The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic. – H.L. Mencken
So, were y’all thoroughly confused yesterday? Were you wondering who the hell wrote that crap that was posted under my name, or did you think it was a great improvement over my usual baroque sentence structure and outré descriptions? Did you find yourself saying, “Ye gods and little fishes, it’s as though Ernest Hemingway had come back from the dead to write a guest column!” Or did you not even notice anything amiss?
Yesterday was, of course, April Fools’ Day, and for this year’s prank I decided to run my Reason essay “The Mythical Invasion of the Super Bowl Hookers” through Hemingway, a program which purports to “improve” your writing by making it “bold and clear”…in other words, by shortening and simplifying each sentence down to a level that would not confuse a rather slow-witted ten-year-old. Hemingway said that my original text was “OK”, with 16 demerits; the final product was rated “good” with only 8, though I had eliminated everything the machine had labeled a “problem”. Presumably, my score couldn’t get any lower because it still had too many words of more than one syllable and too many highfalutin’ terms like “prohibitionist”, “television” and “Canada”.
Now, in part I did this was because I thought it would be funny; not necessarily Monty Python funny, Three Stooges Funny or even Noël Coward funny, but at least whimsically amusing. But I also did it to show just how stupid it is to defer to the aesthetic sensibilities of something that would lose in a battle of wits with a starfish. Even if one stupidly believes that there is only one kind of good writing, and suffers from the lamentable but popular delusion that Hemingway was its archetype, and furthermore imagines that even Hemingway always wrote in that clipped, easily-parodied style we refer to as “Hemingwayesque” (which he did not), the notion that a glorified Nintendo console is qualified to judge adherence to that standard is ludicrous at best. But as stupid as that idea is, a very large fraction of moderns cling to it with childlike devotion because it is a natural outgrowth of one of the most pernicious dogmas of the machine age: that human beings are just another kind of (albeit complex) machine governed by knowable rules, and that Utopia can be achieved if we can only discover those rules and implement them thoroughly (and ruthlessly) enough. This is the heart of “Progressive” thought: force people (via social engineering, prohibition and criminalization) to only eat, wear, watch, read, hear, say, do and think what “experts” have decided is “good” for them, and the Millennium will arrive on the very next high-speed train.
The problem with this is that it’s 99 44/100% pure bullshit. Human beings are not Skinner’s programmable modules, social interactions are incredibly complex and most “experts” aren’t even qualified to make decisions for their dogs, much less for millions of people they don’t know. That idea that human beings can and should be governed by rigid, top-down rules designed by said “experts” has given us the Drug War, sex work prohibition, mass incarceration, mass surveillance, the nanny state, “Child Protective Services”, the “sex offender” registry, mandatory minimum sentencing, “zero tolerance” school policies and a host of similar abominations far too numerous to list. People’s lives, like their writing styles, are unique, and what works for one does not necessarily work for another; by the reductionist “logic” of modern governance, Shakespeare, Cervantes and Dostoyevsky were all terrible writers because they don’t sound like Hemingway…and their works should be mercilessly edited until a mindless computer program declares them acceptable.
LOL. That explains the title.
And the epigram & second picture. 🙂
I didn’t notice anything amiss. Sometimes when I read your articles, I tend to notice more “energy” or “linguistic ooph”. It seemed that way yesterday – but I didn’t connect any dots to an automated program.
My mom was an English teacher and I wrote pretty good in high school and did well in English Lit before I quit college. I usually was the Sailor that wrote “reports” and shit when I was in the Navy – but I picked up a lot of bad habits and two of those are overuse of (…) and (-). There was a push in the Navy in the late nineties to “write as you would speak” and I think that’s when I started to go downhill. I would try to capture taking a breath or emphasizing certain sentences.
BE THAT AS IT MAY … when I retired I still had to write reports on a government contract. The college grads that worked for me couldn’t write for shit. It was like working for the NSA – decoding their “status reports” was like breaking cryptographic code. Now, these were computer programmers – but still.
I’m writing this post through “Hemmingway” and it’s letting me get away with all kinds of shit!
Seventh grade reading level!!
By the way – I noticed it let you begin a sentence with the word “And”? I thought you couldn’t do that. I thought that was another of my “bad habits”.
She’s toying with us, krulac, just toying with us 😉
(I know my place.)
On not starting with (And)
You definetly can’t under normal cercomstances, however, you can begin a sentence with a conjuction (and, but, because) when you are using it as a way to show emphasis. It is not a very eloquent use of the English language, though.
😛
Which is why my Mom used to yell at me when I did. 🙁
I do it all the time now!
