My latest #genre#research#article came our Friday as part of a collection of texts dancing around #CarolynMiller's trailblazer "Genre as Social Action" (1984). I plan to write more about it later, but here's the text for your enjoyment/confusion:
I'm getting self-absorbed here. The full set of submission can be read here. It's a veritable pantheon of genre greats - and one very happy, and somewhat awe-struck, Dane.
But once faith enters into the picture - dragged in by the disingenuous defenders of the indefensible - those of us who profess to have faith are called to make a reply. So bear with me. 2/
My language is very much the language of the believer, but if your language is not, I am sure you can recast the whole thread in ethical terms and we'll find ourselves in complete agreement on the other side. 3/
Since the border issue is up again, this note which I have made before.
Brexit can only be a success for the UK if there is an open border between the EU and the UK but without regulatory alignment. 1/
Because that would allow the UK to use the border as a giant backdoor into the single market without abiding by its rules and make a killing out of undercutting its standards. 2/
This would be destructive to the single market and - by consequence - to the EU, but it would show Brexit Britain as a success. 3/
@EmporersNewC I think it's worth noting that even taken as a threat, this is a huge failure.
What we are dealing with here is a so-called conditional threat: Do this OR I will do that to you - i.e. Give me all the money you owe me, OR I'll beat you up. 1/
@EmporersNewC For a conditional threat to work (yep, it's a #genre thing) the consequence of non-compliance has to be worse than what the threatened party has to do to comply. 2/
@EmporersNewC "Give me your wallet, or I'll kill your children" works; "kill your children, or I''ll take your wallet" usually doesn't. 3/
I don't doubt that Boris Johnson is doing his best. In fact, I am sure of it.
However, unfortunately, his best is also his worst. And it's hugely damaging for the UK. 1/
I know it's his best, because he has neither the will nor the ability to change, much less improve. He will never get better. What you see now is what you get. It's his best. 2/
Are British waterways getting polluted? Not his problem. Never was, never will be.
Catastrophically rising cost of living for UJ citizens? Not his problem. Never was. Never will be. 3/
"A much more minor example of Brexiter desperation is that of a widely-mocked tweet by Paul Embery, the Lexiter trade unionist and writer. 1/
In it, he derided the EU’s sanctioning of 160 individuals in one day (compared with seven by the UK the same day), by saying that the EU’s total only “works out to six individuals per EU member state”. 2/
I disagree with most of what Embery writes, but it would be absurd and insulting to suggest he isn’t intelligent enough to realise that when the EU sanctions individuals they are sanctioned by every member state, so dividing them up in this way makes no sense at all. 3/