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Anchormen for German TV and radio used to be selected for their clear and distinct speech.
Since about 25 or more years now the engagement of not so perfect speakers has set in. People who talk colloquial, grammatically wrong and partially don´t even know etiquette.
Maybe these positions have to go with the trend, I don´t know. And with the enhanced slicing off through todays pharaos, much less income being left over for pedestrians who can´t supply their families through a single job anymore ... hence with the upcoming of latchkey children, we know that many individuals are not stuffed with basic abilities anymore. There is decreased differenciation of colors, sounds; less of social skills and also less of linguistic ones. Speech therapists have seen a great rise of their profession´s demand.
But there should be still enough folks around who can artiiculate themselves clearly, for to recruit spokesmen, no?
My access to German TV channels is rather limited, but from what I can see about 70% of anchormen / speakers are now lisping. And even heavily so. It really hurts my ears. I can hardly stand through a newscast anymore.
It goeff like thiff all the time. And thoffe "FF"s are buffting my earff. Really!
Jufft had to get rid of it. Thank you for lifftening!
( PS here in Britain oracles of propaganda tend to lean towards talking in mild regional accents now as opposed to RP. People selling upscale home improvements are still RP. Lots of marketing studies measured the responses of people from various backgrounds to different accents delivering various messages advertising and otherwise and information/news. The results were studied very seriously. The news is selling something, it's selling an agenda and usually that of the government or a powerful media magnate.
This might be part of the reason that anchormen in Germany are chosen with a reassuring laziness of speech. Everyone on earth remembers just how crisp Hitler's diction was.
But maybe the good old days are returning our new prime minister talks like Neville Chamberlain and the government is big on deference, attacking the police on a point of deference quite famously. So we may well be on our way back to that heyday of the late thirties when people knew what was what and do do as the were jolly well told.
D.
(PS RP is short for received pronunciation and it is still used by the Queen and Prince Charles but not by princes William and Harry)
One of the things I find irritating in the U.S. is the constant use of the term "guys" to refer to anyone, whether teenagers or elderly ladies and gentlemen. News teams use it all the time: A reporter in the field addresses news anchors, "Hi guys," and when the report is completed signs off with, "Back to you, guys."
It is really irritating to hear it used in restaurants. I've seen waiters/servers take an order from several women with, "Can I start you guys off with drinks?" And then when checking on how they find the meal asks, "How are you guys doing?" You rarely see it in the better restaurants, but it happens all the time in what are referred to as "family" restaurants.
I'm all for a certain informality, but the constant use of the term "guys" to refer to people you've never met before and who are often twice your age grates on me. It not only reveals a lack of etiquette (if "etiquette" has any relevance any more), but also demonstrates sloppy use of the English language.
OK, I'm signing off. Back to you, guys.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
Yiddish root simply meant goy/non jew/gentile and was gender neutral Bill.
People have different concepts of politeness. Some include deference, I think that for most social situations respect is sufficient.
Deference can be useful though of course. But in the instances I am thinking of the advantage is mostly for the one who defers. A good example would be when a beginner is talking to a professional.
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
Yiddish root simply meant goy/non jew/gentile and was gender neutral Bill.
The Etymology Dictionary has a different take on the origin of "guy."
"guy (n) 'fellow,' 1847, originally American English; earlier (1836) 'grotesquely or poorly dressed person,' originally (1806) 'effigy of Guy Fawkes,' leader of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up British king and Parliament (Nov. 5, 1605), paraded through the streets by children on the anniversary of the conspiracy."
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
As so often I was working from memory.
It's not perfect but it is mine. I think I heard it on the radio maybe thirty years ago.
I dislike 'The Etymology Dictionary' intensely as a title. I would much prefer 'X's Dictionary of Etymology'
Not just on general poor style but also by the insidious suggestion that it is in some way unique and therefore infallible.
I have lost count of the amount of times I could not find corroboration for historical notes from hard copy sheet music on internet sources. Ditto the amount of questionable definitions I have seen online.
I do not know when the first Yiddish/English dictionary was published. And I doubt very much that 'The Etymology Dictionary' 's compilers cross referenced it. The Guy Fauwkes part of the definition is irrelevant I think.
