Talk:Sentimentality
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[edit] Scowlers Comment
I write as a literary scholar: This seems to be a very value-laden deployment of the word "sentiment," and one biased towards modernist or New Critical tastes. This is not an objective definition of literary sentimentality and its use judgemental use here is ahistorical. This definition was obsolete fifty years ago. Western fiction has always been primarily affective and about exploration of emotions, and the notion that it hasn't was limited to a few New Critical hacks with lots of influence but without taste, ideas or talent of their own. To the chagrin of these privileged vulcans, emotion/sentiment are actuallys ways of knowing, usually more constant an reliable than linear reason, and most people want FEELING from their art, not discourse. In other words, reverse all the implications of this entry and you'll begin to know something of the truth about the affective dimension of literature.
[edit] Apposition in Demokratie
I might have put democratic in quotes in the phrase << first "democratic" election >> to highlight the fact that what is being referred to is representative democracy a relatively weak version of the thing in question which makes the sentimentality all the more pointed. 71.186.203.201 (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] dispute on "sentimental" democracy
"voting on whether Pluto is a planet"
Does this refer directly to the IAU decision? If so, then it is a big misintepretation of what is actually carried out, in my view. No one is voting on whether Pluto "is" a planet (in fact, "is" is meaningless here without further specifying); rather, they're deciding on a scientific definition of planet, which isn't equivalent to fact, and can be built through democratic process. Therefore, I wouldn't think that act "applies the principles of democracy in situations where they are inappropriate", whether or not the final decision was justified.
That issue aside, we would still need explanations on why democracy applied in where it is inappropriate constitutes "sentimental" democracy. It seems to be unrelated to the previous concept of sentimentality (disproportionate emotional response). The second example provided also needs to be elaborated a bit, I think. Keith Galveston (talk) 15:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
