sistermagpie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sistermagpie) wrote2004-06-11 03:57 pm
sistermagpie) wrote2004-06-11 03:57 pm
Me still going on about logic, and also the Stepford Wives
Happy birthday ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pippinsqueak and caminx!!!!
I'm having one of those VERY LITTLE SLEEP weeks, with odd things popping up all over lj that suck me in more than this one. I was going to say nothing at all about the recent kerfuffle, but of course I do have one thing to say about my original point, which has to do with a concept, not a particular person.
So in brief, I posted something that mentioned a recent theory about HP. I didn't think it was true, and wouldn't want it to be true, but I wasn't angry about it's suggestion or anything. The author didn't happen to go about supporting the idea the way that I think is necessary to show that it could be seriously considered as possible. And that's fine--she wasn't writing it to my specifications or presenting a paper in congress or something. What got me het up was people then responded by saying the idea had been supported with lots of canon evidence.
And what bothers me isn't that I want to call anyone stupid for saying this. It's just that to me finding evidence for something in a canon or in the events of a crime is interesting. Everybody doesn't have to agree, but that doesn't mean you can just call something supported by evidence because you like it or the storytelling was good. It just really seems important to me that we SHOULD be able to say to a fan, "Look, this has not actually been supported and here's why." I like it when people do that for me--there's a poster at TORC called Apostasy whom I adore because he explains logical thinking in a way I can really follow. Because of him I know why certain things that just seemed wonky are actually logical fallacies and why.
When I argue about something I really want it to hold up. Even if I love an idea if it's contradicted by the facts I'd rather throw it away than keep saying things that are wrong. That's why I think I think I rarely if ever make guesses about factual things that have happened or will happen in canon. I can talk about what I feel like might happen and why, but I can't prove anything has happened. But I get the vibe a lot in HP fandom (less so in Tolkien in my experience, but perhaps that's because of the particular mb where I go) that really there is this idea that it's mean to suggest that X's theory is illogical or uncanonical or whatever because she worked hard on it and it was a good story and creative. This is something I've seen with plenty of theories and it doesn't seem like it's intentional, it's that some people (maybe young people but maybe not) just truly don't understand the explanation for why something is illogical. And it's not that I'm so brilliant I am the Judge of Logic it's just when you see something that's obviously nonsensical you of course have the urge to say why. When you're somebody who likes logic and things like that (which I obviously do) it's frustrating to have people get defensive like you're just being mean to the idea or the person, often followed by more "defenses" of the hypothesis that also are not defenses, just more ways that it could have happened and I can't prove it can't. Again, this isn't some specific thing that happened, recently, it happens periodically.
Now, I think it's really important that people know not to attack people for having an idea they don't agree with. Thinking something is true that somebody else thinks is weird does not make one stupid or unable to read. Ad hominem attacks are just pointless--I could be completely insane and still come up with an argument that worked, so don't worry about IQ or why to prove whether or not what I said holds up. But I feel like--and this is part of a larger feeling that goes into fanfic and original writing and everything else--that there's just this mushiness that's being encouraged everywhere. It's not a question of compassion or treating people well, because it's not mistreating someone to tell them they got something wrong or didn't do something correctly or aren't the best at everything.
There seems to be an idea that this is a good thing, if everybody gets a gold star and every kid gets a trophy, but what's the use of a trophy if everybody gets one? There's nothing shameful about not getting a trophy (unless I'm just unaware of it in my shameful trophy-less state). In the case of presenting a possible hypothesis, it's like people know that these things are supposed to have evidence and be well-argued, so that's what they say when they mean they enjoyed reading it or that it's a compelling story idea. Explaining how something could have happened if it happened at all is not backing something up with evidence.
One thing drives me nuts because it's probably the most common thing that's described as evidence that isn't. It's the basis of most "shocking theory" books about true crimes. There are a few true crimes/historical incidents that really interest me so I've read books on them, and I started to notice that whole books (The Diary of Jack the Ripper, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, the awful Patricia Cromwell book on Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden: The Final Chapter, The Lindbergh Conspiracy to name a few) were based around doing this. What you do is, you come up with an idea. It's probably based on something somewhere, though it probably doesn't conclusively follow from anything factual. Then, taking that idea as a given, you revisit events, re-interpret them in light of your idea, and call it presenting a case.
So, for instance: If you're claiming the Lindbergh baby was killed by Charles Lindbergh's sister-in-law and the crime covered up for several days by his father while he made up a kidnapping cover story to avoid a scandal and rehearsed the servants on what to say, you can then point to Lindbergh's being reluctant to let the servants be questioned too much as a sign that he was nervous they'd slip up. It sounds like proof, but it isn't, because you've skipped over all the basic things: Why *should* we believe the baby was killed several days before he's reported missing, other than you're not up to proving the sister-in-law was at the house on a night when by all accounts she wasn't? Why *should* we believe the servants had been coached in what they said? Why *should* we believe Lindbergh thought the best way to avoid a scandal was to make up a kidnapping story and thus create the biggest news story in the world at that time and bring an army of press to his door?