I was wondering what kind of coincidence might have led to a majority of lisping anchormen. And all I knew was that the logopedical ( speech therapy) demand was increasing since a while.
Are you saying the selecting of lisping speakers could possibly be intentional? Serving as means of ingratiation?
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
ORIGINAL: guitarbuddha
( PS here in Britain oracles of propaganda tend to lean towards talking in mild regional accents now as opposed to RP. People selling upscale home improvements are still RP. Lots of marketing studies measured the responses of people from various backgrounds to different accents delivering various messages advertising and otherwise and information/news. The results were studied very seriously. The news is selling something, it's selling an agenda and usually that of the government or a powerful media magnate.
This might be part of the reason that anchormen in Germany are chosen with a reassuring laziness of speech. Everyone on earth remembers just how crisp Hitler's diction was.
Could be that propaganda specialists aim at todays latchkey proletariat, who knows. I really wonder how come.
Besides, Hitler wasn´t really talking crisp. In fact he had some heavy mumble to disguise. Only what he did was strongly rolling the "R". Your average German in northern Germany / Prussia was actually talking really crisp. A sound you find only in old films or movies that emulate very nicely family stories in the times of around Weimarer Republik / WWII. I love that pristine and well pronounced way of speaking and am missing it dearly.
Some 10 years or so ago, there also was a small serial about farmer families of the late Middle Age. Gorgious how they managed to produce that dialect, and it sounded lovely too.
Then again there exists an overdone kind of crisp talking that I can´t stand. Usually enaged by sorts of wannabe yuppies, and it sounds just sterile and artifical.
Linguists like amateur musicians seldom discuss rhythm, mostly becuase they have no language with which to do so.
RP has almost no rhythm. It needs to be done with exceptional sensitivity to sound humble and beautiful. Normally it sounds insistent and indeed 'unquestionable'. I do not wish to dwell on Hitler but from what I have heard of his demagoguery he certainly sounds insistent.
By contrast to RP the rhythm here in Glasgow and in most (if not all) cities of the world common speech (of which, believe it or not, I am a humble practitioner) is rich in rhythm and the nuances of meaning which it allows.
Ditto classical/flamenco. To the untrained ear or the classically prejudiced (in the true sense of having accepted a judgment before gaining experience) ear or the 'locked in the fifties 'puro'' ear modern flamenco sounds wrong.
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
RP has almost no rhythm. It needs to be done with exceptional sensitivity to sound humble and beautiful. Normally it sounds insistent and indeed 'unquestionable'. I do not wish to dwell on Hitler but from what I have heard of his demagoguery he certainly sounds insistent.
I categorize it as brutes charming the elite or avantgarde. There have been diverse examples in history. Like for instance Rasputin, said Hitler or Warhol. These three´s careers and others´started with a mere moment of uttering something that may sound like a revealation to the privildeged or sophisticated, who are being intrigued by the humble´s wisdom. ( The latter as an actual phenomenon after all indeed being fascinating.)
Sometime merely brute or simple personalities get mixed up with the humble wise and then patronized by the establishment.
That is why Warhol was so tacitum. He had been instructed to not talk, and it worked out. The chic set thought he was an intellectual, though his output was boldly placarding the actual condition.
Hitler, who used to be described as "charismatic" ..., when you watch his speeches attentively you will see that he was actually far from being such, and that it was all supportive preconditions ( and not at last Goebbels´legwork, who actually was a rhetoric master and advanced theatralic actor).
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
I dislike 'The Etymology Dictionary' intensely as a title. I would much prefer 'X's Dictionary of Etymology' Not just on general poor style but also by the insidious suggestion that it is in some way unique and therefore infallible.
I'll throw my lot in with those who make a study of etymology. I would be glad to consider your notion of the term's origin as Yiddish, however, if you could provide a recent source, other than a thirty-year old radio memory.
Nevertheless, we know what the term "guy" means and how it is used (in my opinion, overused!) today. As used in everyday speech in casual conversation, fine. But too often it is used as a catchall term to refer to people when a more appropriate term would be in order.
And of all people, news reporters and anchormen (and women) should be aware of, and use, good English, and not fall back on the sloppy and lazy "Hi guys." But then I have thought for a long time that the problem with journalists and reporters is they all get their university degrees in "Journalism," when they ought to be studying History, Politics, and Economics. But that's a subject for another thread.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
It certainly seems as if intellectuals of the 20th century used to be working on a whole other level than contemporaries of the past ~ 30 years.
