Let's
see if you can say that better. Or, am I even sure what you're talking about?
Genuine clarity and your bulging vocabulary couldn't be more clearly
delineated.
If
you can speak you can write -- that's what Hitch used to say. The caveat is
that the standard for speaking well is having others want to listen. A bad
sign, then, when the writer herself is not engaged enough even to re-read what
she had produced.
Know
your subject. Know your tenses. Know the difference between a sensitive
metaphor and a reductionist disaster.
You've
clearly mastered the art of a Google search. But this millennial wealth of
information must be examined in a way that is circumspect. This is not
Britannica.
I
fear that your teachers, while of noble intention, have singled out Wikipedia
and social media as the enemies of objectivity. In so doing, they have given a
pass to everything else and offered no fundamental lens of discernment through
which to look.
Remember,
discrimination is not a dirty word. Once we get passed the tedium of 'more
than’ and Oxford commas, then the real fun can begin. Identifying problems in a
sentence is just a stepping-stone to noticing problems in arguments, inconsistencies
in positions and data, and ultimately to seeing the wrongs in the world around
us.
But
for now, go out, copy and paste, recycle and regurgitate, safe in the knowledge
that some ethereal gatekeeper exists to maintain the reputation of the masthead.
Though, more likely sparing no thought at all.
And
here I sit, hunched, in the shadows but for the incandescent glow of the
MacBook Pro on my face. Know that my criticism of ostensible cruelty is only
partly intended as such. The cruelest thing would be to say everything is fine.
Brendan McBryde
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