From: eck@panix.com (Mark Eckenwiler)
Subject: Re: Nilges
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 15:04:47 GMT
Organization: Superseding Information, Inc.

In <1992Aug25.144241.19677@Princeton.EDU>, egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU sez:
>In article <1992Aug25.020542.9196@panix.com> eck@panix.com (Mark Eckenwiler) writes:
>>
>>An anecdotal aside:
>>I wrote my Harvard senior thesis on _Tropic of Cancer_, largely as a
>>gob of spit in the face of a rather hidebound History and Literature
>>Committee.  Of my two readers, one was a rather zealous woman with
>>some decidedly ultra-feminist views; the other, also a woman, was a
>>literary generalist without any identifiable agenda.
>
>"A gob of spit in the face."  Clearly, then, you are of the tribe that
>is unable to make distinctions, not only between higher and lower forms
>of speech, but also between speech and action.  Harvard is well rid of
>you.

Ed, may I furnish you a clue _gratis_?  The quoted phrase is from the
opening paragraphs of _Tropic of Cancer_, written by that "honest man"
Henry Miller.  I guess when I use it, even as a deliberate allusion,
the penetrating literary quality is lost.


>>One of these two gave me a rather low grade, festooned my thesis with
>>lengthy (and incorrect) criticisms about endnote format, and
>>practically ordered me shot for failing to address Kate Millet's
>>criticisms of the book (criticisms which had little or nothing to do
>>with the subject of my thesis).  I'm sure that it will come as a
>>terrible shock to you that this reader was the one whose views appear
>>more consonant with your own on the subject of gender and race
>>oppression.  Indeed, I'm quite sure that she considered Miller, in
>>your immortal epithet, a mentally disturbed punk.

>Since in actuality the only decent literary criticism around is feminist
>literary criticism, you probably were remiss in neglecting such
>criticism of Miller.  But your lack of awareness of the ways in which
>literary criticism works, and your confusion of criticism with flamewar,
>is devil a doubt the reason why you did not read Millett's criticisms of
>Henry Miller.

The only lack of awareness at work here is your own.  One wonders how
you know so much about the relevance of Millet's criticism to my
thesis when I'm quite certain you haven't the vaguest notion of my
topic.  Besides, Ed, I had indeed read Millet -- and discarded it as
irrelevant. 


>Your flamage is obviously informed by a residue of bitterness given the
>unkind treatment accorded your senior thesis.  Grow up.

No, Ed, my ridicule of you is grounded in the widely accepted fact
that you have no principled conception of what free speech is, or how
it should (or should not) be regulated in civilized society.  The
anecdote of my thesis -- a decade-old episode which I have indeed
gotten over, your amateurish attempts at psychohistory aside --
illustrates a point which has unsurprisingly escaped you.  For your
benefit, I render it explicit here:

There are dogmatists of your stripe who will claim that your hero,
Henry Miller, is a "mentally disturbed punk" deserving of fewer speech
rights, just as you claim that Viktora The Punk deserves fewer speech
rights than Miller.  In other words, Ed, your critical valuations of
the worth of others' speech are (surprise!) not universal.  Given the
fact that you can't even agree with other feminists about the relative
merits of others' expression, how do you expect anyone to take you
seriously when you propose your grand scheme of speech right
apportionment?


>  The real world
>will handle your creations with similar and increased roughness; you
>should learn from these criticisms.  It is unlikely that you shall,
>since you obviously feel that a vector of criticism running from a woman
>to a man is prima facie dangerous, 

Hee hee hee.  I'll pass that along to my wife the assistant university
dean, who I'm sure will be much entertained.


>for somewhat the same reason that you
>feel that the vector of "criticism" running from Robert A. Viktora to a
>black target was desrving of high court protection.

Make me laugh.  You're the one advocating governmental repression of
speech to protect you and your chosen beneficiaries from such critical
vectors. 

-- 
Morally and artistically, Henry Miller had MORE right to free speech than
Walt Disney and [Father] Coughlin because Miller was an honest man whereas
Disney and Coughlin were liars.   - Ed Nilges
	   Mark Eckenwiler    eck@panix.com     ...!cmcl2!panix!eck