{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/753",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 753,
    "subject": "A New Modus Critique",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1998-06-08T14:57:07+00:00",
    "last": "1998-06-08T14:57:07+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0013-0010@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Robert Borski",
        "address": "rborski at coredcs.com"
      },
      "date": "1998-06-08T14:57:07+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) A New Modus Critique",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Fellow Lupines:\n\nI've been thinking some about various critical analyses as they've been\napplied to the list. Too often I feel theories or suppositions are\nadvanced, but are not evaluated as source documents that draw upon a larger\nreferential frame. All criticism that seeks to address certain perceived\ntruths is valid, of course, but at the same time these various critical\nscreeds must also define for themselves a nexus of core beliefs that seeks\nto address the examined main using self-defined standards that are either\nstated or implicit, but which yet remain true to themselves within these\nsame boundries. (Horrors: I've just regurgitated whole globlets of\nPhilosophy 101--please forgive the vomitus.)\n\nLet me start over, using a suggestive parallel.\n\nFor my paradigm, I'd like to deviate from literature and cite the various\nschools of analysis used to evaluate film. Even the most monomaniacal\nfoaming-at-the-mouth practitioneers of a certain cant would never insist\ntheir critical dissections are the only valid approach. (Hey, Gene, how's\nthe head wound? Roger misses you.) Hence the various schools of thought\nthat are taught in most collegiate film courses. Each has its own tenets,\nand while various conceits often overlap, each school has its own\nevaluatory dicta. Is it possible, however, to use the standards of one to\ncritique the analysis of the other? I maintain no. Hence the auteur cahiers\ndu cinema approach to analyzing CITIZEN KANE will always be every bit as\nvalid as the Marxist approach, as long as each adheres to its referential\nframe. Each has its own grammar and rules; each generates its own true\nsentences. But mix them together, you have more gibberish than sense.\n\nI would like to suggest we attempt the same respect for boundaries here.\n\nNow I'll be first to admit that my way of looking at Gene Wolfe may be\nsomewhat different than others. I subscribe to the Secret Shadow theory,\nespecially re FIFTH HEAD. My belief--again, at least in regards to this\nparticular work--is that while its grand theme is the search for identity,\nits central conceit is that no one is simply who he or she seems. This\nnotion underwrites the corpus of my earlier dispatched NOTES FROM CLIFF,\nwhich as far as I'm concerned comes as close to being my critical manifesto\nas anything else. Please note, however: it is far, far from being the only\napproach to Wolfe. Others have their own approach, whether it's the mantic,\nthe algal or the Ellisian, and each, when it remains true to its own\nreferential frame, is 100% valid. But should we try to impose our own\ncritical standards upon theirs, because we feel they're superior or prima\nintellectuae? Please, let us do not. It only leads to contentiousness or\nhurt feelings or the worst wound of all--at least for those who would like\nto share our analyses--silence.\n\nI would like to apologize for not having been a practioneer of my own\nadvice in the past. I will try to do differently from now on.\n\nBecause this is a group about Gene Wolfe, remember?\n\nGiven the scramble for turf, there can be no Alpha Males--only yelping\ncurs.\n\nRobert Borski (exits, pursued by wolves) "
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}