Arlo said:
It just struck me as coming close to the height of absurdity to declare that
the man who's ideas we are here (ostensibly) to discuss is the "least"
authority on what those ideas are. It would be like me saying, "Let's talk
about what John's ideas are, but the person who we can ignore the most in that
discussion is John".
dmb says:
Exactly. There are situations where the delicate handling of interpretive
issues would make sense. Say, if the work in question is written in a dead
language or if only fragments remain. Maybe it's a complex literary work of
art. People get real philosophical about interpretive theories. Not too long
ago, literary theorists operated on the premise that the author's intention is
irrelevant. The death of the author was proclaimed as the birth of the reader.
It is the reader who constructs meaning from the text, so that's really where
the action is, they said.
But then hacks get their hands on these not very interesting ideas and before
you know it everything means anything anybody wants it mean and - presto! -
we're all swimming in sea of bullshit. It quickly turns into nothing but sheer
intellectual debauchery. And then anyone who protests against this nonsense is
Hitler.
In this case the author is a contemporary, English-speaking guy who can and has
answered questions about how to interpret his meaning. He was presented with
Bo's idea and he has said quite plainly that he never agreed with it. How much
room for interpretation can there be in a case like that?
It's like telling the traffic cop that he's wrong about the meaning of the
"stop" sign you passed without stopping. Somehow, that should earn you two
traffic tickets. Come to think of it, a person who can't rightly "interpret"
things like stop signs should probably not be allowed to drive at all.
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