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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wild Gazebo" data-source="post: 2278968" data-attributes="member: 24413">Quote:Originally Posted by Wild GazeboThe labour involved with deconstructing text can be quit entertaining...and even quite persuasive, but the accumulation of textual examination create a body of understanding that can be applied, I feel, a bit more reliably. Similar to how a poll or scientific experiment might create a data set, this body of work is worked over and applied in a type of 'average' application that becomes dogmatic...I'm sure you see this. But, like logic, is a servicable tool. "I do. But it's flimsy methodology. It's easy to dismiss one interpretation as arbitrary or at least biased, but is an aggregate of bias any less biased just because it is common?To be fair, I don't mind deconstructing works of fiction looking for symbolism. I happen to think that it's a bit over-done in most English classes I've ever been in or most literature journals I've ever read, though. And I think it takes itself too seriously very frequently. Much like Celebrim's assertion that his interpretation is "factual," for instance. Claims like that are what get my back up about the entire methodology."Flimsy methodology.  Hmm.  Well, one author makes a claim...several people debate its merits and faults...a concensus is formed or fractured...the fractured or concentual idea is debated by several academics and is further fractured or a concensus is made...  you see where I'm going with this, it's a evolutionary model of understanding--a structuralist argument if you will..  Each claim is not arbitrary.  Each claim is backed up with textual evidence that is acknowledged or dismissed by the discourse community...very similar to science--albiet in an artsy-fartsy way.  Your claim to the contrary appears far more arbitrary than centuries of critical analysis...but, I think your argument is based slightly more on poor experiences with terrible educators than with the authority of an entire discipline.  A discipline should not hamfistedly promote dogma...it should illustrate the tecnique that created the dogma.The common, or average, aspect is not a median of a grouping...it is the result of an ongoing morphing or reinterpretation of understanding.  And, yes.  Far too many academics take themselves far too seriously...I feel this is more of a self-defense mechanicism derived from a discipline that deals with more subjectivity than objectivety.  You should not be offended, you should pity them.</blockquote>

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