{"id":296046,"date":"2014-01-13T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-13T18:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2014\/01\/13\/toms-anti-list-rant\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T15:44:28","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T15:44:28","slug":"toms-anti-list-rant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2014\/01\/13\/toms-anti-list-rant\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom's Anti-List Rant"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is Tom Roberge’s contribution to our “Best Books of 2013” podcast. As you can see below, he’s calling bullshit on this whole “best books” thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Do we mind if I rant a bit? About lists and \u201cBest of\u201d things? I have a theory about \u201cbest of\u201d lists, especially for things like books or movies, and even more especially for the ones we pointlessly share with each other over Facebook and whatnot, as though someone, somewhere were sitting out there thinking, \u201cI wonder what X thinks are the most enduringly awesome books he\u2019s read?\u201d. My theory is that the list, the act of creating it, represents an attempt to possess that artistic endeavor, a consumable object that in reality has little to no bearing on our lives except in the most parasitic way imaginable (unless you count the money we give artists, and I suppose that\u2019s a valid point). By compiling lists, we \u2014 or the media \u2014 are attempting to own a bit of that book or movie\u2019s success in a small, exploitative way. <\/p>\n

First there are the websites that endlessly publish lists. Best Books of 2013. Best Banned Books. Best Books Set in Orange County. Etc. etc. In the case of the media, the motivation is obvious: they\u2019ve identified certain commodities that have drawing power, and want to somehow turn them into profits for themselves, and what better way to do that then to offer an opinion on said commodities, right? Well, that was what reviews were for, but now we\u2019re too impatient to read reviews (also: bored), and at the same time the editors realized that mentioning more than one commodity in the same piece would create compounding interest. Then they took one step further and ranked these collections of name-droppings, and the need to quantify any opinions basically disappeared. Genius! <\/p>\n

On a individual level, the motivation isn\u2019t as slickly capitalistic. Obviously there\u2019s simple, innocent fun in debating the best Jason Statham movie (it\u2019s Blitz), but here, too, there\u2019s a certain desire to \u201cown\u201d the commodity. But the end-goal is less monetary and more ego-driven: we want to wear our preferences like badges. Perhaps we want to show off our refined tastes, or perhaps \u2014 on the other hand \u2014 we merely want to fit in, be a member of that subculture that thinks Braveheart is the best movie ever. Facebook seems to exist for precisely these two reasons, after all, so it\u2019s hardly a coincidence that lists predominate there and elsewhere. <\/p>\n

I would also argue that rankings and lists, especially for artistic products, is inherently counterintuitive. Art is meant to be experienced (largely \u2013 I know this isn\u2019t something easily defined) on the artist\u2019s terms, NOT<\/span> yours. And the mere notion of ranking a book against another that you\u2019ve read takes that book and turns it into something you\u2019ve experienced, not something the artist created. A crucial point, to my mind. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is Tom Roberge’s contribution to our “Best Books of 2013” podcast. As you can see below, he’s calling bullshit on this whole “best books” thing. Do we mind if I rant a bit? About lists and \u201cBest of\u201d things? I have a theory about \u201cbest of\u201d lists, especially for things like books or movies, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[54656,1646,30456],"class_list":["post-296046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-best-books-of-2013-podcast","tag-review","tag-tom-roberge"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296046"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317806,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296046\/revisions\/317806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}