No, you shouldn’t start a sentence with “and” but for God’s sake, learn how to spell before you start giving literary advice.
Oh and as for your second point, just because it’s something certain people do doesn’t mean you “can” – or should, for that matter – do it.
It seemed a bit off, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on what was wrong.
“and the Millennium will arrive on the very next high-speed train.”
Do you think then that high-speed trains have no place in our future? It seems like guilt by association to include them with all the other unpleasant things you say progressivism has engendered.
I don’t think Maggie has much of a handle on progressives or progressivism … I”m a progressive, and I agree with her on most things. The progressives I follow think prostitution should be legalized, but Maggie appears to think progressives are advocates of the Swedish Model or some such thing. That would be more in line with the “centrist” Democrats (or Republican Lites as I call them) who currently hold sway in the Democratic party. Progressives also believe the police are becoming militarized and estranged from the public which they are supposed to be a part of, and serve.
The vast majority of the active supporters of continued legal aggression against prostitutes are social conservatives, who are also major proponents of the Swedish model. Gender feminists on the left are the other major supporter of legalized aggression against prostitution, but they’re not really part of the progressive movement, which is mostly about decent living standards for the poor and the middle class. Gender feminists are out there on their own wacky little island in academia, but because they tend to be leaders of the feminist movement and because they are aligned with the social conservatives on pornography and prostitution, they have a lot more clout than they deserve. (This is why “I’m not a feminist, but …” is such a popular mantra among celebrities who support equality between the sexes … the “feminists” they are talking about are gender feminists, whom they don’t want to be identified with.)
Just because you call yourself a “progressive” doesn’t mean you embrace all of “progressive” philosophy. I suggest you research the meaning of the label and the policies the “philosophy” has advocated (including eugenics and violently-enforced prohibitionism) since its very beginning in the late 19th century.
Mr. Powers, not to stifle your desire to speak your mind about what Progressivism is or is not, but I was simply trying to ask Maggie’s opinion about railroads, specifically high-speed trains.
Personally, I would welcome them in the USA.
President Obama – the Supreme Progressive in America does not agree with you.
He is four-square behind the trafficking myth …
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/foreign-policy/end-human-trafficking
Hillary Clinton – the “on deck” batter for the Progressives is not for legalizing prostitution and has referred to it in the past as “slavery”.
A good case can be made that they should be included.
Blogger Mark Liberman decided to find out how Hemingway would evaluate the prose of Ernest Hemingway. Verdict: Bad to OK.
In retrospect, I knew something must be off because I found myself skimming the article instead of reading it. I tend to like your “six words when one will do” style. 🙂
Noel Coward…there’s a writer.
This Progressive is largely occupied with fighting Conservative “values”, which include prohibition and criminalization.
I think you’re confusing “progressive” with “liberal”; they’re not the same thing, which is why the label was changed in the US a few years ago. Actual liberals are much more like libertarians than they are like progressives.
If you favor gun control – you’re a prohibitionist.
All prohibition comes from the same poisonous tree. No doubt … Conservatives are prohibitionists but no less so than the progressives who want to ban everything from guns and cigarettes – to 32 oz sodas.
I think that a lot of people who read this blog – agree with what Maggie is saying but don’t understand that agreeing with her is counter to their political philosophy. Most people who read this blog believe in some sort of prohibition on something. However, if you give the government the power to “prohibit” even one thing relating to personal behavior and matters that should be decided by the individual – then you’re giving them the power to prohibit ANYTHING.
You simply cannot contain the monster – it’s impossible. Christians prohibited ALL SORTS of things when they ran the government. That would’ve been great for them had they retained control indefinitely – but they did not. Now – the fruits of prohibition are coming back to haunt and persecute them. They are now prohibited from praying in schools and government buildings. Their monuments are being removed from government property – even though they have a historical basis in many cases.
Now that progressives largely run the nation, they’re implementing their own forms of “prohibition”. Certain types of health insurance policies are now prohibited. Going without health insurance is now prohibited. Certain kinds of guns are prohibited along with certain ammunition and magazines. 32 oz sodas in New York – they’re still prohibited right? Many cities have wholesale bans on cigarette smoking OUTDOORS. Some have even tried to ban it in homes! And, the list goes on.
Prohibition is a “sword” – think of it that way. The sword will never be wielded by YOUR political ideology indefinitely. You may have control of the sword today – but the people who WILL eventually come and take it from you at some point in the future will use it to prohibit something YOU like. The only option you have – is to destroy the sword – refuse to give the sword to the government because IT WILL be used against you at some point.
