Amiga Plus Leser 15/Amiga Plus Leser CD 15.iso/Scene/Eurochart44/Articles/Objectivity&Passivity.txt

Text File | 2002-03-12 | 11KB | 292 lines

»CL6:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
»CL0:                             Objectivity & Passivity
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                          Written by »CL5:Darkhawk »CL6:of »CL5:IRIS

»CL1:Have you read Wades  article  in  this
mag about objectivity yet? As he wrote
about  something  I  wanted  to  write
about too, I  will  just  go ahead and
write more of the same.. Ehrr no,  not
quite, but it will be  about the  same
topic.  »CL8:I   wanted   to   write  about
objectivity and negativity, but I will
just skip some things and mainly focus
on interpretations  of  objectivity.»CL1: I
will  expand  my  article   idea  into
another  article  I  wanted  to write,
after seeing how  many  people  in the







scene react to something that  is both
akin to, and  developed,  out  of this
topic.


First off, however, I want  to add  to
Wades  writing  about  objectivity. »CL7:He
has clearly  defined  one  instance of
it,  the 'neutral,  observing  stance'
version,  and   told   you  that  this
version in diskmag  writing is a thing
that should  only  rarely, if ever, be
sought,  certainly   not  in  reviews.»CL1:
Many people have  this habit of crying
'subjectivity'  when the writer writes
something negative,  and 'objectivity'
when  he  writes   something  positive
(especially   if  it  is  about  them,
their   production,  or  similar),  so
that  'objectivity'  for   them, is to
express oneself  nicely/inoffensively,
not negatively,  about  a given topic.
While this is not the  true definition
of the term,  we  might  humour this a
bit. »CL8:Try to imagine  a scene review in
this vein, taken to the  extreme. What
would it  consist of? I was tempted to
do   such  a  review  this  time,  but
laziness   got  the  better   of   me.»CL1:
However,   it   would     consist   of
listings. Listings of  effects, of the
number of colours, of  the screen mode
used, of  the amount of  bytes  in it,
the amount  of articles, the amount of
lines   of  code,   the    amount   of
'whatever'.  »CL7:It  would  consist  of  a
description of  musical  style  (jazz,
funk, techno,  whenever such  phrasing
would be   unambiguous  to people), of
the names  of   those  who  did it, of
tedious,   matter-of-fact   statements
about the things  on the  screen (e.g.
'Now we see a  so-called Metaball,  on
a  256  colour  screen.'»CL1:  etc.. Infact
much  like Azzaro's own review  in the
last EC), and  lastly, if the reviewer
wanted to  add   a  bit  of spice,  he
could  write  about  how  other people
have    received    the    production,
moreover, he  would have  to  do  this
truthfully.  Would   this  be  a  good
article?  Well,  it  would  have  many
things speaking against  it, it  would
fail to   capture  the  reader, and it
would fail  to  express the opinion of
the author,  who might  have some deep
things to write  about it.  After all,
philosophy,  creativity  and  inherent
understanding  of   a  text,  of   its
intrinsic  value  (or  lack  thereof),
does not come through a cold, clinical
analysis of it, infact  one  will very
often not get any good view of a given
thing,  by   such   means.  »CL8:Dissecting
things without regard to  the  meaning
inside never produces a  good  result.
However, I am carried  away here.»CL1: I am
very much in  agreement  with  Wade on
this topic, but I  wanted to elaborate
too.

What some people call 'objectivity' is
'to talk nicely  and not  negatively',
others   understand   it as  'being  a
neutral  observer, only  writing about
that, which you can directly  observe,
without  interpreting'.  »CL7:Both  methods
are  quite  clearly  wrong,  when  one
wants  to  write  an  article , and it
shows the  word-ly  confusion  we  can
have.»CL1: Different minds, different  ways
of interpreting  words.  Also, in  the
'real' world, objectivity  is  neither
of these two things anymore. Yes,  the
latter  has  been  the  ideal  of  the
Newtonian science for a long time, and
is quite inherent in  our  western way
of  thinking,  although  it  has  been
largely   abandoned    too.    Without
commenting  too much  on  this  aspect
however, I can  safely state  that the
cultural/humanistic  sciences  do  not
operate  with  that  interpretation of
objectivity,  and  those  sciences, if
you should not  have  guessed already,
are  the  basis   for  modern  article
writing that  is  not  purely  natural
science  (physics,  chemistry,  etc.).
»CL8:That view on objectivity is more along
the lines of 'looking at  all relevant
aspects of a given thing,  and  making
the  relevant  comments   and  links'.»CL1:
'Relevant'  here   means  using  one's
knowledge and experience when  looking
at the aspect in  full,  noticing  and
describing things  according  to  that
knowledge. If  there  is  anyone  left
reading  this  by  now, I  guess it is
time  to   concretise   what  I   have
written, with some examples.