That's how all these books work. There's little to no effort put into actually explaining why one should come to the conclusion that the victim was really the murderer, that the person you claim is the murderer even existed, let alone did the deed, that the person you've chosen as the killer was any more likely than thousands of anonymous people in the city at that time, and whether or not he actually had a strange operation as a child that left him impotent and wanting to kill women. They go straight into spinning the complicated tale, the facts of which are never backed up with evidence, counting on people to not notice because it's all so juicy. In fact, when presented with facts they're explained away just as strangely--eyewitnesses can lie, maybe the facts are wrong, he sent a double in his place. Sure any of those things could have happened, but proving that they could have happened doesn't make it any more likely that it did.
Of course they would much rather argue that way, because it puts the burden of proof upon the other person who is being asked to prove that X could not have happened, which is ridiculous. There's no way to prove something couldn't have happened, because their story can just change to fit any challenges it comes across. In a case of proving something about a canon, if something doesn't exist within canon it can't be prove or disproven. What evidence is there be in canon that the Weasleys do not have an eighth child that they ate one Christmas as a cheap alternative to turkey? None, if you're really looking for evidence. If you're sloppier about what you accept as evidence, then Ginny's new personality is due to her being possessed by the spirit of her dead Christmas sister, Ginny being more open to that sort of thing since CoS.
This, to me, was the heart of my reaction in the recent kerfuffle, and after all that and f_w and everything else this morning I clicked on a link where somebody used the words “backed up by much canon evidence” to describe this sort of thing yet again and…*headdesks* Just because something sounds believable does not mean it's backed up by evidence. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true, I'd bet, which makes me really worry about ever going on trial.
Btw, I seem to have slipped into some alternate universe where everybody loves Ronald Reagan and is incredibly affected by his death. Can anybody explain this to me?
Oh, and thirdly, every time I see commercials for The Stepford Wives I wonder what the point of updating this movie is. In the Times review it explains it's been turned into a farce but, um, why? The original movie wasn't perfect but it actually had a story to tell and something to explore. It walked the line of comic and horror really well, which is why it’s endured. It was definitely a product of its time. This movie just seems like one of those empty things where they take a lot of good actors and pair them with a well-known movie title and make an empty movie. It just seems like the original movie knew what story it was telling and what it was saying (Ira Levin certainly did), and this one just as the concept of these actors + that movie that has a great concept in it that has therefore become an expression everyone knows (Calling someone a Stepford-something) with no real reason to exist beyond that. Like it’s funny to think of these female movie stars being Stepford wives, and funny to think of these male movie stars as the husbands, but that’s enough to do a remake that I can see. It's an SNL skit padded out to two hours.
pippinsqueak and caminx!!!!I'm having one of those VERY LITTLE SLEEP weeks, with odd things popping up all over lj that suck me in more than this one. I was going to say nothing at all about the recent kerfuffle, but of course I do have one thing to say about my original point, which has to do with a concept, not a particular person.
So in brief, I posted something that mentioned a recent theory about HP. I didn't think it was true, and wouldn't want it to be true, but I wasn't angry about it's suggestion or anything. The author didn't happen to go about supporting the idea the way that I think is necessary to show that it could be seriously considered as possible. And that's fine--she wasn't writing it to my specifications or presenting a paper in congress or something. What got me het up was people then responded by saying the idea had been supported with lots of canon evidence.
And what bothers me isn't that I want to call anyone stupid for saying this. It's just that to me finding evidence for something in a canon or in the events of a crime is interesting. Everybody doesn't have to agree, but that doesn't mean you can just call something supported by evidence because you like it or the storytelling was good. It just really seems important to me that we SHOULD be able to say to a fan, "Look, this has not actually been supported and here's why." I like it when people do that for me--there's a poster at TORC called Apostasy whom I adore because he explains logical thinking in a way I can really follow. Because of him I know why certain things that just seemed wonky are actually logical fallacies and why.
When I argue about something I really want it to hold up. Even if I love an idea if it's contradicted by the facts I'd rather throw it away than keep saying things that are wrong. That's why I think I think I rarely if ever make guesses about factual things that have happened or will happen in canon. I can talk about what I feel like might happen and why, but I can't prove anything has happened. But I get the vibe a lot in HP fandom (less so in Tolkien in my experience, but perhaps that's because of the particular mb where I go) that really there is this idea that it's mean to suggest that X's theory is illogical or uncanonical or whatever because she worked hard on it and it was a good story and creative. This is something I've seen with plenty of theories and it doesn't seem like it's intentional, it's that some people (maybe young people but maybe not) just truly don't understand the explanation for why something is illogical. And it's not that I'm so brilliant I am the Judge of Logic it's just when you see something that's obviously nonsensical you of course have the urge to say why. When you're somebody who likes logic and things like that (which I obviously do) it's frustrating to have people get defensive like you're just being mean to the idea or the person, often followed by more "defenses" of the hypothesis that also are not defenses, just more ways that it could have happened and I can't prove it can't. Again, this isn't some specific thing that happened, recently, it happens periodically.