That means DEALING with shit that annoys you. You think cigarette smoking is nasty and you can’t stand the fact that your neighbor is out there mowing his lawn with a Marlboro in his mouth? Deal with it – he’s not harming you. You don’t like the fact that your neighbor home schools his kids and teaches them creationism? Deal with it – they aren’t harming you. You have neighbor who collects assault rifles? Deal with it – the act of buying and collecting and recreational shooting isn’t harming you.
IT’S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! People are quick to say that to others – but have a hard time reflecting that advice back upon themselves when they get “annoyed” by something.
The ugly fact is … PROGRESSIVISM can’t work without prohibition (neither can Conservatism – and for the same exact reasons). You see, in the progressive state – your neighbor smoking DOES harm you because you’re paying for his health care now. Therefore, it suddenly makes a lot of sense to ban certain activities but once you start … where do you stop? Riding a Motorcycle is a hazardous activity … eventually some progressive will come along and want to prohibit it. Same with scuba diving – or sky diving. In the interest of preserving health care dollars – eventually certain kinds of food will be banned – or so heavily taxed you’ll never be able to afford them (this is already happening in Europe). If you think there’s a “line” of common sense that prohibitionists observe … then you haven’t been paying attention.
And life eventually becomes pretty fucking boring because government prohibits everything that makes life worth living. It’s pretty boring to me already with all these goddamn rules and laws we have now. Fuck, Louisiana “conservatives” are considering BANNING cell phone use in cars transiting through a school zone. Some parishes now have “saggy pants” bans. “Twerking” – illegal in one city of the state. Bans on using CASH in the sale of second-hand goods. Electronic cigarette bans …
It all comes from the same poisonous tree. You prohibit one activity … you set the precedence to ban a plethora of others.
Want to get rid of the prohibition on prostitution … GET RID OF PROHIBITION of any activity an adult voluntarily involves himself in that only affects him – and those who consensually associate with him.
Is there such a thing as a “what makes the wheel go around” sort of person?
I come from Denmark and we have gun control. I very much like that.
But I don’t want cigarettes, marihuana, candy, abortions or butter banned.
So am I a prohibitionist or not?
The absurdity of classifying people into neat boxes is exactly what this essay is about. Everyone has beliefs that are inconsistent with other beliefs he holds (for example, it’s OK to prohibit this thing but not that thing), and some can even come up with rational-sounding reasons for the exception. As long as the beliefs are only internal (i.e., “I like or dislike such-and-such”) there is no harm; it’s only when the beliefs are inflicted on others (i.e., “I advocate that huge groups of armed thugs use violence and threats of violence to force people to follow the rules I like”) that problems arise.
Truth. We’re too complex to be thoroughly dedicated to a philosophy.
I saw James Alchurer advocate writers use the “simpler” style you used in the last post. It does read well on a mobile device. I found myself skimming through it. It didn’t have a conversational style at all and read like a news article.
Some people like simple music, some complex. Some like spicy food and some like bland. To each their own….
“It was in Canada’s National Post, but I won’t quote it because it’s too hard to read.”
skimming the post, I would’ve thought “too hard to read” as in emotionally disturbing–not above the 4rth grade reading level…
I do think the way that many discuss “social justice issues”–ie on quick posts on reddit and twitter is damaging. Everything is being turned into soundbites and someone can destroy their career by something that if they said with the right sarcastic tone to the right people in real life would not have raised an eyebrow. It’s funny (as in disturbing) how feminist dogma has been uncritically accepted in many quarters–including those with scientific training who should be better at questioning things than the average person…
Feminist dogma is being accepted because if men speak out against it their wife will probably get angry or they won’t get one to begin with and the women who disagree don’t speak out because they’d be “frozen out” just like in kindergarten.
Yes, there was some sarcasm in that.
Some.
I am very glad that wasn’t you. I found myself thinking “this is a poorly written version of an artical she’s already written, why did she do this?”
That being said, I do take issue with your assessment. Just because a computer cannot mimic art today does not mean it cannot ever, nor that if it could, it would somehow make humans less humany, or something.
A human is a biological machine. Just because it is currently complex beyond our ken, does not mean it must always be, and its certainly not an excuse to give up trying to gain an understanding of how our minds and bodies really function.
I get the fear about “governments” using it to “control us”, but thats no reason to decide the desire to create machines that can mimic our behavior is somehow ibvalid. Indeed, we can learn more about ourselves in a failed attempt to mimic people than we can my simply watching people.
