being?
At boing boing today I saw a post about an old encyclopedia that someone looked "comic books" up in. Here's a photo of the page.
That's
Also, some comic books do not have pictures that are well drawn or words that are well written, and so they do not help children to learn good taste in art and literature. For this reason, many persons are against all comic strips and comic books.
The author does nothing in the passage that follows to clear up what's not well done.
Forget asking the obvious question of what's it take for anyone to consider a picture well drawn or words well written. The more profligate error is the application of a state of being to the opposition to comic strips and books. It's ridiculous on several levels.
Being against. My fingers are against a keyboard. The broom is against a wall around the corner in the kitchen. Try putting your mind against cars driving down the street and see how well you do. One can't be any more against comic books or a war than they can be against a dodecahedron. (They are entitled to think, though, that the dodecahedron is a fucking disastrous, retarded idea.) And if your mind is set against comic books, what in them is it really against? The paint? The colors? The unapologetically non-Victorian prose? If you are a person who would write this, has this thought even occurred to you? There's a corollary that deserves its own paragraph. Here it is.
What are the requirements for not having to explain yourself?
Do you just have to be the one who seems surest of yourself and then you're placed on a pedestal, unable to be questioned? It sure works for right-wing radio hosts. That makes the listeners a very large group of pitiable subservient beta males, who long to be like the idol behind the golden microphone but will settle for having the same ideas.
Why is the state of mind in this passage so static as to be referred to as a state of being? This publication makes the status quo appear so revoltingly, grimacingly oversimple, I can't believe they'd even read a book at all, intellectually immune and mentally catatonic, forever smiling the palsied smile of Laura Bush.
Even if the author is operating within a vernacular which as a rule aligns individuals with their beliefs in a boorishly totalitarian way there's no excuse for it, on the grounds that you're lecturing on the ethics of communication rather than considering the merits/disadvantages of a medium, all the while ruining the credibility of the one you've chosen to employ to do so.
Anyone making even a half-hearted attempt to exemplify upright conduct with regards to clarity and quality in language could not have constructed these sentences, because on the other end of writing is reading, and it is unfairly incumbent upon the reader to (acrobatically in this case) strip down the meaning, which is mired in a dazzling whorl of murky bullshit. Don't get any on you. To "believe" something necessarily reduces one's ability to separate a potential scenario from a real one, which is how a belief becomes more total, and eventually a faith. (And after that, a holy faith. Look out for that one, kids.)
I was going to turn this post into a story about my father, but I've decided that instead I'd drag out the passive aggression over many painful years. That's what the men in my family traditionally do. The Hank Williams family's sons get fucked up and make increasingly shitty music; my family's sons pretend not to hate their fathers.
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