While single bits of their factual store naturally could have been not updated to today´s latest findings, their overall and broad knowledge on subjects and bibliography was of a whole other category of complexity and completeness. No little number of theirs so dedicated to gathering knowledge and reading up that they would ruin their eye sight. ( I remember one who in the end could not see any thing further away than ~ 30 cm from his eyes. And he would still be keeping on reading, reading, reading.)
Today´s average intellectuals, from the prof. of philosophy to the journalist, seem not even light versions of their passionate and sophisticated predecessors.
Today´s average intellectuals, from the prof. of philosophy to the journalist, seem not even light versions of their passionate and sophisticated predecessors.
And it will only get worse, Ruphus. Most of the younger people today, known as "Millennials," (AKA "Generation Y," who came of age around the year 2000) do not read newspapers. They get their "bite-sized" news from the internet. There is no way they get the in-depth background to events occurring by depending on the internet. And the problem is newspapers are trying to cater to them while losing money and readership. Just yesterday, the New York Times announced that it is cutting 100 newsroom positions because of overall declining print revenue. Many newspapers have simply folded up.
I know younger people who do read in-depth, both books (not electronic Nooks, but honest, bound books!) and newspapers. But the vast majority don't seem interested. When I mention books by authors from whom I learned a lot: V.S. Naipaul, Nikos Kazantzakis, Paul Bowles, the great historian Hugh Thomas, and many contemporary works of history, politics, economics, philosophy, and literature, I find they have little interest. It's not on the internet, and therefore it has no value!
I suppose that is why many news reporters and anchors on television news use the term "guy" that prompted my original comment. It is probably an attempt to appear "hip," and appeal to a younger audience that it is losing (or has already lost) to the internet. And if you observe the atrocious syntax and grammar that one finds on the internet (the "Foro" excepted, of course!), it is no wonder that a generation of near-illiterates is rising, incapable of making a cogent argument leading to a conclusion, backed by careful analysis. Sloppy, imprecise language leads to sloppy, imprecise arguments and conclusions. But as one hears all the time, "Whatever......"
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
We have the same problem here in Texas. More and more people are using the sloppy and incorrect "y'all" instead of the proper and civilized "you all".
"Whatever......"
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
And it will only get worse, Ruphus. Most of the younger people today, known as "Millennials," (AKA "Generation Y," who came of age around the year 2000) do not read newspapers. They get their "bite-sized" news from the internet. There is no way they get the in-depth background to events occurring by depending on the internet. And the problem is newspapers are trying to cater to them while losing money and readership. Just yesterday, the New York Times announced that it is cutting 100 newsroom positions because of overall declining print revenue. Many newspapers have simply folded up.
I know younger people who do read in-depth, both books (not electronic Nooks, but honest, bound books!) and newspapers. But the vast majority don't seem interested. When I mention books by authors from whom I learned a lot: V.S. Naipaul, Nikos Kazantzakis, Paul Bowles, the great historian Hugh Thomas, and many contemporary works of history, politics, economics, philosophy, and literature, I find they have little interest. It's not on the internet, and therefore it has no value!
And I know of those on the Foro who have not read those authors yet continue to angrily vent spleen about the of degradation of intellectual quality. Holy Cow.
And of those who have not read the mentioned authors, it's difficult to have conversation with them because you have to deal with the angry posturing which fronts as intellectualism and deep thinking, but in reality is only a public display of outrage which functions to alienate others who could possibly be involved in a dialog.
Then there are others who have not read any of the authors, or at least have not yet, who are cool, logical and polite. They think carefully before responding, and while not intellectuals in the broad sense, actual make more sound arguments for their discussion topics and are more interesting to interact with.
Sorry to be so oblique. But I'm just saying this, on the Foro I find many participants who probably would not claim to be intellectuals with a capitol 'I' to be far more reasonable and informed than some of those who have something to prove or some intellectual adzes to grind. Really what is intellectually valuable are subjects that are tangible disscussion points for a community to get involved in. A holy rant is fine now and then, and even some deep arcane scholarship can be flaunted to show off just to keep up the standards. But the meat a potatoes of public discourse is not ranting and raving to get your idea across or to conduct a rant as a needed catharsis for one individual, the main course is what everyone can digest as a group.
