This is becoming a Takuan Seiyo-style series
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The purpose of my posts is not to denigrate writers, and their often heart-felt need to communicate their ideas in their own idiosyncratic styles.
I am an ordinary reader, whose background is definitely not writing, although I have spent a good deal of my life reading (mostly, 99%, fiction) to have been called a book-worm at one point.
So, it is a little surprising that I turned to the visual media as my training and profession. Perhaps I understood that a hidden obsession of many writers is to be a Hemmingway or Dostoevsky.
Perhaps people who read the writers I have mentioned so far have also this secret desire to be great writers themselves, and are hungrily devouring every word as a way to find the clues to what they think might be good writing.
But, conservative writing, I believe, has taken on too much of this ego and idiosyncrasy.
In any case, I will take on the Brussels Journal regular Takuan Seiyo, who has a (so far) twelve-part series:"From Meccania to Atlantis", at their website.
The first time I read Takuan Seiyo at Brussels Journal (Seiyo’s name reminds me of those Japanese cartoon characters which are the craze in video games - not a good image for a “seasoned” man), I literally skimmed the paragraphs to catch key-phrases of his never-ending 4,000-word article. I think it was Part 3 or Part 4.
After that, I simply lost interest, and I don’t think I read any more until perhaps the 8th or 9th article in the series, and again to skim through the last two or three paragraphs.
I wonder if Seiyo plans on publishing these in a book? I somehow don’t think so. I don’t think his wild trips into the modern world’s psyche make for a good book – they’re too repetitive and too exclamatory. But, what do I know. There are enough people who take the time to read his articles who might be game for a (paid) book version.
The interesting thing, though, is that at Gates of Vienna, Seiyo has a new article about the Vdare-featured Kevin MacDonald’s anti-Semtitic writings. And the title even has a normal ring to it: "Critique of the Culture of Kevin MacDonald."
Despite its close to 4,000 words (3,811, to be exact), Seiyo has avoided the screeching tone of his “Meccania to Atlantis” series to write something which reverberates as genuine and sincere.
Ironically, although writers may think they are connecting us with their "true self" when they let their ego or vanity dominate, the exact opposite actually happens.
Here are links to the first two parts:
Like Clockwork: Part I - Writers at Vdare show us something of their true nature
Like Clockwork: Part II - What exactly is Ilana Mercer?