Observe:
http://botpoet.com/
I’m sad to say that I didn’t notice that it was much different from your usual style. I did notice the quote and the picture, and I wondered what the Hemingway connection was, but I didn’t connect it to the writing style at all.
I read The Sun Also Rises years ago, but that’s the only Hemingway I’ve read, and I don’t think I’ve ever had a clear conception of a ‘Hemingway Style’ in my mind.
“Interesting reaction…but what does it mean?” -Jack Skellington
Repeating a style/formula is not the same as being a conduit of thought, regardless of form.
Dogs are self-serving, but follow pack law to allow for an ordered social system, much like ours. (our lack of understanding is makes *them* crazy) So, are we animals or something more sublime? Maybe we’re just foolish animals.
“it is much safer to be feared than loved because …love is preserved by the link of obligation which, owing to the baseness of men, is broken at every opportunity for their advantage; but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment which never fails.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
“The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.”
I disagree with that quote. Notwithstanding there is no way that could actually be ascertained. Anecdotally I heard some great ideas from brilliant people who would love it if the government enforced their great ideas.
While it may not be desirable to have the government enforce ideas, even great ones, it doesn’t follow that all those ideas or those that come up with them are “idiotic”.
In smaller regions with lesser amount of people (say or example the still extant tribes left on our planet) ideas and social norms are enforced by people we actually personally know – family members and other people in the tribe or village. That’s called cultural transmission and it just might be one of the best ways to transmit social norms.
Usually when you hear people suggesting that the “government” enforce one of their ideas its people who actually have a government, that is they are citizens in a nation-state. And its usually when a society has reached a tipping point in population that the nation-state emerges.
A ‘government’ is just a bunch of people pointing guns at people and threatening to put them in a cage if they don’t do as they’re told.
If an idea has value (practical, moral, philosophical or any other scale of worth) then, by definition, it won’t need to be imposed onto everyone at gunpoint.
We did not need guns to convince us to adopt the wheel, or pythagorus theory, or the marriage of toast, marmalade and tea, or umbrellas, or the internet, or driving on the same side of the road.
I’ve actually heard people say that without the government people would drive on the wrong side of the road – literally into oncoming traffic!
Discounting self defence, guns are usually only used to make people accept and conform to really, really bad ideas. Some examples ….
“Give me all your money – now!”
“Pay for us to indoctrinate your children everyday for six hours in a kind of prison-like environment”
“Divert this plane to Cairo”
“Divert this wealth away from infrastructure and use it to pay for more guns”
” Anecdotally I heard some great ideas from brilliant people who would love it if the government enforced their great ideas. ”
They already do, they are called the ‘Elite’.
It would have been more obvious if you’d run it through “Vonnegut” instead. ;-b
I’ve always thought of programs like Hemingway as tools rather than masters. They can be helpful in spotting problems your own proofreading might have missed, but you should exercise your own judgment in deciding whether the program has actually spotted an issue, and if so, whether the suggested fix is appropriate.
Using software to help you isn’t dumb. What’s dumb is turning off your judgment.
“the notion that a glorified Nintendo console is qualified to judge adherence to that standard is ludicrous at best” This made me laugh out loud. Goes to show that easy to read does not translate to good.
🙂
Particularly since the sentence that made you laugh would most probably be butchered by the editor as well.
I suppose Hemingway would slaughter my writing. Especially when I have to choose between “propensity” or “proclivity”.
Until I read your blog, I’m not aware that there’s a baroque sentence structure. After reading the blog, I think I have a better sense of baroque, but is there a difference between a baroque sentence structure and a byzantine one? Hemingway also relied on an editing program. It’s a reiterative program of sending manuscripts to Maxwell Perkins. Perhaps the better name for an editing software should be Perkins.
I do disagree on one point. Time to time, I put my trust in a top-down, rigid structure, namely Apostolic Succession, with the top currently held by Pope Francis. The alternative is roughly seven billion popes running around telling me what’s good for me. One Pope at a time is enough for me. Although I must admit there may a time when the antichrist takes his place. Most likely the antichrist will be a baby-boomer.
Thanks for a fun read.
Wait, does that mean Hemmingway had an editor who loved killing adverbs for fun?
For the title zero intelligence, this post definitely got me thinking and trying to use my intelligence. but is that the point, that it’s April Fools Day?
dailyquizquestion.wordpress.com
Fun read. Editors suck in general; computer or otherwise.
I disagree. Editors can be incredibly beneficial. A GOOD editor realizes what kind of book they’re editing and will edit it so it does its job most effectively.
