{"id":4439,"date":"2011-01-03T09:46:40","date_gmt":"2011-01-03T09:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=4439"},"modified":"2011-01-03T10:33:30","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T10:33:30","slug":"wise-words-for-the-stupid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/?p=4439","title":{"rendered":"Wise words for the stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Once again I find myself repeating what is probably going to become my mantra for 2011: ‘Context is everything’.<\/p>\n

The late Kurt Vonnegut wrote some pretty good work, but his real skill wasn’t as a writer, per se<\/em>, it was as an observational satirist.<\/p>\n

What he found easy was exploiting the societal weaknesses, highlighting the structures of irrationality that we sometimes build around us.<\/p>\n

Because he had a keen brain that looked for the satire, Vonnegut expressed opinions on many things.<\/p>\n

As a result, he is oft quoted, particularly by late-teens schoolchildren, as if repeating his words imbues the speaker with a degree of higher knowledge.<\/p>\n

Or wisdom.<\/p>\n

And so it was when I was a late-teen schoolchild.<\/p>\n

Today I saw someone deriding this NHS poster with the words ‘Who says we don’t live in a nanny state’:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll let you think on their words and this poster, given two factors:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. That there are those in our society who aren’t as bright as you or I and who, frankly, *need* to have detailed information on how to clean themselves<\/li>\n
  2. That the NHS produce generic information leaflets like this, most of which will go in to institutions where some people are heavily medicated, and aren’t allowed out by themselves<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But the thing that got my ire was that the person who chose to ridicule this NHS poster quoted, not long afterwards, Vonnegut:<\/p>\n

    ‘You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction if you are not depressed’<\/p>\n

    This is, plainly, bollocks, and a good example of why Vonnegut sometimes dropped the ball.<\/p>\n

    Depression is no more a condition for elevating a shit writer of serious fiction to ‘good’, than is baldness. Or acne. Or suffering hallucinations.<\/p>\n

    Vonnegut could not have written Slaughterhouse Five if he was a shit writer with terminal depression, no more than I could write Ender’s Game (Scott-Card) if I was a manic depressive.<\/p>\n

    Which Scott-Card isn’t.<\/p>\n

    So here, because this really minor thing has obviously got my goat, is a nanny stateised version of the Vonnegut quote:<\/p>\n

    ‘You cannot be a good writer of serious fiction<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. If you are not depressed (nb. this statement may not be true)<\/li>\n
    2. if you are not a good writer of serious fiction<\/li>\n
    3. if you cannot read<\/li>\n
    4. if you don’t know the rules of narrative<\/li>\n
    5. if you are not aware of the differences between active and passive voices<\/li>\n
    6. if you do not know the rules of tense consistency<\/li>\n
    7. if you cannot write with flair and imagination and, above all, accuracy’<\/li>\n
    8. if you have no ability’<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      Sorry, I don’t know why someone who has depression (the person who highlighted the NHS poster and used the Vonnegut quote) effectively saying, ‘Look at me, I’ve got depression, I’m going to be a great writer’ – when they are actually borderline illiterate looking for excuses for not being much cop with the business end of English literature – has so annoyed me.<\/p>\n

      But it has.<\/p>\n

      I shall go and make breakfast now. It might make me less annoyed.<\/p>\n

      p.s. Vonnegut’s ‘If God were alive today, he’d be an atheist’ is tempered by Scott-Card’s activism within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Hypocrites<\/span> Saints<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Once again I find myself repeating what is probably going to become my mantra for 2011: ‘Context is everything’. The late Kurt Vonnegut wrote some<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stuff","two-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brennigjones.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}