"I have a hard time believing Obi is an English major. That was utter gibberish."

And THAT'S what makes you doubt I'm an English major...

Why, that's what English and Philosophy majors contribute to society--

Gibberish! Nice, empty-sounding gibberish that can fill up ten pages after you've procrastinated until the last second to do the paper because, hey! as an English major, who needs to read the actual book and do the actual work when you can just quote bullshit from Dead White Old Guys all day long to get the A? (Or not, but hey, I'm running with it...fuck it, might as well have fun with it!) :p

I can't be the only one who reads obi's messages and understands them perfectly, owing to the fact that his writing style is reminiscent of my inner dialogue.

No, English majors write concisely. Many are attune to literary theory which includes feminism, Marxism, post-structuralism. You're one of the few I've met who only care about the classics. Why are you denigrating your own discipline? Provocateur.

"No, English majors write concisely."

I hate to burst your bubble--

I actually AM an English major...and one with an AA and a semester from transferring to start a BA so I do have a degree to stand on here...

It depends who the writer is...there are plenty of my fellow English majors (a lot of them are my closest friends) who would agree, and who do write concisely...

Others, such as myself, prefer to be more exploratory and inclusive...it's just a difference in writing style, some prefer a get-to-the-point approach, but others prefer to try and paint how this connects to that and what the impact there is and so on and so forth...

It's the difference between an inter and intra-textual approach--

If you feel you can write a concise paper on "Hamlet" and if Hamlet's sane or not, you can go right ahead, without having to cite anything else besides the play (unless the professor says otherwise) to back up your point of view...

If you're like ME, however, as some are, you'll want to take outside texts, Shakespeare's environment and life (his father and son had died within the span of time "Hamlet" is generally believed to have been written and performed, which can date as early as 1598 and as late as 1604, with most settling in between and the most common, compromised date is 1600-01, as that's a nice, round date) and other such factors...

Your paper WILL go on for quite a while.

Mine generally go 20+ pages on the topic, unless the professor SPECIFICALLY gives a limit...and then, I make SURE I take up every page and every line and every space I possibly can...it it's 6 pages, it's 6 pages all the way to the very end of that last page.

I mean, a paper is your chance to express yourself in full, certainly more fully than you might in even the best classroom discussion...

I'm passionate about the material, and so I like to really sink my teeth into it.

20 pages doesn't mean I just closed my eyes and mashed keys and typed "Shakes is awesome!" for 20 pages.

In any case, a short paper doesn't mean that there's less thought, of course--a friend of mine, who's GREAT with short papers (I'm like T.S. Eliot or Faulkner in that I let my material go on and on and allude to everything, he's like Hemmingway, quick, compact, powerful sentences, that's just his style, and it works for him) made a bet with me I couldn't do a paper at the minimum page limit--4--AND with NO allusions whatsoever, no Shakespeare or Nietzsche or Eliot, just the material, quick and to the point.

I did it, and got and A, same as him.

And then I went right back and wrote a 24 page paper for my next class, because that's just more my style, and I enjoy those a lot more.

The point is, I CAN have quick, concise sentences...I just like my way better (especially online, like Eden points out, the whole "inner dialogue" thing, that's me right now, I don't go over these and edit like I would an essay, as far as I'm concerned, I'm just having a conversation online, I'm not an author responding to Tolstoy--pun intended, take it or leave it--like Orwell did in his collected, calculated response on why HE felt Tolstoy was utterly wrong in his appraisal of "King Lear"--he thought it was empty and crap, to be blunt--and Shakespeare as a whole.)

"Many are attune to literary theory which includes feminism, Marxism, post-structuralism."