Necessary evil I suppose. So, how long have you been editing? Kidding. Good writers write. English majors edit. Just my opinion.
I would be a horrible editor because I’d be too prone to make the project mine instead of the writer’s.
There’s so much more to a good editor than being able to correct grammar mistakes. It all depends on what kind of editor they are.
The best editors are avid readers and probably write a bit on the side as well, which would make them understand a writer’s mindset and how to approach them with adjustments to the manuscript.
You CAN’T see all the flaws in your own manuscript. You just can’t. You need fresh eyes.
We’re agreed. It took me a long time to find an editor that didn’t butcher the meaning from my work. I do have one though, and she is occasionally helpful. I was just giving you a hard time. Cheers!
Hahaha, editors do need to have a hard time or they’ll smother our work x)
What an odd post to feature on ‘Fresh Pressed’, considering all the other wonderfully thought provoking posts on this blog.
Just goes to show …er.. something.
Anyway ‘congrats’ and all that – assuming you are pleased to be thrust into the spotlight which you may or may not be.
I couldn’t agree more. Progressives want the government to regulate our lives to a ridiculous degree. For instance, you forgot to mention gag laws for doctors, abortion bans, claiming that allowing gay marriage would destroy the institution of marriage, making the police ask anyone they stop for proof that they aren’t illegal, wanting employers to be able to decide what kind of healthcare their employees can get, insisting on teaching creationism in science class and … oh wait … oops, that’s not the Progressives, is it?
No, wait, now I remember, it was the notion that people are individuals and that what works for one person may not work for another–that’s what I agree with. For instance, I want my doctor to discuss with me what I want him to discuss with me, I want to decide what happens in my uterus, I want to marry who I want to marry and I want my friends to be able to do the same, I want the police to stick to the business they stopped me for, I want to decide if I need birth control and that’s none of my boss’s problem, I want my children to learn science in science class, etc.
What does any of this have to do with the Hemingway program? Absolutely nothing. Whoever made you think Progressives believe that the Hemingway program is worth anything? I haven’t heard any such thing from anyone, and most of my friends are Progressive. This post is utter nonsense. Oh, and make up your mind: are you using fractions or percentages? Hmm, I wonder if there’s a math program for that?
Fail. Thanks for playing, but I don’t buy the left-right fallacy (as you’d know if you’d read more than one post before commenting). Also, it’s probably a good idea to learn what the historical positions and beliefs of a political label are before adopting it for yourself just because you like the sound of it; after all, the term “national socialist” might sound really good to you until you found out what the last folks who used that label got up to. A little research is a wonderful thing for keeping egg off of your face.
I don’t even know where to start.
Like … the idea to teach creationism in science class? I mean, come on, people should at least request THEIR OWN class, then. You wouldn’t put french in an English class.
Reblogged this on sotonz's Blog.
Most good literature would fall by the waste side in today’s market. Can you see Melville selling the concept of Moby Dick in the publishing market today. They would think it is a porno novel.
And, granted, Moby Dick for a long time has been one of those books that we’ve gotten pushed unto our heads “because this is good litterature” yet I don’t know a lot of people who’d enjoy reading it.
Even Melville had trouble reading it.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I ignore the pesky little blighter and live with my imperfections. The other thing this computer-led and fact-driven age has given us is a woeful political class that is all ready to inflate the PISA international league tables so that they can screw up even more children’s childhood. Now that really does make you weep!
Likewise, there are many readers.
For a while I decided I had to read all the classics.
It almost killed my joy of reading as I spent a year chowing through classics.
And yes, I did enjoy parts of it, but it should have been switched up with something I just found entertaining to read as well. (And “entertaining” doesn’t have to mean that there aren’t deeper layers present.)
The idea that there is one kind of person is dumb but people seek to validate it.
It’s pretty ironic since my generation has always been told we’re a bunch of special snowflakes and at the same time people try to put us in boxes.
Reblogged this on Tarek Elbakry's Blog and commented:
Smart!
Reblogged this on Get the word out!.
And I totally love starting sentences with “and”!
AND….. love your blog!
‘Canada’…’television’…? Pssshhh, pretentious! 😉
Excellent post.
Reblogged this on Autumn Leaves, Winter Arrives.
It is a nice post about the idiocy :p
I click on the post because i saw Zero Intelligence and i say “This is an article for me !” :p
Hemingway app is weird; my creative writing tutor showed it to me. Basically, it prefers plain English that even a low-educated person can understand.
[…] I look into every day, and one day a short while ago, it led me to someone else’s blog, who was also griping about a tool which allows you to make your writing […]
Cool article.