his political opinions when? At thirteen, maybe?
It takes maturity to be able to write in this medium without succumbing to narcissism. An ego-centered fourteen-year-old boy has no such maturity, nor should he. He should be busy being a boy, not getting his ego inflated by people who should know better. I'm not freaked out by his weblog, not at all. I'm just vaguely disgusted by it and by the reaction to it.
As for the question that Yglesias asks, no, I don't think Kyle knows what socialism is.
It's that "behind the words" that freaks me out. It reminds me how much I assume that there's a controlling intelligence responsible for the writing. You don't need to make that assumption and it's probably helpful not to, but it's hard to avoid.
And Matthew Yglesias is a snot nosed punk brat too (I mean he's what in his early 20's...and based on the picture on his blog still hasn't quite grasped shaving) the boy needs to spend some time growing (and with a razor) up before running a weblog.
See how easy it is to dismiss somebody based on an aspects of that person that is at best indirectly related to what he is actually saying.
(For the record, I don't really think Yglesias is a snot nosed punk brat.)
That's why I 1) linked to Williams' columns and 2) quoted and commented on something he had written. The point of the post, in fact, was that I couldn't dismiss him because of his age and had to look at the writing, which, in itself, is creepy. To get a better idea of what I mean, you can see my follow-up post.
Well that sure is alot of single sentence paragraphs. My 10th grade english teacher would have a cow (to quote Bart Simpson).
I had one last question. I have always wondered why the governor never sent his children to the public schools in Miami when he lived here.
Does she ask this of Democrats who do the same thing?
After all, we represent some of the most underfunded, overcrowded and under-prepared students in the nation.
And the school system in D.C. is....? I don't think she knows that the D.C. public school system is horrible and has very high per student spending (although the last year I lived there they were closing schools for safety reasons...where was that money going?).
Yeah, she doesn't have the same stilted tone of young Mr. Williams, but she does seem pretty clueless on some issues.
I'm not saying Becky Farber is a serious writer, that's exactly the mistake people make with Kyle Williams. She's a smart kid, naive, but totally engaged. Lilke I said in the post, maybe I'm just blinded by partisan bias, but Williams' writing doesn't give me any sense of a person and doesn't have any arguments in it. I'm not trying to bash the kid, he's a kid; and obviously a very smart one. But he's not a grown-up, doesn't write like one, and shouldn't be treated as one.
You know, you can tweak the kid for his inexperience without being "freaked out" by the fact that he (apparently) doesn't think like you did when you were his age. In fact, I wonder if you really remember what it was like to be fourteen... Somehow I think not, or you wouldn't be so condescending to the kid -- talking about how he is merely "parrotting" the views of some older "controlling intelligence." Give me a frigging break.
For the record, I am forty years old. I seem to remember being rather pompous in my teen years -- but I also remember that anytime an older person would talk down to me the way you are talking about that kid I'd be as resentful as hell. I sure was never interested in what the condescending person had to say, nor were the sneering, patronizing words any incentive to change my views. But hey, it's not like the kid will ever read your page, so sneer away.
Are you writing about my post or a post on another blog? Where do I say he's "parrotting" a "controlling intelligence." And where do I say his political views have anything to do with the point I'm making (except to concede that maybe I'm not being fair)? My post isn't even about politics, it's about how much we need to imagine an author standing behind a text and how much that imagining influences our reading. Williams was a good example for me because his age confounds our expectations for political authors and because I really do find his writing to be an odd concatenation of assertions, as opposed to the expression of a coherent argument.
I agree in part with Andrea. There is one board I participate in where a few years ago this young "kid" showed up. He had very classical liberal/libertarian veiws and was determined to write just like Smith, Hume, and Locke (long My Eyes Glaze Over posts).
Kyle does come off as stilted and pompous...but didn't you think you knew it all when you were a teenager too? Come on...fess up, didn't you think your parents were idiots in your teens, and suddenly they got realy smart around 25 or so? I know I did.
