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The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

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Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#131

Post by dragonwriter »

beat wrote: post #104
factsaresacred wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The Dark Ages" is also a Eurocentric view of history. That's like describing 'The Great Leap Forward' as a Sino-centric view of history. "The Dark Ages" refers to a time as well as a place. Specifically, Western Europe.

Is it, though? I think it's clear that "Great Leap Forward" was China-specific, but "Dark Ages" isn't really taught as specific to western Europe. Which is the problem.

> but "Dark Ages" isn't really taught as specific to western Europe.

Er, even 20 years ago when I was in college it was taught as both largely a misnomer and a label applied to a (somewhat ambiguously bounded, especially as to the ending point) period of Western European history.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#132

Post by dpark »

the_af wrote: post #116
dpark wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fossuser’s criticism was not directed at the article at all. It was directed at the Fulcanelli quote given by ohaideredevs. The Dwellings if Philosophers (as translated) starts out with “Paradoxical in its manifestations, disconcerting in its signs, the Middle Ages proposes to the sagacity of its admirers the resolution of a singular misconception.” This says so little with such absurd wording that it’s almost word s…

Which words seem absurd and word soup to you? "Paradoxical"? "Sagacity"? "Manifestation"? "Resolution" Perhaps because Spanish is my first language, none of those seem purple prose or difficult to me. They are very straightforward, with the possible exception of "paradoxical": most people who don't read books don't know what it means. For example "sagaz" (someone who displays sagacity) is a very common word to us; Sa…

The problem is not merely with the words chosen but they way they're stitched together. Someone else tried to rewrite it without the over-the-top flowery language and it's far more concise despite still not being particularly minimalist.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19741886

>60% reduction in content for a single off-the-cuff rewrite implies the original work needs an aggressive editor with an aggressive amount of red ink.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#133

Post by phillipcarter »

gonehome wrote: post #47
mikeash wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s good advice but it’s also highly dependent on culture and time. It’s food advice because the English-speaking culture of today values writing that sounds like speech. It may not have been good advice at all for someone writing in 1920s France. And beyond that, it’s really hard to apply this sort of advice to a translation.

I’d argue it’s good advice for people that value clarity over sounding smart. I’d guess there were people that valued this in most times and cultures.

Writing that is intentionally eloquent, clever, intricate, etc. isn't inherently bad and most certainly need not adhere to the gospel of some arbitrary Venture Capitalist in silicon valley.

If your goal is to communicate your company or product; sure, keep it simple. But that's not everyone's goals, irrespective of culture or time period.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#134

Post by foldr »

dpark wrote: post #118
topynate wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only phrase which really is "too French" here is "proposes to the sagacity of its admirers". (It's not wrong , but not many English speakers still use "propose" in its sense of "set before someone as a goal".) Other than that, I see a well-balanced sentence in which every word has a purpose – but "well-balanced" versus "straight-forward" is a matter of taste.

Every time I read that sentence I can't help but picture some huckster standing on a soap box at an intersection in an impoverished neighborhood in the 30s. It's so clearly crafted to impress rather than inform that I can't help but feel a sales pitch is coming.

Well, yeah, which just goes to show that you're interpreting a work written by a French alchemist in 1929 in an American cultural context where everything is some kind of sales pitch - which is why you're getting the wrong end of the stick.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#135

Post by monastic »

methehack wrote: post #7

My guess is the older brother was named by the younger brother, the Enlightenment. They were "dark" because they were fundamentally anti-enlightenment; further it was hard to see through them to the classical period as they tried to burn most of those books. Personally, I think it's a fine name. The inquisition! What a show!

