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An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

theatlantic.com

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Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#81

Post by jerf »

__s wrote: post #62
domador wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a problem with fictional works' authors being unknown or anonymous. The problem lies in nonfiction works that seek to directly convey any kind of knowledge or wisdom that is difficult to judge and evaluate independently on its own merits (with would cover just about everything outside the hard sciences). There is value in knowing the identity and character of an author, as well as the fact that…

Plea to authority & ad hominem, agree & disagree, respectively

Plea to authority is a fallacy when it is an inappropriate plea to authority. Asking that someone who writes a history book actually be an authority on history is not a fallacy.

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#82

Post by slededit »

jerf wrote: post #81
__s wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plea to authority & ad hominem, agree & disagree, respectively

Plea to authority is a fallacy when it is an inappropriate plea to authority. Asking that someone who writes a history book actually be an authority on history is not a fallacy.

When a work is popular and heavily critiqued the authority of the author is no longer necessary. Surely the volume of critical analysis provides you sufficient information that you no longer need such a noisy signal as the author's identity.

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#83

Post by vokep »

__s wrote: post #62
domador wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a problem with fictional works' authors being unknown or anonymous. The problem lies in nonfiction works that seek to directly convey any kind of knowledge or wisdom that is difficult to judge and evaluate independently on its own merits (with would cover just about everything outside the hard sciences). There is value in knowing the identity and character of an author, as well as the fact that…

Plea to authority & ad hominem, agree & disagree, respectively

Argument from fallacy is a fallacy

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

__s wrote: post #62
domador wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there's a problem with fictional works' authors being unknown or anonymous. The problem lies in nonfiction works that seek to directly convey any kind of knowledge or wisdom that is difficult to judge and evaluate independently on its own merits (with would cover just about everything outside the hard sciences). There is value in knowing the identity and character of an author, as well as the fact that…

Plea to authority & ad hominem, agree & disagree, respectively

Fallacies in argumentation may nevertheless be useful rules in managing limited time. That are fallacies because they do not price the conclusion, but that doesn't mean that they are without value as mechanisms for making decisions based on lose associations that do not need to be 100% correct to be valuable.

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#85

Post by ap3 »

c0nfused wrote: post #65
fishtank wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who has been destroyed in this fashion?

To pick an example, as a kid I read Ender's Game Because it was SF and had a cool cover. Now, because of the odious nature of the author's personal politics, I don't read his books. This is entirely his own fault, but if he was just another name on a book I would still be buying his novels. To pick another example, there stuff like this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_55f1...

I’d say this is your fault - OSC is the same being as when you picked up the first Ender’s book.

I mean, given what you said, should I even read your opinion if I don’t know who you are or what you stand for

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#86

Post by __s »

betenoire wrote: post #72
__s wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plea to authority & ad hominem, agree & disagree, respectively

You've listed the names of various fallacies. Logical fallacies. But what logic are you saying is fallacious in the parent comment? The commenter has their own set of biases and hueristics for choosing what to spend their limited time in. Unless they follow it up with, "and for these reasons, these are the correct books to read" then there is no fallacy.

My point is that identity is a bad measure. If you like their identity, that's plea to authority. If you don't, that's ad hominem. So rather than going off of the value of the content, we're going off of whether you agree or not. This is the thinking that gets people stuck in echo chambers. Better to optimize your time by seeking reviews which might hint at whether the content could be interesting for you or not

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#87

Post by SiempreViernes »

icebraining wrote: post #48
SiempreViernes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being the US representative to the UN, I imagine she helped delay action on climate change and things like that.

She's only been the ambassador to the UN since 2017, yet she appears in the 2016 list.

Man, Trump really makes the years seem longer...

Re: An Open Letter to Elena Ferrante, Whoever You Are

#88

Post by Scarblac »

wlesieutre wrote: post #56
Scarblac wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a list of eight names, of which I only recognize four (Trump, Jackman, Musk and Winfrey). I think the problem is that the world is much more fragmented than we assume it is.

You've probably heard of Satya Nadella on HN, he's the CEO of Microsoft

I probably read a few stories that must have included his name, but somehow it never registered.
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