Yes, it’s a vacuous truth, which is why I object to its negation being offered as a reasonable statement.
Let’s rephrase: excellence pornography is terrible at what it claims to do, but is excellent at what it is intended to do: get people to buy lots of it without ultimately reducing the market for itself.
I don’t think that’s obvious. Remember that all observations are theory-laden. A bad hammer isn’t a (really good (bad hammer)) it’s just a (bad (hammer)). Once we establish what something is actually for, it can be evaluated on its merits.
“The literary industry that I called “excellence pornography” isn’t very good at what it does. ”
No, it’s great at what it does. It’s not very good at what it represents itself as attempting.
This point applies universally to everything, and as a result it’s vacuous. Anything is the best at being what it actually is.
Yes, it’s a vacuous truth, which is why I object to its negation being offered as a reasonable statement.
Let’s rephrase: excellence pornography is terrible at what it claims to do, but is excellent at what it is intended to do: get people to buy lots of it without ultimately reducing the market for itself.
Take a look at what happened once more: you objected to your own misinterpretation of the original statement with its correct interpretation.
I don’t think that’s obvious. Remember that all observations are theory-laden. A bad hammer isn’t a (really good (bad hammer)) it’s just a (bad (hammer)). Once we establish what something is actually for, it can be evaluated on its merits.