[HN Gopher] Methodical Banality
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Methodical Banality
Author : CharlesW
Score : 22 points
Date : 2025-05-16 20:39 UTC (2 hours ago)
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| vunderba wrote:
| > They internalised the qualities of their models' prose as much
| as possible, and also kept a sort of verbal rainy-day fund in
| something called a commonplace book, which is to say that, as
| they read, they transcribed a stockpile of salient words,
| metaphors, turns of phrase and cliches - usually organised
| thematically - that they would then draw upon while writing.
|
| I'm reminded of an excellent passage from "Lives of the Great
| Pianists" by former New York Times music critic Harold Schonberg
| when speaking on the strength of Beethoven's musical
| extemporization:
|
| _" How much Beethoven prepared his improvisations we do not
| know. Most pianists did prepare, knowing full well that sooner or
| later they would be called upon to supply an improvisation on
| 'Batti, batti' or a similar well-known tune. And all pianists had
| at their command a thorough supply of passagework by the yard,
| which they could snip off and use for any possible contingency.
| But when Beethoven improvised, prepared passagework or no, it was
| evident to his hearers that after a while he was on his own, idea
| pouring after idea. Then he would get carried away, pound the
| piano, and the strings of the delicate Viennese instruments would
| pop, or hammers would break."_
|
| Speaking on a purely personal level, I am mostly unconcerned with
| the amount of purple prose a writer chooses to embellish their
| work with - because I'm always internally stripping away the
| literary wrapping paper to get at the heart of the idea itself.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| This is why communist / soviet countries were declining. Most
| people get confused how can anyone label what happened in those
| countries as decline, they build factories, they catapulted
| peasants, serfs into city dwellers, they made huge scientific
| progress. Those people do not realize that soviet countries did
| it after it was done in west. For example Large Panel System
| building so pervasively used in communist block was invented and
| used 50 years before in England. Inventiveness was limited only
| into areas that the regime deemed necessary. And even those areas
| were not free to pursue scientific method, having go back and
| forth between photos, books and letters from relatives, from west
| + back and forth between "government ideologist" responsible for
| "right" way of thinking made any effort to move human endeavor
| into higher levels impossible.
|
| https://www.socialismrealised.eu/normalistion-everyday-life/
| mighmi wrote:
| I guess the ussr originally were vibrant and full of innovation
| but especially the 30s purges killed it off.
| Calwestjobs wrote:
| Similar problem with law. Rules based order is not ONLY about
| laws, it is about ethics which is represented, imperfectly, thru
| law. That is why most professions which deal with humans have
| ethical codes, oaths, so even people who do not have same morals
| ( or do not care about them, but want the job ) can do job in
| accordance with ethic frame law is based on.
|
| And if people follow only laws, without understanding of ethics
| behind those laws, we get very strange and oppressive society.
| Rules based order is system of rules which helps to make
| meaningful, better life for everyone while minimizing harm we do
| to each other.
|
| So fascism, as journalist use it currently, is a lack of effort
| for minimization of harm we do to each other. Never heard
| anything scarier than that.
|
| Law is not a goal but a means.
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