Thank you. Sturgeon's Law / Revelation is one of those clever-sounding little "truths", which is right up there with classics like Ockham's Razor for being as you say, abstracted to the point of absurdity. They're treated as hip, ironic sound bites.
The thing about Sturgeon's sentiment is that it depends very much on context. The abuse of it comes frequently in the form of ridiculous reductionism in how it's applied: call 90% of everything crap, then take 90% of THAT, call it crap, then... uh, no.
For instance, applying it more fairly (in my view), to EVERYTHING, let's say, culture and society as a whole... you could say that a small subculture which displayed signs of generally showing a lot more creativity, innovation, and convention-breaking was in that top 10%. It wouldn't follow that 90% of -that- was then crap by the previous context - no, you're already in the top 10%. This is how people abuse the "law", pointing it at whatever they care to target regardless of context or the most common sense. (And really, in a lot of cases most likely fully aware of it but uncaring because it's a great weapon in their agenda.)
(And no, my analogy isn't meant to insinuate that say, none of furry is crap, since it's one such subculture. However, I do think a lot less than 90% of it is crap; not even close, though we may be tempted to think so in our cynical moments.)
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2004-02-20 00:39 (UTC)The thing about Sturgeon's sentiment is that it depends very much on context. The abuse of it comes frequently in the form of ridiculous reductionism in how it's applied: call 90% of everything crap, then take 90% of THAT, call it crap, then... uh, no.
For instance, applying it more fairly (in my view), to EVERYTHING, let's say, culture and society as a whole... you could say that a small subculture which displayed signs of generally showing a lot more creativity, innovation, and convention-breaking was in that top 10%. It wouldn't follow that 90% of -that- was then crap by the previous context - no, you're already in the top 10%. This is how people abuse the "law", pointing it at whatever they care to target regardless of context or the most common sense. (And really, in a lot of cases most likely fully aware of it but uncaring because it's a great weapon in their agenda.)
(And no, my analogy isn't meant to insinuate that say, none of furry is crap, since it's one such subculture. However, I do think a lot less than 90% of it is crap; not even close, though we may be tempted to think so in our cynical moments.)