Word: essays
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...that in any discussion of the various methods-whereby the crafty student attempts to show the grader that he knows a lot more than he actually does, the vague generality is the key device. It is a vague statement that means nothing by itself, but when placed in an essay on a specific subject might mean something to a grader. The true master of the generality is the man who can write a ten-page essay which means nothing at all to him and have it mean a great deal to anyone who reads...
...generality writer banks on the knowledge possessed by the grader, hoping the marker will read things into his essay...
...check the operation of a vague generality under fire, take a typical example: "Hume brought empiricism to its logical conclusion: "The question is asked. "Did the philosophical beliefs of Hume represent the spirit of the age he lived in?" Our hero replies by opening his essay with, "David Hume, the great Scottish philosopher, brought empiricism to its logical extreme. If this be the spirit of the age he lived in, then he was representative of it." This generality expert has already taken his position for the essay. Actually he has not the vaguest idea what Hume really said, or what...
Just exactly what our equivocator's answer has to do with the original question is hard to say. The equivocator writes an essay about the point but never on it. Consequently, the grader often mentally assumes the right answer is known by the equivocator and marks his answer as an extension of the point rather than as a complete irrelevance. The artful equivocation must imply the writer knows the right answer, but it must never get definite enough to eliminate any possibilities...
...people because they despair that systems can be changed or because they believe that systems will change to fit the change of people's needs. Left-unromantics (pragmatists?) want to change the system to change the man (or perhaps for more abstract reasons, justice, etc.). George Orwell, in his essay on Charles Dickens, recognized the trends, saying, "They appeal to different individuals, and they probably have a tendency to alternate in terms of time." We are now, perhaps at midphase, the most difficult time...