Dude, I met Yvonne Navarro. Briefly, at that Buffy event in Chandler(Ms. Navarro lives in Sierra Vista, which, in my view accounts for some of the whining. bad-dum-pum) But I thought she needed to get over herself something chronic.

I can pretty up the language, I suppose, but it won't change the original experience any. And since we're agreed that teachers who do that are the wrong people to have a whiphand over students, will prettying up the language make anyone happier?

Yes, please. It will make me happier. Maybe the word "arrogant" is not distressing to you, but it's distressing to me. I never use it except in insulting context.

Jessica speaks for me when she says:

The disconnect here is that your working definition of "deconstruction" seems to include "pisses me off."

It's very hard to carry on a conversation when two people's definitions of a word aren't the same; and I think most people you poll would not automatically define deconstruction as something that pisses them off. (Moreover, deconstruction is not the be-all of analysis, but that's a whole different ball of wax.) So, I feel the need to dispute your definition of words like this, or else I feel like my viewpoint will be totally written out of the discussion.

It's like how lawyers frame a debate in order to showcase only their own viewpoint? It's something that works for lawyers, but it's not very conversational, and it doesn't allow for difference and creative discussion without a whole lot of confusion and backtracking. For the sake of conversation, and the valuing of everybody's viewpoint, it's much more profitable if we use terms without loading upfront them with extremely personal meanings.

It's very hard to carry on a conversation when two people's definitions of a word aren't the same; and I think most people you poll would not automatically define deconstruction as something that pisses them off. (Moreover, deconstruction is not the be-all of analysis, but that's a whole different ball of wax.) So, I feel the need to dispute your definition of words like this, or else I feel like my viewpoint will be totally written out of the discussion.

Well - I wasn't particularly trying to carry on a conversation. I'd rather thought I was done an hour ago, having responded to an outside link. Apparently not.

But since the only word that comes to mind for the attitude I've personally experienced is "arrogant", and since I don't feel I've any earthly right to insert emotional reactions to things I haven't experienced, I will let you choose whatever word you find appropriate, and I'll do what I was hoping to do when I backed out of Literary a few months back at Warp Nine, which is not have this discussion at all.

Because, to clarify? I generally am not invested enough in this kind of discussion to do more than shrug. But because this pings so many hot buttons, and because it is my livelihood I'm talking about?

I shall back gracefully out of yet another thread, and leave it to whatever it wants to be.

Is there anything out there you'd want me to see in the way of deconstruction that doesn't do that?

With respect, good god no. I mean, first, there's the part where all of my hard-core litcrit was done in college, and so it's all in a box in my parents' attic somewhere. But also I can't imagine inflicting something as thoroughly left-brained as literary deconstruction on someone as thoroughly right-brained as you are. It would be pointless and cruel for everyone involved.

Deb, insent. Allyson, Sarah Vowell being great doesn't mean Allyson sucks. I have to tell myself the same thing about a million writers, though.

I wasn't particularly trying to carry on a conversation.

You weren't?? So, what were we doing here, talking in public? Is is that you just don't think I'm worth conversing with, or you didn't think I had a right to butt in?

I'm sorry you're walking away from this discussion, because I think there are questions of communication that bear on the writer-reader connection we might want to talk about. The use of vocabulary -- and the mutual understanding of that vocabulary -- is key to the enterprise of communication.

Talking, writing, posting on the internet -- all forms of communication, no? All forms of reaching out to another person and trying to colonize their brains.

So, what were we doing here, talking in public? Is is that you just don't think I'm worth conversing with, or you didn't think I had a right to butt in?

OK, this is so far from what I mean that it made me laugh, choke, and blink, all at once. We seem to have an incredible gulf in how we communicate - you're speaking English and I'm speaking Martian, or something. I'll try to clarify before I go, just because I would not for two seconds have you think either of those things.

I didn't want to have this discussion, period. Not with you, not with anyone. It drove me out of Literary and I was down to four threads and this was the one I valued most, and the subject, except as it related to Yvonne's rant, was one I didn't think belonged in here, which I thought was supposed to be designed for creating, not critiquing. I am apprently mistaken in that assumption, so I've unsubscribed. I can do Teppy's challenges through the Livejournal site, and anyone who wants feedback can email me. And of course, I'll still be whimpering for feedback on my stuff - I'll just be doing it in email.

I'm not leaving the discussion. I'm leaving the thread entirely.

and the subject, except as it related to Yvonne's rant, was one I didn't think belonged in here

But Deb, you're the one who brought it up.

edited

Maybe this is the wrong thread to have this conversation, and I think I just had to write that humungous post I just deleted, not post it. It wasn't hurtful or anything, but in the time between when I started typing and when I posted, the kerfuffle had grown and Deb had decided to leave the thread.

Deb, please come back. My guess is that this was just a side note to our normal madcap creation. It's not worth losing the thread.

Kristin, I can tell from your post that you are one HELL of a teacher. Thank you for your post AND for being such a damn fine teacher.

That said, I really would like to echo your thought that this conversation is better suited to Literary.