Almost A Sarah And Spider Boy’s “Debate”

Why I’m verbally throwing myself into this entire thing, I’m not sure, but maybe I can shed some light onto both sides of the argument and help the two to see the others’ side clearly.  Because from everything I’ve read, both have a weak at best grasp of what’s going on in the other’s head and frankly, this is to both of you by the way, this argument has gone way too far and is COMPLETELY FREAKIN’ STUPID!!!!

Now, all I ask is that the people who read this read it completely and attempt to be unbaised toward either diariest.  I ask that you give me the proper respect in reading this and when you’re sure you know where I’m coming from, then note me with any support, displeasures, or hate notes.  Okay?

Thank you.  I’ll start by saying that when I began reading Almost A Sarah’s entries about all this, I found it entertaining.  She constantly has something she’s complaining about, (most of the time it’s someone else’s stupidity,) and I usually find these things fun to read.  She has a clever way with words and usually doesn’t revert to using curses four times in a six word setence.  That’s a pleasant surprise from any I meet, honestly.  But then, I saw Spider Boy’s notes, and saw her announcement in several of her entries lately that the point of a debate is not to be right–it’s to intelligently present your argument.

Here is a direct quote from her entry entitled "Sarah V. Pointless Argument, Take Two."

Spider Boy, Spider Boy, when will you ever learn how to debate? You see, if you choose to debate someone, you have to know their argument as well as yours. You didn’t, and the result was more people (who refuse to be intimidated by the number of books you read or your "intellectual" arguments) gravitated towards my side of the argument. Also, the point of debate is not to be "right"; it is to intelligently -let’s put this in caps, it’s important: INTELLIGENTLY- present your argument. Again, you were too concerned with being right, and the debate swayed in your dissenters’ direction for it.

I copied down the entire paragraph so that I wouldn’t be seen as misquoting or anything.  Yet, she clearly states that the point of a debate is not to be "right."  It’s to intelligently state your argument.

Yet, in her "Almost A Sarah vs. Spider Boy *aswipe edit*" entry, she, before said edit, typed two words: "Sarah wins!" that were also a link to one of his entries, obviously in an attempt to show that she had somehow won this debate by whatever he’d put in his entry.

Does anyone else here see the glaring and obvious contradiction?  "Sarah wins" and yet a debate is not something someone should gun to win, it’s a (hopefully) intelligent exchange of ideas and viewpoints.  Yet she has contradicted that by self-proclaiming to be the "winner" of something she herself stated there is no winner of.

The obvious answer she could give back to me is that because of his "immature and pretentious ways" of coming at this argument, it ceased to be a debate before it began.  But if one were to take that road, then calling the argument a debate at any point in time is useless, pointless, and completely ridiculous.  It doesn’t hold water, and here’s why: she obviously considered it a debate; otherwise why call it that?  And just because she feels that his views and arguments within said debate were childish, immature, or whatever, it doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t have held herself accountable for not only what she said, but the standard decorum that should come into play when people are having a discussion, debate, or even flat out argument over a difference of opinion.

Almost a Sarah, a note she left for Spider Boy that he addressed in his entry called "Spider Boy vs. Almost A Sarah."  "And disliking a book doesn’t make it bad.  You are so hell-bent on being right that you can’t even check your own argument for loopholes or contradictions."  I think the contradictions/loopholes in this statement speak for themselves, considering what I stated above.

Another thing that I find definitely OUT of the favor of Almost A Sarah is the fact that she left Spider Boy a note, directly stating that she read more than the avergae 19 year old.  When he commented back about how he was sure she did, because the average 19 year old reads very little, she responded back with this: "average 19 year old

Oh, how did I know you’d use my age to try and bend the argument your way? You know, Spider, all it says to me when someone plays the age card is, "Your argument is more valid than mine and I can’t lose face to someone younger than me."

Now, hang on a second.  Him playing the age card?  That confused me the first time I read it and it confuses me now.  Unless there was some hidden part of the conversation between the two of them, she played the age card.  She was the one who mentioned it first, and considering his response was the he was happy she read so much, but it wasn’t a great basis of comparison since the average 19 year old reads so little, I don’t see how he’s ‘playing the age card and trying to claim his argument is more valid because he’s older.’  All he was stating was something Almost A Sarah knows all too well: that teenagers in her generation suck as far as books go.  She said it herself that once the people in her class graduate, they’ll probably never read another book for the rest of their lives.

Not to mention the fact that in one of her recent notes to him, she says she assumes he’s at least ten years her senior.  Why the assumption?  Oh, that’s right!  He doesn’t have his age DISPLAYED ON HIS DIARY.  I happen to know how old he is.  I wonder if it would shock her to find out his true age.  Because why assume that someone has to be older than you?  He could just as easily be the same age or a year or more younger.  Perhaps he doesn’t want people playing the "age card" on him?  Something to think about, wouldn’t you say?