Ogged says: "Where do I say he's 'parrotting' a 'controlling intelligence?'"
Ogged? You said this right here in this comment box: "It's that 'behind the words' that freaks me out. It reminds me how much I assume that there's a controlling intelligence responsible for the writing. You don't need to make that assumption and it's probably helpful not to, but it's hard to avoid."
Excuse me if I interpreted that to mean that there was not a "controlling intelligence" in the kid's own head, so therefore the source of his words must be from outside -- his parents, teachers, mentors, trainers -- whatever. If that wasn't what you meant, then maybe you need to explain yourself a little more clearly. I mean, you said in your post: "What does it mean for a 14 year-old to have deeply held political convictions?" And then you went on into some kind of "what can his words mean?" thing. I guess I'm simplistic -- unless you can show that he is using his words incorrectly -- as in, not using the correct dictionary definitions, or something -- then I can only assume that his words mean what he meant them to mean.
And I find this particularly condescending: "If a computer program could produce coherent pieces of political rhetoric, would we take them seriously?" But then maybe you would have thought it cool to be labelled no more intelligent than a computer program when you were fourteen.
I also find this sentence puzzling: "On second thought, maybe coherence is a fine standard." And the rest of it -- see, "-herence" is not a word, it's a couple of syllables. I'm not into this postmodern decoinstruction thing. I guess with a little tweaking we could take any "text" in the world and put the sentences, words, and even letters in any order, until we have meaningless gibberish. I don't know why anyone would do so, but then I don't know why some people collect old pieces of string either.
Perhaps I could have been more clear. I apologize. I definitely did not mean that those around him were putting words/thoughts into his head.
What I was trying to get at, and maybe this should have been a much longer post, is the importance of our assumptions about an author when we read his writing. Let me try with a completely different example. Henry James was an ex-patriot. When I read a James novel or story, knowing that fact makes a big difference to how I read it. Sometimes it will be helpful and let me see things I might have missed, but, more often, it will make me miss unlikely connections that would make the text much more interesting. The point of my original post was that it's very hard to get away from reading a text in relation to what we know of its author. The person that we posit when we read, the personality that we imagine the author to have, that's what I meant by "controlling intelligence."
Back to Kyle Williams. Reading him reminds me of my assumptions about a "controlling intelligence" precisely because, when I read his writing, I find myself unable to imagine the personality behind it. That's the "behind the words" that's freaking me out. That's why I felt the comparison with a computer was appropriate; if we know in advance that there's no personality, how does that influence our reading? How do we think about what's written? It's not a political point, it's about how we read. Believe me, at this point I'm very sorry it had to be a writer with whom I have a difference of political opinion that I used to illustrate my point, but his politics are not the point.
One final point about "-herence." I hardly think it's "postmodern" to look at "inherence" and "coherence" and wonder what the hell "-herence" means. As it happens, it comes from the Latin "to stick" and I thought that was a great description of what I was trying to describe: words sticking together and sticking to their author.
It isn't difficult for a reasonably well-educated and intelligent person to put words in the proper order and have coherent sentences pop out. As you note, though, those sentences could come in almost any order and make as little sense. As I read your quoted paragraph, it struck me that it doesn't really make any sense. Yeah, the words are in the proper order, but as you say, there isn't any coherent message behind the words.
To me, experience is what gives a person depth. One can be intelligent but still almost two-dimensional in outlook. It is experience that gives one the background against which to measure the world around one. Facts in isolation are meaningless, and it is only facts that Kyle Williams has. My gut reaction is that the kid is parrotting the viewpoints of one or more of the adults around him. Sure, he can spew facts to support his argument, but his opinions have no depth.
Further, Kyle Williams still simply has some growing up to do. Stuff is still happening inside his head, neurological connections are still being made and he's only just now encountering the wonderful, heady mix of hormones that make adult life so damned interesting. In my opinion, no fourteen-year-old is a complete person, nor can they possibly be so.
