Neil wrote, responding to Betty:

Speaking only for myself, that's not really my position. All I expect,

and

I don't think it's too much to ask or unreasonable to ask, is that anyone who speculates on some aspect of the show, whether its the sexual orientation of Blake and Avon or what Justin meant by a war being a bit of cock-up, should offer some reason why they think their opinion carries

some

weight. Which you do yourself when you have to, BTW. The 'litcrit' mode comes more easily to some than it does to others. I don't think it's anything to do with litcrit per se, which I've had no grounding in apart from some background reading. It's more an academic mode, likely to be adopted by someone who's been through further education of whatever kind (in my case, environmental science). There is a reason

for

its particular style - it makes it possible to express complex concepts briefly and accurately. I don't think it's particularly impenetrable, though it does sound more detached and impersonal (and hence possibly

aloof,

which may be misread as being supercilious) than a chatty colloquial style (which is more appropriate to some threads anyway).

I'm not convinced there's any connection with further education, Neil. A high proportion of the active members of this Lyst appear to have gone through some form of this particular mill, and everyone posts differently.

Despite further education, I personally still find lit crit approaches to material that I enjoy deeply scarey.

There are several ways of engaging with any art form, some direct/visceral/emotional, some intellectual. (The Rite of Spring is one of my favourite pieces of music, but I engage with it entirely on the former level.) If a group of people engage with the same art form, then they can also undergo social interactions that may loosely relate to the art form in question (going to hear a particular performance of the Rite), but more often don't (going down the pub). The original intent of the author(s)/creator(s) of the art form is often to obtain the visceral/emotional response from the audience, not to generate intellectual discussions many years downstream.

Tavia (who's a fond advocate of the delete button)