Benjamin Geer on Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:28:00 +0200 (CEST) |
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Re: <nettime> personal life, impersonal writing |
On 20/08/07, Kimberly De Vries <cuuixsilver@gmail.com> wrote: > I think we could all come up with lots of examples, but what shall we > do about it? I have a suggestion: The legal concept of conflict of interest sometimes leads people to disclose their personal connections with the subject matter that they're writing about, e.g. when they write about their current or former employers. I'd like to suggest extending this practice to include emotional connections to the subject matter. An example comes to mind, a book I dimly remember reading many years ago on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The writer was American and Jewish, and was clearly aware that, because of his personal background, readers would expect him to take a certain position on the conflict. Therefore, in the introduction of the book, he candidly and self-mockingly described the feelings and biases that his upbringing had given him concerning the conflict, and how he had come to question and critique them in order to be able to study the subject more fairly. When I read something like this, I mentally thank the writer: now I know how to read his book. Not only do I know which bias to look out for, I also have an idea of the extent to which I need to make allowances for that bias. (For example, I know I'm not dealing with a work of propaganda disguised as scholarship.) In other words, this kind of personal disclosure helps me decide to what extent I'm willing to trust the writer. When a writer doesn't disclose his personal feelings about the subject matter, I find myself constantly reading between the lines in an effort to identify those feelings. This can seem like a game of hide-and-seek. Why not just come right out and tell readers what they want to know? Ben # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@kein.org and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org