What's Wrong with Pawn Stance?

[xiombarg]

Don't interpret this as being difficult.  Sometimes I just like to summarize in my own words to make sure I understand the concept.

You know, it's days like this that I sometimes think we should just make up words to represent these concepts. To heck with "Author stance" or "Pawn stance" -- how about "Zigfurt stance"?

(yes, I'm kidding)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

You got it.

Kirt, I hate to tell ya this, but this kind of terminology-construction and dialogue is the only way it's done clearly.

Best,
Ron

[Jonathan Walton]

I understand how you use the terms, but I think there's oftentimes some confusion that comes up during regular discussion.

If I say "Author Stance" does that mean the meta-category "Author Stance" or the specific subset "Author-Author Stance"?  This is what reinforces the misconception of 1(a), that Pawn Stance is Author-Author Stance's inbred hick cousin (as opposed to being "Author-Pawn Stance").

I think part of the reason people want 2(b) is because that, at least, puts Author-Author and Author-Pawn on equal footing, even though it makes them two seperate stances.

So people's misconceptions are really arising just from the terminology and their natural insticts to rectify matters.  As Metallica says, sad but true.

Later.
Jonathan

[xiombarg]

Kirt, I hate to tell ya this, but this kind of terminology-construction and dialogue is the only way it's done clearly.

I know. That doesn't mean I can't poke fun at it. :)

Anyway, to try to add to this discussion, instead of talking about "substances", what about calling them "views" or "perspectives"? Then you could have "Author stance -- Pawn view" and "Author stance -- pure view" or somesuch.

[Tim C Koppang]

Kirt,

You wrote, "Then you could have 'Author stance -- Pawn view' and 'Author stance -- pure view' or some such."

I'm not trying to start something, but calling something a pure view will run you into all sorts of connotation problems.  You'll have people thinking that the pure view is better, and it's not.

As to calling them sub-stances or perspectives or whatever—I think you are adding extra vocabulary that doesn't really clarify meaning.  To me at least, Author-Pawn stance and Author-Author stance is clear enough if I want to differentiate between the two.