And I AM attune to those...I just dislike the latter two INTENSELY and see the former as a broad umbrella...I'll use it, but not flippantly, as I think it is too often today (even FEMINISTS THEMSELVES admit there's a bit of a problem in some people applying it too far and to everything so that almost anything ever written by an author with a Y chromosome is evil and wrong...PLUS, Putin, if we're going to be technical and REALLY pull the literary guns out...not very collected and correct YOURSELF to just say "feminism" and expect it all to be the same...WHICH kind? Charlotte Bronte's? Mary Wollstencraft, who didn't care for the sort of romance novels the Brontes would produce, though admittedly Bronte was probably better and more serious than her initial targets? Rebecca West and the more rebellious, activist feminists? Virginia Woolf, who hated Bronte and West's style of feminism and argued NOT for characters to be judged or written according to sex but to character, and that androgynous writing is best? WHO, Putin, specify! CLEARLY they don't all agree!

What's more, not all MARXISTS would agree...Sartre is different from Trotsky, and Orwell from both of THEM, and THEY all differ from Marx's original school...if you're going to call ME on not being attune to literary theory, you'd better bring your own guns to the fight and do so properly, sir, because right now, you're over-generalizing entire genres so badly...

It actually resembles your general method of over-generalizing an entire group of people--the GOP, for example, as you just said the entire party was anti-intellectual--and, really, I can't take you too seriously right now...)

"You're one of the few I've met who only care about the classics."

I'm sorry...

Since when did:

-T.S. Eliot
-Virginia Woolf
-D.H. Lawrence
-Jean-Paul Sartre
-Samuel Beckett
-John Steinbeck

And company ALL become "The Classics?" Either you're saying anything written before the 1970s is classic and antiquated, in which case...I'm not even going to go there, OR you're being rather loose with your terminology AGAIN, as any self-respecting English major would extend "The Classics" in the general sense to, most conservatively, the Greco-Roman-Latin literature of the Ancient and Medieval world, and at their most liberal, to Shakespeare and Marlowe and then MAYBE, MAYBE John Milton and the Restoration...

But, technically, Shakespeare is considered "Modern English," and anything later than Milton cannot really be considered in line with "The Classics," as we have the Restoration, the 18th century, The Romantics (who drew on The Classics heavily but are not to be confused with The Classics THEMSELVES), the Victorian-era authors, Early Modernists, Modernists, Post-Modernists...

So, no, Putin, I do NOT, clearly, only care about The Classics, and I'd invite you to, once again, get your terminology right before you criticize me in my field over my lack of devotion to literary theory (and this is WITHOUT getting into Deconstruction and Derrida and Psychoanalytic literature and the methods Heidegger and Gaddamer introduced and Russian Formalism and all SORTS of little minutia I can call on as an English major in regards to literary theory you've just skipped over blithely while saying I don't pay attention or care for any of them.)

"Why are you denigrating your own discipline?"

Because I--unlike some here--have a sense of humor about things, and can make a joke about my own field...and I'd think most here would GET that joke, too, so, really...

"Provocateur."

YOU SHOULD KNOW.

Without reading any of this...GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK! As if you were EVER going to vote Republican anyway.....moron. I love how "Moderates" (er.....Liberals that are too afraid to admit their real beliefs) always pretend they will consider a Republican vote...and yet ALWAYS find a reason not too. What a fucking LAME ASS dimwitted..and sadly successful...attempt to start some new meaningless political rant...

Get real.

Sorry for chiming out so long, I've been living in Texas my whole life and I can tell you that Immigration is a serious problem, whether or not you like the law about it doesn't invalidate the need for it. Did it ever occur to you for a second that your opinion on the subject doesn't change anything?

@Krellin:

I actually did consider Romney for a while, until his anti-gay, anti-immigration stances were too much for me.

Also, if this is a lame, meaningless rant--why add to it by commenting?

Troll.

Holy christ Obi, you go on a rant because I didn't write a 10 page paper listing every single subset of literary theory? You're ridiculous. When you said "Dead Old White Guys" I took umbrage, because English has come a long way from that kind of narrow focus. That is the source of my saying you only focus on the classics, because the fact that you don't ever talk about anything written by someone who isn't white or male doesn't mean the entire discipline is that way.

