Feelings shmeelings

Tom asks over on Blue Lines "Why don't reviewers write about how they feel?" I don't necessarily buy that they don't, but here's my response:

Shortage of adjectives, with the available ones lacking precision; and the experience itself lacks precision, with "feeling" itself not being any more precise than other broad words - such as "influence," which you recently disparaged on another tumblr. "Feeling" may not be the correct word, anyway. E.g., hearing a melody as "sad" does not necessarily mean that it made you feel sad. "Feeling" is actually something of a buzzword. Also, feelings are - incorrectly - considered private and supposedly carry the supposed ineffability of the private; whereas what play socially in one's interaction with others are one's opinions. And expressions of "feeling" play as opinions in the social world, anyway.

I wrote about these concerns back in The Rules The Game #3. A moral of that piece is that we should, indeed, talk about "feelings" (or whatever) but, in doing so, should examine them critically, with a mind towards when to change one's "feelings," rather than taking one's feelings as inalterable bedrock.

[Martin and Don and I discussed that column a little bit here. The column is one of my favorites, by the way.]

The true philosophers (a dream)

So, the rooms in our* house were waist deep in water, and Nietzsche - one of the people there - insisted that to be true philosophers we needed to swim underwater.

*our?

Buffy Season Two Episode Five

"Buffy, it's like we're sisters, with really different hair."

Frat party, with boring monster at the end, and boring attempt at human sacrifice. But up 'til then, this episode is relatively sure-handed, the "nice guy" frat guy doing a good job of attracting Buffy through his babbling hesitance and humility. In fact, if the script had been written around that, around Buffy's compassionate nature being both a strength and a potential vulnerability, we'd have a strong episode. The theme of Giles pushing Buffy too hard in training is pushed too hard, and there's still too much heavy sadness in the Buffy-Angel courtship (not that the sadness isn't plausible, given the situation, but plausibility doesn't make it art). But this is lightened in advance by superb Willow exposition of the sociological ramifications of asking someone for coffee:

( The nonrelationship drink of choice )