On Sun, Jan 21, 2001 at 09:42:14AM -0800, Tim May wrote:
Declan can comment on this, too, but it's clear that editors like "Hegelian" set-ups of conflict (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). So phrases like "Twilight of the ...." resonate in various ways, both Hegelian and Wagnerian. The phrases suggest "end of an era" when in fact there is no such end.
All true, of course. It's even worse than that: The more a journalist writes, the more he feels compelled to simplify conflicts and reporting into what can be described in one short paragraph. Assignment editors and copy editors generally encourage this trend, and let's face it: We have a lot of smart people reading our stuff, but a lot of idiots as well. Simplification sells -- and I'm not even talking about TV! I find myself struggling against this, and occasionally have to make an effort to unpack a sentence, to make it more descriptive. All this is to say that I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about that Salon article. Parts are true, but others are so simplified as to be meaningless. -Declan