>They were "dark" because they were fundamentally anti-enlightenment

This is a gross mischaracterization reinforced by the enduring and destructive Jacobin propaganda of the French revolution. We are deeply indebted to the intellectual impetus of those "dark ages": https://pastebin.com/8ZgDV5mt

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#137

Post by the_af »

dpark wrote: post #132
the_af wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which words seem absurd and word soup to you? "Paradoxical"? "Sagacity"? "Manifestation"? "Resolution" Perhaps because Spanish is my first language, none of those seem purple prose or difficult to me. They are very straightforward, with the possible exception of "paradoxical": most people who don't read books don't know what it means. For example "sagaz" (someone who displays sagacity) is a very common word to us; Sa…

The problem is not merely with the words chosen but they way they're stitched together. Someone else tried to rewrite it without the over-the-top flowery language and it's far more concise despite still not being particularly minimalist. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19741886 >60% reduction in content for a single off-the-cuff rewrite implies the original work needs an aggressive editor with an aggressive amou…

The rewrite, while simpler and arguably clearer, also seems more boring to me. It doesn't engage my imagination.

In any case, the original doesn't set off my "bullshit detectors". Such an aggressive way of commenting on a piece of writing! Not everyone must or should write like Hemingway -- not even Hemingway!

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#138

Post by mikeash »

gonehome wrote: post #93
foldr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quoted text isn't at all unclear (especially taking into consideration the fact that it's a translation).

The quoted text is verbose and tedious. It uses a lot of complex words to convey little information, both of these things negatively affect clarity. You may have a preference for purple prose, but it's silly to pretend that the quoted text is clear. I'm suspicious when people write like that because it can be used to hide bad reasoning behind unnecessarily complex word choice and sentence structure. If you care about…

Someone in another time and place may well find complex word choice and sentence structure easiest to understand in written form, and is wary of writing that uses plain language because it can be used to hide bad reasoning behind simple-sounding words and sentence structure.

For you, and the culture you’re in, what you say is true. It is far from universal.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#139

Post by sls »

javert wrote: post #88
colechristensen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it is a century old translation from French. What might sound perfectly normal in French might sound silly in English if you do a literal translation. Matching the tone between languages might significantly change the message. For example, to use the English versions of French words... To say "I'm sorry" in French you say "I am desolate" Talking about a broken phone or a stomach ache you would say they are der…

> what boils down to shaming people for not communicating the way you want is wrong Which is exactly what the second half of your post is, but moreso than the person you are criticizing. There is no point in having a discussion board if people are going to be criticized because something they said with sincerity might offend somebody . That is the nature of speech.

The second half of his post is not a critique of how the point to which he responds was communicated, but of the point itself. He's saying that the message "people shouldn't write like that" is problematic and flawed, not that it itself shouldn't have been written like it was.

As to your second point, that any speech at all might offend someone so there's no point in drawing attention to that fact, on the contrary, the commenter is actually making a very concrete point. He is talking about a very specific thing, that this prescriptivism about writing style alienates and turns away a lot of people that could otherwise make valuable contributions. It's not a general statement that any statement might offend somebody, but a highly targeted examination of the consequences of such speech policing.

Re: The 'Dark Ages' Weren't as Dark as We Thought

#140

Post by foldr »

dpark wrote: post #132
the_af wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which words seem absurd and word soup to you? "Paradoxical"? "Sagacity"? "Manifestation"? "Resolution" Perhaps because Spanish is my first language, none of those seem purple prose or difficult to me. They are very straightforward, with the possible exception of "paradoxical": most people who don't read books don't know what it means. For example "sagaz" (someone who displays sagacity) is a very common word to us; Sa…

The problem is not merely with the words chosen but they way they're stitched together. Someone else tried to rewrite it without the over-the-top flowery language and it's far more concise despite still not being particularly minimalist. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19741886 >60% reduction in content for a single off-the-cuff rewrite implies the original work needs an aggressive editor with an aggressive amou…

If you read carefully, the rewrite leaves out a lot of the content. For example, the original text claims that "all the Gothic buildings without exception reflect a serenity and expansiveness and a nobility without equal". That claim simply isn't reproduced in the rewrite. Nor, to take another example, is that claim that certain monuments were built "in the enthusiasm of a powerful inspiration of ideal and faith".
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