What I personally disliked about the tone of hayden, Hec, and Michele's posts was the air of "you people are doing it wrong, sit down and listen while I explain it to you."
I specifically noted that was not my intent or motivation. I don't really remember saying anything like that, actually, though I can believe my grumpus tone conveyed some of it.
What people (and by people I mean me) are objecting to is your apparent opinion that people not interested in deep litcrit discussions of Moby Dick aren't smart enough for this thread. And no doubt you're going to deny that that's what you meant, but from where I'm sitting, that is what your argument seems to boil down to.
I did not impugn anybody's intelligence and took pains to state that explicitly. The truth is that everybody on this thread has great wells of credibility with me. With what I've gleaned from this thread I have walked into cocktail parties and started talking out of my ass about how Romances can't be categorically dismissed and Georgette Heyer this and Jennifer Crusie that. If y'all love Lois Bujold McMasters and Stephen Brust, then I believe without doubt that they are among the best in their field.
Anti-intellectual does not equal stupid by any means.
(1) Where does "disparagement" diverge from "saying you personally didn't enjoy" a specific book? I said I dislike Moby-Dick. Hayden loves it passionately. Was I disparaging? And if so, does that mean no one should express negative opinions about any book, because that will disparage someone's beloved book?
Now every single person involved in this discussion can legimately put their hand on their heart and say, "Not me! I don't hate literature. I may hate [Bovary/Faulkner/Melville] but I love love love [James/Austen/Catch22]. And that's a matter of personal taste." And it's true and that is a matter of personal taste.
However, resentment about canonical good books, and being beaten around the head with Must Read and Must Respect has fostered a vibe in here such that poor, whiny, weak Mme. Bovary gets kicked in the teeth, and punched in the kidneys every time she wanders into this thread.
There is, quite regularly, a gleeful lashing out at serious fiction that people dislike. I do think there is a cumulative effect produced by people piling on - it's just a thread dynamic - but I think the effect is real.
Think about it by the standards the Supreme Court uses in bias cases. They don't have to catch a country club making blatantly racist and exclusive policies and speeches. The court says, "Well, you say you're not racist, but you've been in existence for 80 years, 40 of those since the civil rights era, you're in the south, there is a large population of middle class black businessmen in your area and you have exactly zero black members."
Similarly in sexual harassment, there does not need to be one dramatic incident to prove that the environment is hostile. It's the cumulative effect of things.
Please note I am not comparing anybody here to a racist or a sexist. I'm only only only saying that there is not going to be one person, or policy or statement which will prove that this thread has had an anti-intellectual bias or resists critical discussion. I am saying that the fact that there aren't literary discussions here comparable to the in-depth show discussions suggests that there is some pressure which prevents it. That the continual disparagment and outright anger about how people had literature taught to them or shoved down their throats makes it difficult to talk about literature critically here.
I am, however, partially persuaded by points made here that the structure of this thread is about recs more than discussion.
(2) I didn't see any casual dismissal of the value of discussing things in depth, and it would really help me if you could point to where that happened.
The quotes that Gar gathered are a few examples of statements people have made which have treated literary fiction with disdain. It's not like a policy here. But if three or four people loudly and repeatedly state their resentment about how they were forced fed Great Books it's very dissuading.