As the Worm Turns

Let’s look at these two sentences:

What can even be said about that? And nobody really seems to find this odd or disturbing or objectionable at all — that night after night, one of the featured “journalists” of a major news network goes on television and, with some of our most prestigious journalists assembled with him, speaks admiringly about the smells and arousing masculinity and the “daddy” qualities of various political officials, and that this metric is, more or less, the full extent of his political analysis.

Three things about these sentences (taken from Glenn Greenwald’s critique of a comment from Chris Matthews) jump out at me:

• The nice use of triplets. I like the use of tripled phrases to hammer home a particular point. It’s easy to over use them, and I’ll admit to sometimes being guilty of this myself. But Greenwald uses them effectively twice in the same sentence. First:
  

  …nobody really seems to find this [1] odd or [2] disturbing or [3] objectionable at all…

  Here Greenwald gets a certain inertia out of repetition: it’s obvious that Greenwald isn’t just talking about the ‘oddness’ or the ‘objectionable’ aspects of Matthew’s analysis. The mind connects the three dots, drawing a line around the whole range of bad things that lie between ‘odd’ and ‘disturbing’ and ‘objectionable.’ It’s a very efficient way of broadening his indictment. Second:

  …speaks admiringly about [1] the smells and [2] arousing masculinity and [3] the “daddy” qualities of various political officials…

  Here the effect is the opposite. Greenwald slows down to linger over the essence of the central (and apparently sexualized) image. In a very cinematic way he pulls back from the close-up (the smell of English Leather that Fred Thompson seems to exude) to the wide shot (Thompson’s “daddy” qualities that male Republicans are apparently tumbling for), giving the reader time to let the visual form in their mind.

• Let’s look at this use of imagery. There are two key images here, both used to high effect. In the first Greenwald places Matthews in the center of “some of our most prestigious journalists,” while the second paints Fred Thompson as a good-smelling (albeit leather-skinned) father-figure. In both cases Greenwald uses these images to expand his lists of targets: the first holds our “most prestigious journalists” culpable for letting Matthews prattle on so, while the second points to the desperation of the Republican base as they search for a candidate they can love in the same weird Oedipal way they loved Reagan.
• Finally, the control over cadence and tempo. Greenwald lets the speed and rhythm of his words carry us along, giving us time to stop and look around to make his point, before thrusting us forward to his final judgment.

  Both sets of triplets play a key role here. In the first set you can hear Greenwald putting on the brakes — after a short & fast opening — as he moves from the monosyllabic ‘odd’ to the longer ‘objectionable’. Once things have slowed down Greenwald lingers over his two visual metaphors; during the second image Greenwald lets us catch our breath, almost as if we’re cresting a hill before we plunge to the end.

  I find the end here especially effective. Just as we feel that we’ve come to a standstill, Greenwald sends us hurtling with a clipped, staccato sequence — “…and that this metric is, more or less, the full extent of his…” — full of hard, stressed syllables. But then, right at the end, he tosses in two slightly longer words — “political analysis.” The combined effect is the sense of picking up speed as we hurtle down a hill, only to crash into a wall at the bottom. But Greenwald does this intentionally: these words that bring us to a crashing conclusion are the very heart of his critique. He’s reminding us of the dissonance between the “political analysis” that Matthews purports to be giving, and the lovey-dovey goo-goo eyes Matthews makes instead.

So, I kind of like these two sentences. I find them effective. If I were going to rate them, I’d give the three stars out of five. Greenwald loses point for overuse of scare quotes, and for using the word ‘journalist’ twice in close proximity.

But not everyone agrees. The (sometimes terse to the point of obtuse) Glenn Reynolds finds Greenwald “verbose.”

The “Divine Ms. Althouse” has more to say. She finds Greenwald “tone deaf” and “tedious,” and accuses him of writing like a freshman comp student:

[W]ould you think I was smart if I said the metric that is his analysis?
…
It’s like his little heart leaps every time he sees the opportunity to lard in a few more words, like a schoolboy assigned to write a 500-word essay.
…
Why write in Glennwaldese? It’s a way of making the obvious look less obvious and giving off the air of intelligence.

And someone called Ace of Spades complains about “the torturous verbosity of Greewaldese — which is similar to English, just not as vital or vigorous” before summarizing Greenwald to the point of incomprehensibility. I really have no idea what point this Ace of Spades character was trying to make, but it’s obvious he likes using naughty, naughty phrases while not making it.

Now, to be clear: I don’t really care about any of this. I don’t care about Glenn Greenwald. I don’t care about an emerging cult of masculinity. I don’t care about Fred Thompson, I don’t care about Chris Matthews, and I don’t care about anything that happens on any TV news program, ever. I think anyone who does care about what some second-rate reporter says about some third-rate politician has dangerously inverted priorities. The only thing worth less than television is the internet.

And this gets to what I do care about: writing. This Glenn Greenwald kid can put together a decent sentence. Not a great sentence, but one that is at least nuanced, subtle and multi-layered. A fun sentence to read. One that requires thought and attention — as opposed to simplistic, shallow sentences that just sit there, obvious and with their important bits fully exposed to the world. I probably won’t go out of my way to read another, but only because there are so many four- and five-star sentences to read before I deign to dally with Greenwald’s three-star output.

But if Greenwald gets three stars, his internet critics — including two bloggers not even worth quoting — barely rise to the level of junk food. This Althouse character seems sharp, but her prose just remains listless on the screen. She says what she says and then it’s over. There’s no relationship to be had with her words. But the rest of them are all just empty calories with no nutritional value.

What kind of world do we live in when those who can’t write criticize the rhetorical skills of those who can?

It’s a world where those who can’t think criticize those who can. It’s a world where arguments are measured by their volume rather than their content. It’s a world where simple words and simple thoughts have more credence than nuanced words and nuanced thoughts.

It the kingdom of the one-eyed, the blind are now king.

And that’s why I continue to think that blogging is dangerous.

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