As you may recall, when I see a fine specimen of the polemic literary form, I take notice. They’re rare. Read Richard Sale’s take on the recent piece in Elle on Chelsea Clinton.
As you may recall, when I see a fine specimen of the polemic literary form, I take notice. They’re rare. Read Richard Sale’s take on the recent piece in Elle on Chelsea Clinton.
It’s Elle, for Christ’s sake. But this:
“What the author has produced is merely is shameless, idolatrous bull shit.”
Gives me a chance to tout one of the greatest philosophical essays of the 20th Century, Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit. See also its progeny, Richard Quandt’s On Wine Bullshit. Both are worth you time.
That wasn’t my favorite passage in Sales’s piece. This was:
Too in need of editing for me to call it fine. Among other things, two sections each get repeated a couple of paragraphs apart in the kind of digital copy/paste we see (AND COMMIT) all the time in the electronic word processing era.
Such overly lush, slavish, obsequious flattery such as the Elle editor is not simply ass kissing, it s a reckless and determined search for polyps. The Elle editor does not evince an inch of sincerity; any particle of inner honesty, any capacity for accurate perception, and the very lushness of her flattering, servile prose make us turn away from such a bogus concoction, trying very hard to hide our contempt. What the author has produced is merely is shameless, idolatrous bull shit. If you found this stuff on a sidewalk, you would need a garden hose to get rid of it.
This is prose written by someone on their knees. It is the product of a debased mind.
… was my favorite bit.
Chelsea Clinton. In Elle. Boring plus boring. There’s eighteen months, plus another eight years of this (most likely). If you find yourself hate-reading an article in a fashion mag about Chelsea Clinton, how are you going to make it through alive?
“Such overly lush, slavish, obsequious flattery such as the Elle editor is not simply ass kissing, it s a reckless and determined search for polyps.”
Look at the bright side. That’s a quip worth putting in the arsenal.