Mind Reading
I was over at Libby's this morning and she has a post up about Palin, including this Conde Nast piece, about Palin's handling of the Alaskan natural gas pipeline. What really struck me about the article was the shear amount of mind-reading involved. They speak matter-of-factly about her thoughts and feelings, like the author of a novel speaking about the villain of the piece.
Now, step back for a moment from what you think about Palin herself and consider how obnoxious this is. Attacking someone for what they say, what they do, is one thing, but pretending to know what is going on in their head, and then attacking them for it as if they are somehow responsible for your imagination is just... low.
It should be pointed out that Palin haters have nothing that even resembles a monopoly on this, Obama is another favorite target; people do it all the time to anyone they disagree with.
And I have no time for it.
Criticize their policies, where you think they are wrong. Judge their statements, where they are properly your business. Obsess over their trivial gaffs, if you must. But telling someone else what is in their head is a level of arrogance that I consider beneath contempt.
(Edit : Modified the link description - thanks Octo. Would have moved Libby's link to the actual post, but her posts don't have individual links????)
3 comments:
Your link takes the reader to an article called Pipe Dreams by Joe McGinniss. You should have specified as in "Here is Libby quoting McGinniss." What is misleading about this ambiguity is the confusion in not knowing who is doing the "mind reading" since you refer to Libby by name but not McGinniss. A faulty use of attribution, in my opinion.
Thanks, Octo. I revised it to match her attribution. I wanted to link to the specific post on her site, but her posts don;t seem to work that way. Weird.
OMB, there must be different versions of Blogger such that users of the older version have no upgrade path. The Swash Zone has individual post addresses, but Libby's site, which is older, does not.
Oh well, we just have to live with a Babel of blogs (literally and figuratively).
Post a Comment