Plus, the insults that fly between these two are ridiculous and an insult to people as well-read as these two, (either between the lines or directly) boast to be.  I mean, seriously.  She stated herself how many times about the point of a debate being intelligent argument back and forth.  Taking a page from her book, I emphasize the word INTELLIGENTLY.  What exactly is intelligent about name calling?  She’s called him a "dickweed," an "insecure person with little to no personality," a "whiny little bitch," an "insecure control freak with compensation issues," and the only insults I’ve ever heard him hurl are calling her a witless cretin and cursing within his writing, though not curses directed at anyone in specific.  In one of her most recent notes to him, she makes a long, drawn-out insult aimed at what she believes his personality to be: <font face="Pa

pyrus”>Fair enough. This will be my last note.

If you want to read simply for criticism’s sake, you do that. You sit there with your glass of finely-aged red wine, speaking through your nose about "Mmnnnyess, that book was terriblemm, the plot went nowhere and it was faaaahhh below my level, mmmnnnyess, everyone who reads it cannot possiblmnny challenge themselves, mmmnnn."

But allow me (and myriad other readers) to sit here with our glasses of Coke, Pepsi, iced tea, what have us, and read for the sake of pleasure. Allow us to glean enjoyment and reading from the books that we enjoy, and really read them, instead of just seeing the words on the page and presenting our opinions as facts. ~

And making assumptions on what a person’s personality is like and assuming he doesn’t read for pleasure and only for niticking apart plotlines and dialogue and characterization is intelligent debating?

I went through and reread these entries and most of the notes along with them and I honestly think this is the best summary of Spider Boy’s argument.  It was written by another diariest who as far as I can tell is a regular of his, but has visited hers.  That person said: "Almost a Sarah: The point he’s making is not that you like a book, but WHY you like that book. Not on an emotional level, but on an objective level that people can discuss using language everyone knows."

How that is misinterpreted, I don’t know.  True, I don’t know if she misinterpreted what was said there, but her response seems to indicate it.

ryn on Spider Boy: Intellectual reading be damned. I read for the pleasure, of the pleasure, and by the pleasure. Nothing else matters. If I like a a book, I don’t need to tell someone why, and if I don’t, I don’t. That’s my logic and it’s been working for me and my Faves (who are also avid readers) our whole lives. As Temmahkrik said, that’s a bully’s tactic. Spider obviously has no qualms with being a bully; do you? Think about it.

Yes, if one like s a book, they don’t have to defend that liking.  Yet defense of liking something in the vast sea of literature was not the point.  The point was to be able to state why you liked something, and Spider Boy brought up the Harry Potter series as a popular standard of today’s audience to show "what’s good."

To be honest, this entire thing reminds me of the John vs. Jesus argument in the sixties.  John said, (I used to remember the exact quote, but I don’t now, so please put up with a paraphrase,) that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.  That "Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary."  That "Christianity will go; it will vanish and shrink," and that "he was right and would be proved right."

And instead of just accepting his words and actually thinking about them, places across the US, especially in the Bible belt area, actually had bonfires where they burned Beatles memorabilia.  Simply because no one could look at what John said and take it in the context in which he meant it.  Instead, they were too busy being on their moral high horses, insisting the Beatles were evil, or how dare John  say that, etc.

Yet the real meaning of his words was as follows: he was upset by the fact that kids seemed more eager to go to a Beatles concert than they were about attending a church service.  He was seeing something of the downfall of organized religion and it saddened him that peoples’ beliefs were becoming so scant.  The only reason he used "Beatles" in what he said was because it was something he knew and was, obviously, familiar with.  Like he said back then, he could just as easily have said TV is more popular than Jesus, and you know what?  A, he was right, and B, if he had, it wouldn’t have turned into everything it did.

It’s getting really late, and I didn’t feel like finding, copying, and pasting what I feel are the pointless inclusions Spider Boy put in his entries where he’s responding to noters.  I think both sides put out information neither needed to because it wasn’t pertinent at all to the debate.  Such as him saying how many authors he knows, or first editions he has, or autographed copies he’s procured.  It was useless and pointless to bring that up.

These are all quotes from Sipder Boy that I feel define his argument rather well.

Of course leisure reading has it’s place, but liking a book doesn’t make it good. You speak as if reading a dense book loaded with subtext isn’t fun. As if "fun" and "academic" are separate and distinct. As if putting clues together, connecting two events, or having to re-read to understand an authors point isn’t enjoyable. Sometimes it may take work, but it [is] fun when you can fully grasp the point the author was trying to make. Half of my favorite writers write pulp, and the other half border on incomprehensible.
But I enjoy every minute I spend with those words. If reading isn’t fun, no matter what sort of book you’re reading, then read something else.
The difference however, is that no one seems to want to acknowledge that they aren’t growing as readers. That there is more ti [sic] literature than bestsellers, and that reading dense books can yield mountains of pleasure if one is so inclined.