And as for a fourteen-year-old having "deeply held political convictions," ah, well, no. No more than I did at that age, or even when I was five or six years older. Deeply-held political convictions are, almost by definition, those that one holds for a significant portion of ones lifetime, those around which one shapes ones life. Kyle established his political opinions when? At thirteen, maybe?
It takes maturity to be able to write in this medium without succumbing to narcissism. An ego-centered fourteen-year-old boy has no such maturity, nor should he. He should be busy being a boy, not getting his ego inflated by people who should know better. I'm not freaked out by his weblog, not at all. I'm just vaguely disgusted by it and by the reaction to it.
As for the question that Yglesias asks, no, I don't think Kyle knows what socialism is.
Posted by Frank | Link to this comment | 06-11-03 12:00 AM
It's that "behind the words" that freaks me out. It reminds me how much I assume that there's a controlling intelligence responsible for the writing. You don't need to make that assumption and it's probably helpful not to, but it's hard to avoid.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-11-03 9:04 AM
And Matthew Yglesias is a snot nosed punk brat too (I mean he's what in his early 20's...and based on the picture on his blog still hasn't quite grasped shaving) the boy needs to spend some time growing (and with a razor) up before running a weblog.
See how easy it is to dismiss somebody based on an aspects of that person that is at best indirectly related to what he is actually saying.
(For the record, I don't really think Yglesias is a snot nosed punk brat.)
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 06-13-03 10:56 PM
That's why I 1) linked to Williams' columns and 2) quoted and commented on something he had written. The point of the post, in fact, was that I couldn't dismiss him because of his age and had to look at the writing, which, in itself, is creepy. To get a better idea of what I mean, you can see my follow-up post.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-13-03 11:02 PM
Well that sure is alot of single sentence paragraphs. My 10th grade english teacher would have a cow (to quote Bart Simpson).
I had one last question. I have always wondered why the governor never sent his children to the public schools in Miami when he lived here.
Does she ask this of Democrats who do the same thing?
After all, we represent some of the most underfunded, overcrowded and under-prepared students in the nation.
And the school system in D.C. is....? I don't think she knows that the D.C. public school system is horrible and has very high per student spending (although the last year I lived there they were closing schools for safety reasons...where was that money going?).
Yeah, she doesn't have the same stilted tone of young Mr. Williams, but she does seem pretty clueless on some issues.
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 06-14-03 1:36 AM
I'm not saying Becky Farber is a serious writer, that's exactly the mistake people make with Kyle Williams. She's a smart kid, naive, but totally engaged. Lilke I said in the post, maybe I'm just blinded by partisan bias, but Williams' writing doesn't give me any sense of a person and doesn't have any arguments in it. I'm not trying to bash the kid, he's a kid; and obviously a very smart one. But he's not a grown-up, doesn't write like one, and shouldn't be treated as one.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-03 1:56 AM
You know, you can tweak the kid for his inexperience without being "freaked out" by the fact that he (apparently) doesn't think like you did when you were his age. In fact, I wonder if you really remember what it was like to be fourteen... Somehow I think not, or you wouldn't be so condescending to the kid -- talking about how he is merely "parrotting" the views of some older "controlling intelligence." Give me a frigging break.
For the record, I am forty years old. I seem to remember being rather pompous in my teen years -- but I also remember that anytime an older person would talk down to me the way you are talking about that kid I'd be as resentful as hell. I sure was never interested in what the condescending person had to say, nor were the sneering, patronizing words any incentive to change my views. But hey, it's not like the kid will ever read your page, so sneer away.
