Two addendums to the below:

1) I'm trying to move RNRBMs closer to what they were originally intended as, i.e. bite-sized aphorisms largely sans explanation, rather than "random shit I thought up," which will now just be ensconsed in regular blog entries.

2) If Kael is sort of the alpha and omega of modern pop-cult crit, then apparently she's the source of one of my biggest pet peeves: pretending like your opinion is objectively true, i.e. "how is it that the immense audience for The Bridge on the River Kwai, after all those hours of watching a story unfold, didn't express discomfort or outrage or even plain curiosity about what exactly happened at the end--which through bad direction or perhaps sloppy editing went by too fast to be sorted out and understood." Well, I dunno Pauline, maybe they actually understood it...

There's a difference between having strong opinions and acting as if the very strength of your personal subjective judgments causes them to have any validity in an argument. They don't. They just make you far more annoying to argue with.

posted by Mike B. at 1:34 PM 0 comments