The Mezunian

Die Positivität ist das Opium des Volkes, aber der Spott ist das Opium der Verrückten

Lemme Drunkenly Rant @ You ‘Bout the Conclusions & Intros

Someone left the cake out in the rain.
I don’t think that I can take it,
‘Cause it took so long to bake it;
& I’ll ne’er have that recipe ‘gain—¡oh, no!

-Jimmy Webb

‘Pon reading many o’ my nonfiction work, one would see that I rarely write conclusions, & rarely write introductions, too. This is due to my literal-mindedness causing me to write precisely what I want to say: my “intro” is the beginning o’ what I want to say, & the end is simply the end.

This contrasts the usual intros & conclusions, which: 1, repeat what is already said in the heart o’ the article, where the info truly belongs, insulting readers’ intelligences by assuming they have the memory o’ a 1950s computer; 2, spew rhetorical cliches like irrelevant quotes or stories.

But the worst problem with conclusions is that they represent a perniciously common intellectual failure, identified by their name: they focus on conclusions. Indeed, people—westerners, a’least—focus too much on conclusions, which are the weakest aspect o’ an argument. It’s the reasoning ‘hind the conclusions that should be focused on, for they are the key to the conclusions in the 1st place.

What conclusions do is they enable a bad habit: glazing o’er reasoning so one can snatch the conclusions quickly & then spew it to others like the plague without understanding the why ‘hind the conclusion, much less whether the conclusion is truly correct.

Thus, rather than conclusions improving the understanding o’ those too lazy to read the body, they make them mo’ ignorant o’ their lack o’ understanding. ¿What’s better, that one can’t comprehend an article & knows one can’t understand it, or that one can’t understand an article, but can understand the conclusion, & thus is fooled into thinking one understands it when one truly doesn’t?

So in conclusion, conclusions are superfluous. They obnoxiously repeat content that you’ve already read & help people ignore the reason for believing the conclusion. & as Lord Crocomire says, “That’s the news you can choose.”

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Posted in Literature Commentary