It might be simpler than that; it might be important to introduce the normalcy of ambiguity early.
My writing collects reviews along the lines of "should have been edited; grammar is all wrong" or even "order of address in communications is backwards, an editor should have fixed it"; these aren't the majority of the reviews by any means, but I think it's instructive to consider where that intense certainty that a work of fantasy is wrong comes from. I think "straight up hates and considers invalid any ambiguity of meaning" is a clear candidate, and the process of engaging with classics you're describing -- and which hundred-year-old-and-more Victorian and Edwardian and even inter-war Georgian vernacular texts describe as the experience of engaging with classics -- insists that, no, no, you're going to engage with what it could mean, not what it does mean, and this has a vital social function in education.
(It does a really good job of explaining why the 80s attempt to push highschool CS as a replacement for Latin makes no sense, too.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-12-07 06:02 pm (UTC)My writing collects reviews along the lines of "should have been edited; grammar is all wrong" or even "order of address in communications is backwards, an editor should have fixed it"; these aren't the majority of the reviews by any means, but I think it's instructive to consider where that intense certainty that a work of fantasy is wrong comes from. I think "straight up hates and considers invalid any ambiguity of meaning" is a clear candidate, and the process of engaging with classics you're describing -- and which hundred-year-old-and-more Victorian and Edwardian and even inter-war Georgian vernacular texts describe as the experience of engaging with classics -- insists that, no, no, you're going to engage with what it could mean, not what it does mean, and this has a vital social function in education.
(It does a really good job of explaining why the 80s attempt to push highschool CS as a replacement for Latin makes no sense, too.)