Locke's prose is, objectively, the worst in the history of published writing. Discuss.
Feel free to diagram that sentence, if you have six hours and a lot of paper.
But John, you don't know the intelligence he has, or how there hasn't been an incursion up the Thames since—actually, there has been, come to think of it—and you're substituting your judgment for his, and God's. Who are you to do that?
His punctuation is eccentric, but the sentence isn't at all hard to follow.
Locke's prose is, objectively, the worst in the history of published writing. Discuss.
Um, Kant? Hegel?
That passage is relatively clear; they're not all like that.
you're substituting your judgment for his, and God's. Who are you to do that?
That's ok, Idp, because we already know that he that troubles his neighbor without a cause, is punished by for it by the justice of the court he appeals to: and he that appeals to heaven must be sure he has right on his side; and a right too that is worth the trouble and cost of the appeal, as he will answer at a tribunal that cannot be deceived, and will be sure to retribute to every one according to the mischiefs he hath created to his fellow subjects
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Bah, Locke writes clearly enough. There are tons of worse writers.
Locke looks like he's writing clearly. I'm not kidding about diagramming his sentences; I did several and found that many of them are deeply syntactically flawed and structurally ambiguous. It's sort of hypnotic, reading him, because you're pretty sure you know what he means, but the prose itself is a total wreck.
There are reasons for this, of course, in that he's breaking from the clean scholastic prose of the Renaissance, but damn, it's a mess.
I have described Locke's writing process as writing a run-on sentence, throwing a handful of commas at the page, and italicizing random words.
He was writing quickly. With the threat of a Catholic ascending the throne, he had to convince his fellow Whigs to throw off the yoke of Papist tyranny.
As shrill as he could be and keep his head, but the slide into the extended metaphor is still kinda funny.
I'm not sure if the post is about Locke or about mutiny. Guess which I'd prefer.
That's what I love about Locke--everything ends up resting on metaphors. So awesome.
OT, but I think w-lfs-n would like today's xkcd.
Um, Kant? Hegel?
Fuck, go for the jugular: Lacan???
Just yesterday, I was in my local used bookstore, and I spotted a copy of Ecrits. I glaced through it -- not quite as incomprehensible as I'd been expecting.
That's what I love about Locke--everything ends up resting on metaphors. So awesome.
But it's not a metaphor, it's a simile, and nothing rests on it.
OK, OK, but otherwise she was right. That was one thing about Locke.
19: A simile, my darling, is a form of metaphor.
It's true that some rhetoricians have thought that, B, but they're wrong. Tell it to the marines and see how far you get.
I presume the use of Algiers is intentional? A reference to Barbary pirates and slavery? Which would have been in full-swing in Locke's time.
The captain of ship carrying the passengers into slavery and despotism, etc.
I've always meant to look at Locke's original notebooks to see how his prose is there and whether it's as convoluted as the published work. When I'm reading enough 17th/18th century prose the rhythm of it gets quite natural and it begins to read more or less like modern English but if it's been a while, I struggle.
27.1-2 Your presumption is correct.
21:Simile and metaphor are different beasts. A simile evokes a specific similarity; a metaphor implies a broader relationship.e.g. Bitch is as unpredictable as a summer's day(simile). Shakespeare's bit: metaphor.
I think perhaps it's neither metaphor nor simile. He's not saying that the state is like a ship, or is a ship, carrying citizens to ruin through its peccancy, he's saying that the slave trade has so many traits in common with the process of the amalgamation of political power that one can be substituted for the other in thought with only an improvement in one's understanding of the situation at hand. It's metonymy.
Allegory, almost.
Paging Benito Cereno! We'd like to rewrite your story, except with a blackamoor playing you and a bunch of honkies playing the evil slaves.
All are tropes. At least no one has tried to claim analogy.
Benito Cereno as King George III*. Was Melville (grandson of a revolutionary war hero) subtly calling the American Revolution into question?
* Locke's conspiracy theory here is mimicked in the Declaration of Independence. I don't know which George, Charles, or James Locke was talking about.
I thought this was going to be about Lost - bummer. I lost interest by the first parenthesis. I tried again two more times but never made it past the midway point.
You are what is wrong with the present age, blortch.
re: 32
I presume he had James II [and VII] in mind.
not quite as incomprehensible as I'd been expecting.
You were just happy it didn't read like Tender Buttons.