Wait is that too commie of me? To suggest that substantive discourse is inclusive of most all participants and not morally superior posturing and ranting that results in alienating most of the group?
I would put forward the idea that just because the classification of intellectual in a 20th century definition would stress certain values, people today who did not have that same curricula could also be rigorous researchers and question askers. The curriculum or canon serves and map of intellectual markers or flags, and those flags are changing. We may have to entertain the idea that to move forward what we hold as intellecual standard may change form. These changes might not be less informed or less valuable, lacking in discipline, than what is established, but embracing other canons of knowledge and mastering them quite well.
It also amuses me that many of those who call the future bleak by way of a critique based on a good understanding of the Western European/ American canon of history and culture, don't actually have a realistic grasp on cultural history. That is called irony.
I like to look at it from a positive point; as much as good thinking is slipping into the weeds, it is also getting better and more global.
Todays leading thinkers / authors / authorities are not just of another form. They are less informed, regarding quantity and width as well as regarding factual quality / coherences in view of todays resource and availability.
Your mentioning of the internet, Bill, got me thinking. I don´t think negative of the internet. Its merits appear to far overweighing its imperfections. ( Fantastic escape to mentioned dictate of media magnats, and great informational source for people in all kinds of regimes.)
However, I am wondering since a while about the qualitative difference between reading ( to which you even suggest differncs between reading of books / papers / magazines and reading from screens, Bill) and other ways of consuming.
Cut off from hardware paper supply, I am restricted to reading online editorials and to listening to TV newscasts.
And though familiar with the feeling already since decades, I am suspecting a fading, temporary factual memory, way worse than when I used to read my weekly SPIEGEL magazine.
In the past when seeking something in my paper work / accidentally finding a letter to a friend from only a year or so ago, I used to wonder about the fascinating facts that I have had known and which by then had slipped on me.
Now, with my internet / TV info consume, I suspect that me could be surprised so to say by my knowledge of past week already which by now might have gone lost.
Contents in my brain appear to ever faster be fluctuating. Much less durable than in my hardware times. I feel as if slowly going dotty.
Or let´s take my artist / architecture prof. cousin as an example. He does not read news / special literature anymore at all. Instead he relies exclusively on listening to the radio while working on his projects. This enables for him to be catered with a lot of information through the radio news and reports. And he still appears well informed when you talk to him.
In the same time it is a long time now that I have the feeling as if there were quite some discrepancies in his depth of understanding. With individual matters he proves great wisdom, but with many topics he remains in cognitive shallowness.
I told him already years ago, that my impression was that consume of factual contents through speech seems to not match the informational quality through reading.
One point that ought to be unquestionable as an advantage of reading is that you determine speed and repetition of passages, always to demand. And the more dedicated you are the more thorough your ways of reading will be. No anchormen could read things that way for you.
What further differences between reading from either paper or screens be, I am interested in hearing of your suggestions ( or about eventual studies about it ).
Possibly you didn´t care to first and actually read what´s been said. Othwerwise you might have sensed a qualitative difference between the comments you quote and the things discussed in this thread.
What the parallel is concerned. I was saddened to read of the NY Time firing of personel, like with so many skrinkings in the classical media before. Which is different from other reports like the latest news on editorials´ decisions to reduce the output of printed paper and increase digital issues. This I welcome for environmetal reason, whereas according to your unrelated quotes I should had condemned it.
Actually, it was just a light hearted quote on the fact that things always change, and that most people are quite conservative and either don't like it so much or it makes them uncomfortable (including myself)
I have obviously have sympathy with any person or persons who lose they livelihood for whatever reason
feel free to either condemn or support whatever you wish
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
It also amuses me that many of those who call the future bleak by way of a critique based on a good understanding of the Western European/ American canon of history and culture, don't actually have a realistic grasp on cultural history. That is called irony.
