thee Are you not Begging the Question here? Asking a question “Does this make one more sane?” And then simply assume that the answer is no? (Am I begging the question with my response above? … initiate recursive begging the question loop)
But more seriously, I think it would be interesting to have a more critical conversation about the first question you pose: Does this post make its readers more sane?
First, to point out the flaws that I think are bothering you. The post makes some very strong claims that are not backed up with even simple empirical evidence:
“The working class people who wished they weren’t alive.” (how do you know they don’t want to be alive?
“Having an apartment to yourself is out of the question” (Again stats on the number of people who need roommates in miami would be easy and make this comment more meaningful)
“You sit down in your bedroom with your frozen dinner and numb yourself with your drug of choice: alcohol, weed, video games, porn” (Again interesting stats can defintely be found on the increase of all these numbing habits, but simply stating these as bad habits with no evidence for or against is frustrating. )
So yes, there are noticible flaws in the way this post makes claims of fact without providing evidence for it. Clear marks off. However, I do think this post gets at a feeling that I believe is common. A feeling of malaise and dread about living a life you don’t like. And a story of how that can turn someone into what looks like a zombie. And stories can have sanity inducing effects on people, even without backing statistics.
Harper Lee’s Too Kill a Mockingbird did not include stats about how poor African American’s were treated, but it still highlighted a specific instance of injustice in dramatized form. Making the injustice more tangible in a way that pure stats don’t convey. Same could be said about The Red Badge of Courage on the terror of war, or 1984 on the terrors of a totalitarian state.
Is this piece as illuminating artistically illuminating as any of the 3 novels I brought above, no. Should he have backed up more of his blanket climbs with real stats to make his more points more salient and add more sanity to his readers, yes. But do I think this work adds some sense of sanity to his readers, providing an artful impression of a life they might live something like, yeah probably. I wouldn’t say I’m full zombie, but I can empathize with the feeling of living a boring, exhausting life and finding it hard to get yourself out of that situation. Artful writing, when done well, can be very sanity inducing, even when it isn’t fully scientifically rigorous.
Whether at work or at home, your only privacy is confined to the bathroom. Except you never shit at home—you save that for work so you can get paid for it. You calculate how much per month you make shitting. It makes you feel like you’re getting one over on your employer
This paragraph is absolutely gold, and the whole essay was worth reading for this paragraph alone.
thee Are you not Begging the Question here? Asking a question “Does this make one more sane?” And then simply assume that the answer is no?
(Am I begging the question with my response above? … initiate recursive begging the question loop)
But more seriously, I think it would be interesting to have a more critical conversation about the first question you pose: Does this post make its readers more sane?
First, to point out the flaws that I think are bothering you. The post makes some very strong claims that are not backed up with even simple empirical evidence:
“The working class people who wished they weren’t alive.” (how do you know they don’t want to be alive?
“Having an apartment to yourself is out of the question” (Again stats on the number of people who need roommates in miami would be easy and make this comment more meaningful)
“You sit down in your bedroom with your frozen dinner and numb yourself with your drug of choice: alcohol, weed, video games, porn” (Again interesting stats can defintely be found on the increase of all these numbing habits, but simply stating these as bad habits with no evidence for or against is frustrating. )
So yes, there are noticible flaws in the way this post makes claims of fact without providing evidence for it. Clear marks off. However, I do think this post gets at a feeling that I believe is common. A feeling of malaise and dread about living a life you don’t like. And a story of how that can turn someone into what looks like a zombie. And stories can have sanity inducing effects on people, even without backing statistics.
Harper Lee’s Too Kill a Mockingbird did not include stats about how poor African American’s were treated, but it still highlighted a specific instance of injustice in dramatized form. Making the injustice more tangible in a way that pure stats don’t convey. Same could be said about The Red Badge of Courage on the terror of war, or 1984 on the terrors of a totalitarian state.
Is this piece as illuminating artistically illuminating as any of the 3 novels I brought above, no. Should he have backed up more of his blanket climbs with real stats to make his more points more salient and add more sanity to his readers, yes. But do I think this work adds some sense of sanity to his readers, providing an artful impression of a life they might live something like, yeah probably. I wouldn’t say I’m full zombie, but I can empathize with the feeling of living a boring, exhausting life and finding it hard to get yourself out of that situation. Artful writing, when done well, can be very sanity inducing, even when it isn’t fully scientifically rigorous.
This paragraph is absolutely gold, and the whole essay was worth reading for this paragraph alone.