I’ve made the point that it’s about more than just books to me, yet if it’s not that way to you, why did you bother leaving those notes?
If you disagree with my logic, let me know, but as it stands now it seems you, like many other people, don’t like being confronted with the fact that they aren’t attentive as readers and that most people will never make an attempt to find out what’s truly waiting to be discovered and enjoyed and shared.
Bestsellers are well and good. I love bestsellers because they come with a built in community. However, there is more to literature than that which is a point I addressed. It’s not a hard thing to do, and I’m baffled as to why people fight so hard to defend the fact that they haven’t branched out.
I’ll say it again, there’s nothing wrong with liking those books, any book really, but there’s an objective standard that people don’t want to embrace and filter what they read through.

Which part of my argument is "stupid?" The part where I try to establish an objective standard to judge all books? Here’s a hint: about half the books I read would be considered "bad" by that standard, but I’m not going to defend them for the simple that liking a book doesn’t make it good. "I like what I like" is a non-answer as it conflates the personal with the measurable. As I’ve said before, read what you want to read, but liking a book doesn’t protect your opinion, or your books, from criticism.
I have never contradicted myself because it is you people who think I’m making the argument that the only thing that is good is what I like. I’ve never said, and will never say that.</

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As far as I understand, his main point in writing this entire thing was to see if he and other readers could establish a system of completely objective standards by which a book can be discussed, dissected, etc.  From that objective point of view, readers are forced to examine the criteria by which they read.  Do they read sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, non-fiction, fiction, humor, romance, YA, etc., and why?  What was good about it?  Did the characters seem believable, was the plot outlined clearly or did it wobble from scene to scene?  Was dialogue written correctly for year-related or genre related pieces?  Were paragraphs solidly written or were there galring grammatical mistakes, or subtle differences in word usage that should have been corrected?

I can’t guarantee that these are questions he would ask of a group objectively discussing a book, but it seems to me that it was along these lines that he was commenting on Harry Potter.  And I do agree with him.  Saying, "I like it because it’s good," or "I like it because I like it," is no reasoning when someone is trying to find out why you like a book and what you like about it.

He’s right; liking a book does not make it good.  It can make it popular, but what’s popular isn’t always good.  (Case in point: Paris Hilton and Christina Agulera, anyone?)  Yet Almost A Sarah was right when she countered with not liking it doesn’t make it bad.  And she brings up Catcher in the Rye.  Is it good?  Not a clue, I’ve yet to read it.  But she hates that book with a burning passion that if it was ever converted to energy would probably light up small cities.  Yet how many millions of people love and appreciate that book?  Not liking it doesn’t make it bad.

Every teeny bopping airhead seems to love either Britney Spears, Christina Agulera, or one of the other airheaded pop stars out there who do more "dancing" and flashing onstage than actual, proper, good singing.  Yet people go nuts for it.  People like it; it’s popular.  Is it good?  (Not to anyone with eardrums…)

Yet in theory, his idea of a completely objective standard by which to discuss books is a great idea.  Put to actuality, though, it falls apart.  One can’t be completely objective about books.  Part of the reason we readers care for them so much is because of how they made us feel.  I ried at part sof Harry Potter number seven, and that’s part of the reason I liked it.  Because it was written in such a way that drummed up that much emotion for me.  It drew me into the story far enough that the characters were people I cared about, and they didn’t seem flat, or one dimensional to me at all.

Even something like setence structure is something that can’t be loked at with one hundred percent objectivity.  I mean, here, the cloest book to me is the third one in a Young Adult trilogy called the Secret Diaries.  Escape is the title.  Here’s a random sentence from the book. "I dialed his number and let it ring a long time, ten or twelve times, gripping the receiver tightly in my cold hand and willing him to answer."  Some would say that’s a perfectly well written sentence and have no problems with it whatsoever.  But what of the repetitive use of the word ‘time’ within four words?  Could the sentence sound smoother with a different word, or if it was just said that she let it ring ten or twelve times, or maybe not even given a direct number and just saying it rang a long time?  And how about the end?  Would the overall tone of the sentence sound better if the end said, "…in my cold hand, willing him to answer."?

Overall, I would probably make some changes to that sentence.  Other people would think it was fine and have their own reasoning to back up their claim.  Still others would agree it needed to be changed, but think my suggestions for the changes were ludicrous.

I’m sorry that I attacked Almost A Sarah more in this entry, but honestly, with her comments, she left herself open to said attacks.  Spider Boy’s defense isn’t bulletproof, but people did take his words and meaning out of context.  I hope this entry has cleared up things and that I’m not going to get a bunch of hate notes concerning all this.

I do respect her right to say, "I like this and don’t have to explain it to you."  But I also respect his thoughts on discussing the reasoning behind liking a book.

All of this said, I’m ending the entry and will write more on my thoughts concerning objectivity and emotion-driven liking later.

Thank you for reaching the end of this entry, and while I appreciate notes on the subject, I ask that you do it with respect.  You can rightfully disagree with anything I’ve said here, or any thoughts I have on it.  This is just my understanding of the entire diary war, and if I’ve gotten anything wrong, I do apologize and hope that the one I’ve wronged will let me know so I can correct it.