Actually, many critics who have a good understanding of the Western European/American canon of history and culture, as well as of historiography in the research and writing of history, do have a realistic grasp of cultural history. Cultural history, i.e., the application of the field of "Cultural Studies" to the writing of history, has been around for about 25 years. The field of "Cultural Studies" is not the same thing as the study of cultures. But it has been incorporated into the writing of history by various "postmodernist," "post-structuralist," and "post-colonial" writers, many of whom are not even historians. They often ignore well-recognized historiographical methods, often depending on peoples "stories," and most demonstrate a decidedly anti-Eurocentric, anti-Western, anti-Neoliberal bias. Two of their patron saints are Edward Said and the ever-dependable Michel Foucault, neither of whom were historians.
You speak of irony. Let me give you an amusing example of irony. Cultural studies and postmodernist history have found their way to the non-Western world. Yet, cultural theories and their relationship to the non-Western world remain paradoxical. A good example is the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty. Chakrabarty seeks to contest Western intellectual hegemony, and he has used the approaches of postmodernism to criticize Eurocentrism. But the irony is that most of the elements of his critiques have been derived from Western sources. V.S. Naipaul would be amused, as he so often has written of the post-colonial world's attempts to chart an independent course, only to end up aping their former colonial masters.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
But then I have thought for a long time that the problem with journalists and reporters is they all get their university degrees in "Journalism," when they ought to be studying History, Politics, and Economics. But that's a subject for another thread.
Bill
Well having talked to a lot of journalists over the years I can HEARTILY agree with this.
In much the same way as people who presume to be etymologists should be studying contemporaneous texts and not exclusively a narrow selection of American dictionaries.
Here is a page which has a variety of possibilitise for the origin of guy. I like it, there are lots of suggestions and they are not exclusively anglo saxon.
Read all the way through and see if you prefer the range and humility. A nice change to the pompous insistance and narrow view to the (sic) 'Etymology Dictionary'.
Guy, as in guy Fawkes, incidentally would have pronounced Gee in the French style and has nothing to do with meaning of the word guy which we are discussing. No one ever said 'hey you guys' with the intent of comparing them with Guy Fawkes. Very very very shoddy work to suggest that they did, obtuse even, certainly not my idea of etymology.
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
Chakrabarty. Chakrabarty seeks to contest Western intellectual hegemony, and he has used the approaches of postmodernism to criticize Eurocentrism. But the irony is that most of the elements of his critiques have been derived from Western sources. V.S. Naipaul would be amused, as he so often has written of the post-colonial world's attempts to chart an independent course, only to end up aping their former colonial masters.
Bill
Thats interesting. Wierdly a westerner here attacked Buddhism (and I want to be clear I am not a Buddhist) on this very Foro in a way which had almost exactly the same form and substance as historical attacks by Hindus of the broader Bhramin tradition on the perceived flaws of Buddhist teaching. Chiefly in the idea that an individual should feel more responsibility to caste and clan than to personal relationships or morality.
Some would claim that the existing caste system in India made it ripe for the English conquest. Victorian ideas of deference and knowing one's place must have seemed very natural to a culture dominated by the caste system.
But ideas like words can arise in different places at different times. I try not to feel the need to think that I necessarily know which instance of a concept word or idea came first and where. Principally becuase experience has taught me that one can always find something older and often surprisingly far afield.
I am very glad that I do not assume that all ideas of utility were arrived at by my particular caste (struggling artists and buffoons).
But perhaps the Vedas were right and that is why my caste is still weak and mostly ignored and history shows that our Karmic rewards ,if any, have been a long time coming.
Posts: 3470
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to guitarbuddha)
quote:
Guy, as in guy Fawkes, incidentally would have pronounced Gee in the French style and has nothing to do with meaning of the word guy which we are discussing. No one ever said 'hey you guys' with the intent of comparing them with Guy Fawkes. Very very very shoddy work to suggest that they did, obtuse even, certainly not my idea of etymology.
It was listed as one possible origin (among others I listed) of the term "guy," and it was not with the intent of comparing "you guys" with Guy Fawkes himself. It stated that in the definition under consideration, "guy" referred to the EFFIGY of Guy Fawkes paraded through the streets by children on the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. I have repeated it below.
"'effigy of Guy Fawkes,' leader of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up British king and Parliament (Nov. 5, 1605), paraded through the streets by children on the anniversary of the conspiracy."
