How do you get to declare them "wrong"?
Just like this, "They are wrong." See how easy that was. If you like, and you didn't get it the first time, I can demonstrate it again.
It's a two way street right? Or, is it a one way street - your way?
Oh sure, they can disagree. They can say I'm wrong. But if they even as much say that I'm wrong, it suggests their argument is something that they don't understand and is unsustainable in the long run. It may be a two way street or it may not be, but you can't have it both ways.
Pretty much any post modern interpretation of any work pretty much says that authorial intent is largely unimportant. I mean, this is English 101 stuff. Any first year university student can tell you the same thing.
Sure. Any freshmen University student can regurgitate the things that they were told uncritically, because that's all you would expect of a first year university student. I don't know what Professor you had for English 101, but they really should have broadened your horizons a bit.
The notion that the author is a sole or even important element in interpretation died decades ago.
No it didn't. I mean, is the best you got are arguments like "everyone knows this" (band wagon) and "it's what they teach in the university" (argument from authority), then I'm really starting to think your university years were wasted.
Like I said, it's just so bizarre to see someone try to claim authority here. I'm frankly baffled that anyone, today, would try to claim authorial intent as a thing.
I see this is as a confession of your weakness and not mine.
Again, it's a total cop out is the primary reason I reject it. "Oh, I didn't mean that." is the mating cry of the Internet Troll, not someone who actually wants to be taken seriously.
Err... that's your problem? That's the strongest argument you can offer? For one thing, the problem with a statement like "I'm joking" or "I didn't mean that" is that usually you can reasonably determine whether the original statements actually contradict the claims. For another, you've actually offered up two very separate arguments and conflated them. It's one thing to claim that the author has to be able to defend and support his intent by referencing his own words to show that his intent and his statements are congruent. That's all fine and reasonable. An author ought to be able to show that he either expressed himself well or that admit that he expressed himself poorly.
But it's quite another to say that the author's intent is irrelevant to the meaning of his words, or that anyone and everyone's interpretation of what the author said is equally valid regardless of what that interpretation is. The author's intent may not be everything, but it's pretty important and very helpful for understanding what you read and hear. "What do you mean by that?" is very important and very valid question, and a person who consistently argues that they can always answer that question without recourse to research of some sort is a narcissist. And a person who consistently argues that only what they heard is the important part of a conversation is likewise a narcissist.
In my experience no one believes that they can communicate and always perfectly express themselves. No one believes that they can communicate and not be misunderstand. But all persons who communicate do so with the expectation that the can and ought to be understood. If they did not believe that, then they wouldn't bother to try to communicate. And all good readers, because they are good readers, and all good listeners, because they are listeners care deeply about what the person on the other end of the communication is trying to say. If you think you can just make up anything on the basis of what you heard, without referencing what was on the other end, you've conveniently divorced yourself from having any responsibility in the conversation. Communication was attempted, and it failed to be received on your end, because you didn't want to do the work to try to understand.
Speaking as someone who writes with a great deal of passion, if you don't want to understand what I'm saying, don't flatter yourself and do injustice to me by making up crap using my words when you could make up the very same crap using words of your own. Leave my words out of your literary masturbation.
The whole thing cannot be sustained on two grounds - one moral, and the other intellectual.
As a general moral principle, no one should treat with others as they would not want to be treated with themselves. Yet I find in my experience no one who writes or who speaks, who is not offended, or irritated, frustrated or at least amused when the person that they are communicating with misunderstands them. Sometimes they may admit on reflection, that they didn't communicate as clearly as they should have, and so the misunderstanding is understandable. But there comes a point where everyone feels that they've been wrongly used by the hearer. And in my experience no one who writes or speaks is not offended to some degree when a person grossly misconstrues them, misreports their words, and libels them. Everyone wants to be understood and acts as if they ought to be understood. Therefore, everyone ought to extend the same curtesy to the speaker or writer and do their best to understand them according to their intent. Indeed, all of rational debate depends upon this principle of charity.
Further, we cannot intellectually assent to your argument either. For everyone that speaks or writes has some sort of effect that they are trying to create in mind when they do it, and quite often they have a specific idea in mind when they say what they do. They may make that idea imperfectly, and we may see that idea imperfectly but it is there. Authors in particular shed blood and tears putting many words on paper in the hopes of producing an effect and communicating ideas. I put it to you that no one does this with the idea that there intent and meaning doesn't matter. If anyone thought that communicating their intent and meaning was a hopeless pursuit, they wouldn't bother writing.
So for myself, I cannot believe these ideas because I see no one with the courage of their convictions to act as if they were true. I see people willing to prioritize their own readings and meanings for those of others, but if you talk to these people and test them by going way out in left field and misconstruing them, they argue and debate with you in full hypocrisy because with respect to their own words they do think that their intent matters. It could truly be that somewhere out there is some one who sincerely believes this crap and has the courage of their convictions to actually put it into practice, but if there is we shall never hear form them. Personally though, I find any idea that is so ridiculous that it can only exist as a mental exercise and not only can it not be put into practice, but no one actually does put it into practice, to unworthy to spend more than the time it takes to recognize how ridiculous it is. I consider those that teach the young to think that only the reader's understanding matters no more than charlatans.
