What a delight to see Barzun's name here. I read From Dawn to Decadence in 2000 when I was young. It was one of the first books of its kind that I read, and it stuck with me all these years because its style was so bizarre to me - unstructured, meandering, erudite, conversational. It connected references of the obscure to the well-known. The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal." And, that makes me laugh. I wish there were more books written that tweaked literary editors. If the 20th century is described as decadent ("Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces"), I describe the 21st century as a climax to platitudinous, bromidic, jejeune.
Surprisingly, when he arrives at the WWI period in that book Barzun leaves his historian’s voice and talks about being in Paris under bombardment from Big Bertha. Kind of a shock but also very humanizing.
Bravo! Your last sentence perhaps may be called anti-autological: condemning a certain kind of prose by performing the opposite. Brought to mind Pope’s An Essay on Criticism.
> The practical world, the business world, has created the "credentials society ," and beginning in the 40s and 50s it became a mania to qualify for a particular line, to have a certificate or a diploma in this, that, or the other thing, -- in many things that are not really subjects at all -- activities in the so-called real world which should be carried on by intelligent people but not necessarily by people who have taken a course. What is too bad is that people have very little faith in the value of intelligence, of general principles.
More relevant than ever with AI, IMO, because AI is such a wonderful multiplier for general intelligence (and broad knowledge), and really capability for abstract thought as such. It allows you to execute very effectively, so if you can define what you went well (a deceptively high bar that depends both on general intelligence and relevant domain knowledge), you can get fast, quality execution.
What a delight to see Barzun's name here. I read From Dawn to Decadence in 2000 when I was young. It was one of the first books of its kind that I read, and it stuck with me all these years because its style was so bizarre to me - unstructured, meandering, erudite, conversational. It connected references of the obscure to the well-known. The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal." And, that makes me laugh. I wish there were more books written that tweaked literary editors. If the 20th century is described as decadent ("Boredom and fatigue are great historical forces"), I describe the 21st century as a climax to platitudinous, bromidic, jejeune.
Surprisingly, when he arrives at the WWI period in that book Barzun leaves his historian’s voice and talks about being in Paris under bombardment from Big Bertha. Kind of a shock but also very humanizing.
> What a delight to see Barzun's name here.
OP here, glad to read that. I posted this not expecting much engagement, and I'm very happy to see the article on the front page.
> The wikipedia page notes a review that described his judgments of historical figures as "at best otiose and...[at times] ludicrously banal."
Wittgenstein's ruler.
Bravo! Your last sentence perhaps may be called anti-autological: condemning a certain kind of prose by performing the opposite. Brought to mind Pope’s An Essay on Criticism.
> The practical world, the business world, has created the "credentials society ," and beginning in the 40s and 50s it became a mania to qualify for a particular line, to have a certificate or a diploma in this, that, or the other thing, -- in many things that are not really subjects at all -- activities in the so-called real world which should be carried on by intelligent people but not necessarily by people who have taken a course. What is too bad is that people have very little faith in the value of intelligence, of general principles.
More relevant than ever with AI, IMO, because AI is such a wonderful multiplier for general intelligence (and broad knowledge), and really capability for abstract thought as such. It allows you to execute very effectively, so if you can define what you went well (a deceptively high bar that depends both on general intelligence and relevant domain knowledge), you can get fast, quality execution.
https://archive.is/ETJ43
and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Barzun