John Darnielle (via insomnius)
[…]
well, wait
1. “This is not being pretentious; it is being fraudulent” is kind of like saying “X isn’t committing fraud, he’s lying.” Everyone’s just using different words here; they all come down to intent-to-deceive which Sabina calls fraudulent, other people call pretension, and I … call bullshitting. All the words have the same flavor and the difference between usage of those words is mostly degree of (perceived) degree of intent and/or malice. Oh and of course the associations and/or degree of formality that we have with the words in question; I “call bullshit” but I “prove fraudulence,” and they don’t both hold up in a court of law, which is probably why pretension or bullshit is perceived as “less harsh” than fraud when really, they are accusing the perpetrator of the same thing.
2. Talking over other people in the wrong circumstances is just being condescending, and I agree that can get conflated into pretension.
(via redlanterns)
But let me ask you: in 99% of cases where the spectre of pretension is raised, do you think bullshit = pretension = fraudulence is actually what is happening?
In most cases, the formula evoked is something along the lines of, “God, I can’t stand Inception, Christopher Nolan is so pretentious. Oooh, could it be possible that it was ‘all a dream’? Imagine that!” /random factual example from recent convo
Where in that is fraudulence - in the sense that someone is making a factually misleading statement about, um, a fictional story that they created? And this is pretty typical of accusations of “pretentiousness”, as far as I’ve always seen.
I won’t lie, I think part of the reason that ppl always argue this with me (and ppl always do) is that everyone is invested in their perceptions of pretentiousness as being THE TRUTH (I include myself in that). And it’s worthwhile exploring why that is. :P
(via minimoonstar)
Tumblr is the worst for conversations EVER /kill
Where in that is fraudulence - in the sense that someone is making a factually misleading statement about, um, a fictional story that they created?
I claim no mind-reading abilities, but here, have one not-impossible example: people with that complaint think that Nolan thinks that Inception is good, that it has something of worth to say, and so forth (and outside of people on FFN, people, especially pros, don’t hit “publish” on works that they genuinely don’t think hold any value whatsoever). And they believe THAT is the fraud being perpetrated XD (FOR THE RECORD that’s not my stance on Inception.)
ETA, sorry! I didn’t say that whatever issue that such people object to is necessarily provably true/false, and I’m still pondering whether it has to be.