They don't think it be like it is.

But it do.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41906000/jpg/_41906050_polarbear_416_ap.jpg

@thatonekid, yes, I'm a Texan. Go Texas, yee-haw!

In fairness, putin, it seems to me that obi has the right to major in whatever he wants to get what intellectual benefit he can from it. I'm not sure why he is supposed to have to conform to the stereotypes somebody may have about his field.

@krellin: I used to be a Freeper until. I ran three ping lists. I voted for Bush 43 twice. I sat out the 2008 election because I spent most of my political formative years hearing about what a RINO McCain was.

And I'm voting for Obama this time around because he's a conservative and the Republicans are merely to the right of where he happens to be, which is too far to the right for my tastes.

There's no such thing as a "liberal" anymore. There's conservative or revolutionary, and there's left wing and right wing. I'm a centrist conservative, and I'm no longer comfortable with how revolutionary the Republican party has become. They're right wing as hell and they're not conservative. I don't believe them when they say they'll cut spending, I don't trust them to not play brinskmanship games with the budget, and I won't be voting for them again until they get their shit straight.

But if you're still under the impression that liberals exist and Obama is one, then I'll just explain my Obama vote this way: I'd rather liberalism done right than conservatism done wrong.

...Freeper until 2006.*

semck: was that because you simply lack the ability to respond? I don't recall ever saying anything to that effect, but just do to the fact the my state puts whatever vagina clinched, Liberalistic idealism infested state or country you're from to shame is no reason to insult my state with stereotypes that hold absolutly no truth.

@thatonekid,
I have no idea what you're talking about. I really am from Texas. I really am very proud of Texas. I was trying to be enthusiastic. Obviously I offended you. Yikes. Sorry.

Hey, keep it down over there or I'll have Lake Charles support Shreveport to Dallas.

Ha! Tyler, Longview, and Marshall are support holding. You can't scare us.

Speaking of which, somebody really needs to do a Texas counties map. I may look into this. It would be EPIC.

Yikes, too bad Texas is full of Texans.

That's kind of insulting, Putin.

No kidding...

Not all Texans are Dubya-Bush or Yosemite Sam-like, Putin...

There are real, actual, complex PEOPLE down there...seriously, WTF?

AWB: Command center in Baton Rouge overrides your request for military excursion into Texas. Be advised.

"There are real, actual, complex PEOPLE down there...seriously, WTF?"

Yeah, in Austin.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-education/public-education/texans-dinosaurs-humans-walked-the-earth-at-same/

Now now, I know some wonderful people from Texas. Of course, they are Trotskyists, so you probably hate them anyway Putin :).

There are people here in California that believe the same stupidity...

AND there are people in Texas rolling their eyes, the same as you and I...

WHERE was the Free Thought Convention held this past year, as Hitchens attended just before he died?

TEXAS.



The poorly educated and indoctrinated will be ignorant from Deep In The Heart of Texas
To New York, New York (ya know, It's a HELL Of A Town!) to here in Smoggy California.

And right now, Putin...by painting entire groups of people and locales like that...

You're displaying the very ignorance you claim to despise.

I'm done with you.

So... nothing more on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? Alright. I guess that's the closest one can get to Putin33 admitting he's wrong.

There are good people in Texas like there are good people anywhere. To think otherwise is ridiculous.

Ah, yes, Austin.... where half of the population of Texas lives.

Not that I have any sympathy in the first place for your cliched use of belief in evolution as a proxy for multi-dimensionality or intelligence. I'm so sure that all the people in Massachusetts who believe in evolution no questions asked do so because they're brilliant and have examined all the evidence and thought through things for themselves, right?

Statistics like that are just another of the many tools that urban liberals from other parts of the country use to soothe themselves about their own superiority to others.

No, Putin, that wasn't my "solution." Thanks for twisting my words though.