I don't put any credence in the "effigy of Guy Fawkes" being the etymological origin of today's slang term "guy," any more than I put credence in the list of "Baby Boy Names" you presented. Personally, I would place my bet on the etymological origin of the term, as it is used today, on the origin I extracted from the Etymological Dictionary, repeated below.
"guy (n) 'fellow,' 1847, originally American English; earlier (1836) 'grotesquely or poorly dressed person,"
But I am in no position to categorically state that. It's just my hunch.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: What's up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
earlier (1836) 'grotesquely or poorly dressed person,"
Bill
I AM in a position to verify and expand upon this. In my childhood we would dress up a dummy with cheap worn out clothes and take it on a cart around the neighbors houses asking for 'A penny for the guy'. At the end of the day we would use the money to buy fireworks (or a combination of fireworks and sweets) pick a piece of scrap land place 'the guy' at the centre of a bonfire roast potatoes in tinfoil and let off fireworks.
This is a very old tradition celebrating the failure of the gunpowder plot on fireworks night. But it is not as old as yiddish.
RE: What´s up with the lisp? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
Actually, many critics who have a good understanding of the Western European/American canon of history and culture, as well as of historiography in the research and writing of history, do have a realistic grasp of cultural history. Cultural history, i.e., the application of the field of "Cultural Studies" to the writing of history, has been around for about 25 years. The field of "Cultural Studies" is not the same thing as the study of cultures. But it has been incorporated into the writing of history by various "postmodernist," "post-structuralist," and "post-colonial" writers, many of whom are not even historians. They often ignore well-recognized historiographical methods, often depending on peoples "stories," and most demonstrate a decidedly anti-Eurocentric, anti-Western, anti-Neoliberal bias. Two of their patron saints are Edward Said and the ever-dependable Michel Foucault, neither of whom were historians.
You speak of irony. Let me give you an amusing example of irony. Cultural studies and postmodernist history have found their way to the non-Western world. Yet, cultural theories and their relationship to the non-Western world remain paradoxical. A good example is the Indian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty. Chakrabarty seeks to contest Western intellectual hegemony, and he has used the approaches of postmodernism to criticize Eurocentrism. But the irony is that most of the elements of his critiques have been derived from Western sources. V.S. Naipaul would be amused, as he so often has written of the post-colonial world's attempts to chart an independent course, only to end up aping their former colonial masters.
I agree with the idea you bring up of watering down the discipline of straight up history with all the "posties", you have to understand the canon before you can revise it, right?
Specifically, in an oblique way, I was pointing those on Foro who use art history in rants without first understanding the contexts and works of the artists they compare to Stalin and Hitler. What I find ironic, maddening and plain sad, is that these artists works are misused as political discussion chips and ridiculed unfairly by a person who's knowledge is 100 years ( if that) behind the times in scholarship and historical understanding. And misused so forcefully as to push out any others with more knowledge who might be able to elucidate some of the real histories of these artists. and correct some, if not all, of the FACTUAL errors this writer makes. Ya'll are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. It peeves me that some think they can change facts and create an aggressive argument, no rant, based on *made up facts* and think it suffices as civil discourse.
So Bill as the other Bill said, I feel your pain.
This is exactly what you are talking about, making a 'Postie' argument and using history in a narrow self serving special interest.
As far as Said and Foucault and the likes, Ok here's the deal: if you like hot sauce on your fries and you put a few dabs on great, that is good. But if you put the whole bottle on three fries, not so tasty. Same goes, in my opinion, with the stream of Western history, if writers come in who are not historians and write about epistemology, power relationships between cultures a levels of society etc, then those texts when read in contrast to the main stream view can serve as mirroring devices to open up new ways of thinking about the trajectory and implications of histories by directing some critical thought at how the history was put together.
I have to cut short, but two thoughts- Postie-isms in and of themselves do not make for good histories or history writing; too often now a revisionist take on history is a chic way of saying that an author is reexamining a history due to new facts (I say FACTS) coming to light. What is pushed into a revisionist mold, is really just what should happen to history, it should be checked and rechecked as documents become declassified, and new evidence in the field is found. Good thing is most older academics now remember that the post this -post that phenomena was a European academic trend from the 1960's and in that era took ten years for this teaching to become embedded and taught in the US, by which time it was obsolete. Now news travels faster and academic trends play out faster.