Actually in response to your last line I have experimented with writing to a
'you' or about 'he or she or they' to some extent and it has lifted my mood
when I've done that rather than dwell on my feelings. Ii don't know about
suicide but I do know I feel better witing about something different than my
I's feelings all the time - this may be the roots of anti-lyricism if such
an animal exists.
This is also the reverse of the old couple communication therapy technique
of asking each party to preface all remarks with a statement of feelings, as
in "I feel _______ when you." Uncomfortable, but it sure cuts down on the
blaming smokescreen.
tom bell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dominic Fox" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, August 19, 2003 5:30 PM
Subject: Numbers games
> Rebecca wrote:
>
> > Hi Dominic,
>
> > Well, I agree with your sense of computers, in their increasing
> > subtlety of traction, and with your earlier posts about programming
> > vis a vis Macs.
>
> > My sense is more what is the point beyond an 'interesting
> > exercise'? The greater subtlety and discernment of which
> > such a computer program is capable arrives merely at what
> > is simply and obviously known. The gender of an author is
> > not usually a mystery,
> > and so having a computer program that can discern the author's
> > gender from a text is useful how?
>
> It indicates that there is something generic in the text itself. If I
don't
> consciously write "as a male author", and don't sign my text, it's still
> possible for a statistical analysis of my text to produce a guess at my
> gender that has a pretty good chance of being right. That's
> an "interesting" fact about gender: that it produces, willy-nilly
(sorry!),
> textual effects that can be statistically examined with some degree of
> pertinence, irrespective of authorial intent.
>
> The "interesting exercise" would be the exercise of trying to write in
such
> a way as to get the statistical measuring instrument (usually a computer
> nowadays) to guess wrong - in other words, to bring the gender of the text
> back under conscious authorial control (and from thereon to manipulate
it).
>
> I don't seriously believe this would work in the same way for suicidal
> tendencies, btw.
>
> Dominic
|