Disclaimer: Note that my analysis is based on reading only very few comments of Said (<15).
To me it seems the “sneering model” isn’t quite right. I think often what Said is doing seems to be:
Analyze a text for flaws.
Point out the flaws.
Derive from the demonstrated flaws some claim that shows Said’s superiority.
One of the main problems seems to be that in 1. any flaw is a valid target. It does not need to be important or load bearing to the points made in the text.
It’s like somebody building a rocket shooting it to the moon and Said complaining that the rocket looks pathetic. It should have been painted red! And he is right about it. It does look terrible and would look much better painted red. But that’s sort of… not that important.
Said correctly finds flaws and nags about them. And these flaws actually exist. But talking about these flaws is often not that useful.
I expect that what Said is doing is to just nag on all the flaws he finds immediately. These will often be the non important flaws. But if there are actually important flaws that are easy to find, and are therefore the first thing he finds, then he will point out these. This then can be very useful! How useful Said’s comments are depends on how easy it is to find flaws that are useful to discuss VS flaws that are not useful to discuss.
Also: Derivations of new flaws (3.) might be much shakier and often not correct. Though I have literally only one example of this so this might not be a general pattern.
Said seems to be a destroyer of the falsehoods that are easiest to identify as such.
Disclaimer: Note that my analysis is based on reading only very few comments of Said (<15).
To me it seems the “sneering model” isn’t quite right. I think often what Said is doing seems to be:
Analyze a text for flaws.
Point out the flaws.
Derive from the demonstrated flaws some claim that shows Said’s superiority.
One of the main problems seems to be that in 1. any flaw is a valid target. It does not need to be important or load bearing to the points made in the text.
It’s like somebody building a rocket shooting it to the moon and Said complaining that the rocket looks pathetic. It should have been painted red! And he is right about it. It does look terrible and would look much better painted red. But that’s sort of… not that important.
Said correctly finds flaws and nags about them. And these flaws actually exist. But talking about these flaws is often not that useful.
I expect that what Said is doing is to just nag on all the flaws he finds immediately. These will often be the non important flaws. But if there are actually important flaws that are easy to find, and are therefore the first thing he finds, then he will point out these. This then can be very useful! How useful Said’s comments are depends on how easy it is to find flaws that are useful to discuss VS flaws that are not useful to discuss.
Also: Derivations of new flaws (3.) might be much shakier and often not correct. Though I have literally only one example of this so this might not be a general pattern.
Said seems to be a destroyer of the falsehoods that are easiest to identify as such.