Posted by Andrea Harris | Link to this comment | 06-14-03 8:19 AM
Are you writing about my post or a post on another blog? Where do I say he's "parrotting" a "controlling intelligence." And where do I say his political views have anything to do with the point I'm making (except to concede that maybe I'm not being fair)? My post isn't even about politics, it's about how much we need to imagine an author standing behind a text and how much that imagining influences our reading. Williams was a good example for me because his age confounds our expectations for political authors and because I really do find his writing to be an odd concatenation of assertions, as opposed to the expression of a coherent argument.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-14-03 9:39 AM
Ogged,
I agree in part with Andrea. There is one board I participate in where a few years ago this young "kid" showed up. He had very classical liberal/libertarian veiws and was determined to write just like Smith, Hume, and Locke (long My Eyes Glaze Over posts).
Kyle does come off as stilted and pompous...but didn't you think you knew it all when you were a teenager too? Come on...fess up, didn't you think your parents were idiots in your teens, and suddenly they got realy smart around 25 or so? I know I did.
Posted by Steve | Link to this comment | 06-14-03 10:50 AM
Ogged says: "Where do I say he's 'parrotting' a 'controlling intelligence?'"
Ogged? You said this right here in this comment box: "It's that 'behind the words' that freaks me out. It reminds me how much I assume that there's a controlling intelligence responsible for the writing. You don't need to make that assumption and it's probably helpful not to, but it's hard to avoid."
Excuse me if I interpreted that to mean that there was not a "controlling intelligence" in the kid's own head, so therefore the source of his words must be from outside -- his parents, teachers, mentors, trainers -- whatever. If that wasn't what you meant, then maybe you need to explain yourself a little more clearly. I mean, you said in your post: "What does it mean for a 14 year-old to have deeply held political convictions?" And then you went on into some kind of "what can his words mean?" thing. I guess I'm simplistic -- unless you can show that he is using his words incorrectly -- as in, not using the correct dictionary definitions, or something -- then I can only assume that his words mean what he meant them to mean.
And I find this particularly condescending: "If a computer program could produce coherent pieces of political rhetoric, would we take them seriously?" But then maybe you would have thought it cool to be labelled no more intelligent than a computer program when you were fourteen.
I also find this sentence puzzling: "On second thought, maybe coherence is a fine standard." And the rest of it -- see, "-herence" is not a word, it's a couple of syllables. I'm not into this postmodern decoinstruction thing. I guess with a little tweaking we could take any "text" in the world and put the sentences, words, and even letters in any order, until we have meaningless gibberish. I don't know why anyone would do so, but then I don't know why some people collect old pieces of string either.
Posted by Andrea Harris | Link to this comment | 06-15-03 1:03 AM
Perhaps I could have been more clear. I apologize. I definitely did not mean that those around him were putting words/thoughts into his head.
What I was trying to get at, and maybe this should have been a much longer post, is the importance of our assumptions about an author when we read his writing. Let me try with a completely different example. Henry James was an ex-patriot. When I read a James novel or story, knowing that fact makes a big difference to how I read it. Sometimes it will be helpful and let me see things I might have missed, but, more often, it will make me miss unlikely connections that would make the text much more interesting. The point of my original post was that it's very hard to get away from reading a text in relation to what we know of its author. The person that we posit when we read, the personality that we imagine the author to have, that's what I meant by "controlling intelligence."
Back to Kyle Williams. Reading him reminds me of my assumptions about a "controlling intelligence" precisely because, when I read his writing, I find myself unable to imagine the personality behind it. That's the "behind the words" that's freaking me out. That's why I felt the comparison with a computer was appropriate; if we know in advance that there's no personality, how does that influence our reading? How do we think about what's written? It's not a political point, it's about how we read. Believe me, at this point I'm very sorry it had to be a writer with whom I have a difference of political opinion that I used to illustrate my point, but his politics are not the point.
One final point about "-herence." I hardly think it's "postmodern" to look at "inherence" and "coherence" and wonder what the hell "-herence" means. As it happens, it comes from the Latin "to stick" and I thought that was a great description of what I was trying to describe: words sticking together and sticking to their author.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 06-15-03 1:58 AM