Consider a professor in English  and a
farmer   being   asked   to   describe
Shakespeare's  'Macbeth' according  to
each  of  the  3  interpretations   of
'objectivity' I  have given. The first
interpretation was  actually a kind of
subjectivism,»CL7: but it is very prevalent
in the scene, that is, always  writing
as  many  nice  things as possible, or
at least  not  writing   the  negative
things, or, being very gentle with it,
if it cannot be helped. »CL1:The second was
the  'purely   neutral/passive   view,
devoid  of  interpretation',  and  the
third  was  the  'interpretation using
available understanding &  experience,
starting  from  a   neutral   standing
point'.  In  the   first   case,   the
professor would be full  of praise for
the work, so much praise  that he need
not criticize at all (and  admittedly,
it is hard for such  a  professor  not
to be   positive    about    most   of
Shakespeare's works), while  the  poor
farmer   would   have    his   trouble
understanding  the  play,  but  if  he
managed to grasp the  meaning  of most
of  the  words,  he  would   gain   an
impression about the play, and  likely
find it jolly and interesting (»CL8:more so
if  he  could  just  view   the  play,
instead of reading it»CL1:). He  would  not
quite grasp the real  meanings  behind
the text, the  subtleties, or  indeed,
the overall theme maybe, but he  would
likely enjoy it, and if  not,  he  can
excuse himself  and  say  he  was  too
inept.  Both  would  not  have  to  be
negative, after  all,  Shakespeare  is
such a nice fellow, he tries hard, and
one  should  not  discourage those few
who  try  hard by actually criticizing
them, no no..

»CL7:In   the  second   (and   maybe   most
interesting, since this  might be held
as a goal for  serious  journalism  by
some   editors)    interpretation   of
objectivity, the  two  'reviewers' are
actually on close to  even grounds,»CL1: as
the knowledge of the  professor of the
actual  contents   of   the   book  is
subjective   and    extraneous.    The
professor and  the  farmer  would both
describe the  book as so-and-so thick,
of  having  this  amount  of pages, of
having  this  layout,  this  cover, of
consisting of  black  marks written on
white paper,  of  weighing  so-and-so,
etc. They  could  both  do  a somewhat
precise  review,  according  to   this
criteria. This would be like  a  scene
musician  and  a  random,   not   very
musical  person,  reviewing  the  same
piece  of  music.  They   would   both
be  equally  good  at  it,  with  that
criteria.

»CL8:Lastly, and here  is  the  conclusion,
and the be-all-end-all thing for  this
discussion   about    objectivity   in
articles,»CL1:  when  reviewing   the  book
according to the 3rd interpretation of
objectivity,   you   would    get   an
extensive,  likely  brilliant,  highly
academic and thoroughly  extensive and
enlightening  review of 'MacBeth' from
the  professor, while the farmer (yes,
I know, I am  being  cruel to farmers,
it is  just  for  illustration,  eheh)
would fall  terribly short of the goal
of  providing  a   reasonable  review,
because  he  has not had the training,
nor   the   inclination    for    this
particular  review,  infact the farmer
would not even begin to understand the
intricacies of the  play, or  the  new
words  Shakespeare  introduces in  it.
However,  the  professor  would  do  a
review as it should  be.  He  has  the
education  for  this review (though he
would  not  have  it  for  a review of
crop-rotation, just to  be  fair), and
he has the expertise to point out good
and bad  things  about  it. »CL7:Of course,
you will have to bear in mind that the
opinion of the  professor might not be
easily    accessible,     that     is,
understandable, and it  might  also be
biased,  but   it   would   still   be
objective    according   to   the  3rd
interpretation,»CL1:  unless  the professor
has  personal   feelings   of   hatred
towards Shakespeare (always forced  to
read him  before  going to bed, beaten
on the head with a Shakespeare book by
his  father,  etc.),  because   he  is
judged  able  to  make  a professional
estimate of the worth  of the play (ok
ok, maybe  he  is  a  boring dork, and
does  not  appreciate  this   sort  of
intricacies, but you get  my meaning).
Others might of course  disagree,  but
calling  his opinion  'subjective' and
not 'objective',  would  be  an error.

»CL8:Phew.. Somewhere into  this article, I
asked myself why I  was  writing this,
and making the article so inaccessible
to people, but I  guess  I just wanted
to cut  loose,  so  probably  only 50%
fellow editors and die-hard masochists
are with me now.»CL1: I do  hope you got my
point though, it  is  wider  and  more
general than you might think. For now,
Wade's  and  my   own   article   have
hopefully demonstrated  that  we  need
this way  of reviewing and  looking at
things,  otherwise  we  would be cold,
boring machines , or ignorant, boring,
back-clappers. »CL7:What  the  scene needs,
is  not  this  kind  of *passivity* in
opinions or deeds.»CL1: The  scene  needs a
little  more  bite,  a   little   more
honesty, and  certainly  it  does  not
benefit from handling  everything like
it is fragile and might break  if  one
says   something   'not-so-flattering'
about it. This will  stifle our scene,
make it devoid of values  and meaning,
and this is actually rather important.
So  important  that  I,  after  having
established  the  preliminaries,  will
deal  with  this  topic  in  the  next
article. For now, remember  that  cold
objectivity,       or       uncritical
back-clapping  leads to passivity  and
non-caring in the scene, certainly not
to a brighter and more  objective  way
of things..


         »PIC:5.iff»