Now, I think it's really important that people know not to attack people for having an idea they don't agree with. Thinking something is true that somebody else thinks is weird does not make one stupid or unable to read. Ad hominem attacks are just pointless--I could be completely insane and still come up with an argument that worked, so don't worry about IQ or why to prove whether or not what I said holds up. But I feel like--and this is part of a larger feeling that goes into fanfic and original writing and everything else--that there's just this mushiness that's being encouraged everywhere. It's not a question of compassion or treating people well, because it's not mistreating someone to tell them they got something wrong or didn't do something correctly or aren't the best at everything.
There seems to be an idea that this is a good thing, if everybody gets a gold star and every kid gets a trophy, but what's the use of a trophy if everybody gets one? There's nothing shameful about not getting a trophy (unless I'm just unaware of it in my shameful trophy-less state). In the case of presenting a possible hypothesis, it's like people know that these things are supposed to have evidence and be well-argued, so that's what they say when they mean they enjoyed reading it or that it's a compelling story idea. Explaining how something could have happened if it happened at all is not backing something up with evidence.
One thing drives me nuts because it's probably the most common thing that's described as evidence that isn't. It's the basis of most "shocking theory" books about true crimes. There are a few true crimes/historical incidents that really interest me so I've read books on them, and I started to notice that whole books (The Diary of Jack the Ripper, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution, the awful Patricia Cromwell book on Jack the Ripper, Lizzie Borden: The Final Chapter, The Lindbergh Conspiracy to name a few) were based around doing this. What you do is, you come up with an idea. It's probably based on something somewhere, though it probably doesn't conclusively follow from anything factual. Then, taking that idea as a given, you revisit events, re-interpret them in light of your idea, and call it presenting a case.
So, for instance: If you're claiming the Lindbergh baby was killed by Charles Lindbergh's sister-in-law and the crime covered up for several days by his father while he made up a kidnapping cover story to avoid a scandal and rehearsed the servants on what to say, you can then point to Lindbergh's being reluctant to let the servants be questioned too much as a sign that he was nervous they'd slip up. It sounds like proof, but it isn't, because you've skipped over all the basic things: Why *should* we believe the baby was killed several days before he's reported missing, other than you're not up to proving the sister-in-law was at the house on a night when by all accounts she wasn't? Why *should* we believe the servants had been coached in what they said? Why *should* we believe Lindbergh thought the best way to avoid a scandal was to make up a kidnapping story and thus create the biggest news story in the world at that time and bring an army of press to his door?
That's how all these books work. There's little to no effort put into actually explaining why one should come to the conclusion that the victim was really the murderer, that the person you claim is the murderer even existed, let alone did the deed, that the person you've chosen as the killer was any more likely than thousands of anonymous people in the city at that time, and whether or not he actually had a strange operation as a child that left him impotent and wanting to kill women. They go straight into spinning the complicated tale, the facts of which are never backed up with evidence, counting on people to not notice because it's all so juicy. In fact, when presented with facts they're explained away just as strangely--eyewitnesses can lie, maybe the facts are wrong, he sent a double in his place. Sure any of those things could have happened, but proving that they could have happened doesn't make it any more likely that it did.
Of course they would much rather argue that way, because it puts the burden of proof upon the other person who is being asked to prove that X could not have happened, which is ridiculous. There's no way to prove something couldn't have happened, because their story can just change to fit any challenges it comes across. In a case of proving something about a canon, if something doesn't exist within canon it can't be prove or disproven. What evidence is there be in canon that the Weasleys do not have an eighth child that they ate one Christmas as a cheap alternative to turkey? None, if you're really looking for evidence. If you're sloppier about what you accept as evidence, then Ginny's new personality is due to her being possessed by the spirit of her dead Christmas sister, Ginny being more open to that sort of thing since CoS.
This, to me, was the heart of my reaction in the recent kerfuffle, and after all that and f_w and everything else this morning I clicked on a link where somebody used the words “backed up by much canon evidence” to describe this sort of thing yet again and…*headdesks* Just because something sounds believable does not mean it's backed up by evidence. In fact, sometimes the opposite is true, I'd bet, which makes me really worry about ever going on trial.
Btw, I seem to have slipped into some alternate universe where everybody loves Ronald Reagan and is incredibly affected by his death. Can anybody explain this to me?
Oh, and thirdly, every time I see commercials for The Stepford Wives I wonder what the point of updating this movie is. In the Times review it explains it's been turned into a farce but, um, why? The original movie wasn't perfect but it actually had a story to tell and something to explore. It walked the line of comic and horror really well, which is why it’s endured. It was definitely a product of its time. This movie just seems like one of those empty things where they take a lot of good actors and pair them with a well-known movie title and make an empty movie. It just seems like the original movie knew what story it was telling and what it was saying (Ira Levin certainly did), and this one just as the concept of these actors + that movie that has a great concept in it that has therefore become an expression everyone knows (Calling someone a Stepford-something) with no real reason to exist beyond that. Like it’s funny to think of these female movie stars being Stepford wives, and funny to think of these male movie stars as the husbands, but that’s enough to do a remake that I can see. It's an SNL skit padded out to two hours.