Curious: why not take the words at face value rather than redefining them in a way that annoys you?
> You can just map “impressive” to “rich” and “accidental moderate” to “uninterested in increased taxation or regulation in their own life despite their otherwise disparate political views” and the whole thing comes into focus pretty clearly.
I say that, in part, because substituting those meanings changes the perceived message of the piece. If the rest of the essay reasonably supported that reading, I might well agree that this was interpretation, analysis, or even clarification. However, it seems as though the original comment is working backward from pg's identity to decide what opinions it's possible for him to have, in the commenter's view, and then covering the message of the essay (whatever you think of it) with one of the commenter's pg-possible opinions.
Personally, I'd prefer that commenters of this view argue against the essay directly, since I think there are a lot of things to say in that regard.
What changes about the definition of "impressive" if I think someone uses that word to refer exclusively to rich people?
Since neither one of us can read the author's mind, it's not a productive avenue of discussion. A text should always be taken at face value. Otherwise, we'll be no longer discussing the text, but each other's imagination.
Ok so for redefinition to happen, a definition needs to change.
> it's you who believes the author didn't use the correct word, based on reasons that have nothing to do with the article.
>
> Since neither one of us can read the author's mind, it's not a productive avenue of discussion. A text should always be taken at face value. Otherwise, we'll be no longer discussing the text, but each other's imagination.
I'm confused now because you seem to be saying I think the author didn't use the correct word - but I never said that in my text, so you haven't taken my text at face value.
There’s no reason to point out that your relative who says everyone in his life is conspiring against him is addicted to meth.
There is no reason to notice when an essay opposing increased mall security was written by someone who’s been convicted of shoplifting dozens of times.
And we must never point out that a person advocating for the political status quo, and against shaking up the established order, has accumulated billions of dollars in private wealth.
That model is likely to be flawed and incomplete, but even worse, it makes the text subjective. Two people, reading the same text, won't agree what it said. That prevents honest discussion.
All models are incomplete - that's why they're models.
What I am hopefully pointing out is that he could be doing a better job of trying to understand why people who are literally living in misery and despair might be seeking more radical change. The fact that some of his decisions may have directly let to the misery of some of those people makes this conversation complicated.
It’s relevant that the greatest political problem in society right now is people hoarding vast amounts of resources, and that he’s literally doing that. Of course he doesn’t have to agree that this is in fact the greatest problem today, but he could at least note that many of the people he’s supposedly analyzing do believe this.
He’s almost certainly capable of having a more nuanced discussion that recognizes his own position and perspective, but is choosing not to do that. This isn’t an academic treatise it’s a personal essay about his own subjective impressions, and he’s leaving out the most important aspect of his own lived experience.
You might even call that omission intentional
I'd like to see how you think that PG's decisions directly lead to the misery of those living in misery and despair. In the absence of a logical flow of cause and effect, I'm going to assume that you're blowing ideological smoke.
> It’s relevant that the greatest political problem in society right now is people hoarding vast amounts of resources...
I seriously question whether that's the greatest political problem in society right now.