Sole Welting

[bengal-stripe]



............you'll always be a shoe groupie--because understanding escapes you. You can't put it all together. It's all theory to you with no practical or wax-under-the-fingernails experience.

I never wanted to be a shoemaker, When did I ever say, I wanted to make shoes?

There are people who are so good at it, that I could never catch up with them, particular as I only want two pairs a year. I will never, ever reach the standards of the maker who his peers call "the legendary".

You don't have to cook to appreciate food.

 

[DWFII]



I never wanted to be a shoemaker, When did I ever say, I wanted to make shoes?

You don't have to cook to appreciate food.

No, but perhaps, just perhaps, you ought learn to cook before you accept a position as restaurant critic for the Bexley Times.

The real problem is while I recognize your expertise in some matters...even shoemaking matters...you seem to jump in for no real reason other than to stir the pot. Frankly, when we talk about turnshoes in the Saxon and Middle Ages, for example, a video on modern turnshoes seems moot, if not entirely specious.

On every forum across the Internet there will always be people who...finding the cost of obtaining real expertise too onerous--the work too dirty or hard, the dues too taxing...will gin up imaginary credentials or find some way to present themselves as more knowledgeable than they really are. Posting film clips, diagrams and excerpts from books or internet sources, detailing information that they have no actual familiarity with or willingness to take responsibility for, is but one example.

If we were talking military matters we would call it "Stolen Valour."

Here, for those who find such behaviour acceptable...even admirable...it's called "accurate and balanced."

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[RogerP]



I never wanted to be a shoemaker, When did I ever say, I wanted to make shoes?

There are people who are so good at it, that I could never catch up with them, particular as I only want two pairs a year. I will never, ever reach the standards of the maker who his peers call "the legendary".

You don't have to cook to appreciate food.

Quite right.

 

[TheWraith]

Most restaurant critics aren't chefs. Most film reviewers/critics aren't filmmakers. Most book reviewers/critics aren't novelists. That's how it is out there in the world.

 

[DWFII]



Most restaurant critics aren't chefs. Most film reviewers/critics aren't filmmakers. Most book reviewers/critics aren't novelists. That's how it is out there in the world.

But they know how to cook don't they? They've done it a time or two.

And those that haven't are part of what's wrong with contemporary society...the idea that there is no such thing a truth. That truth is whatever we want it to be. And everybody is an expert whose opinions just absolutely have to be heard.

Victor Davis Hanson wrote an interesting column in the newspaper a day or so ago...

the-poison-of-postmodern-lying

In which he said, among other things

... the present notion that lies are not necessarily lies anymore -- a reflection of the relativism that infects our entire culture.

Postmodernism (the cultural fad "after modernism") went well beyond questioning norms and rules. It attacked the very idea of having any rules at all. Postmodernist relativists claimed that things like "truth" were mere fictions to preserve elite privilege.

Without notions of objective truth, there can never be lies, just competing narratives and discourses. Stories that supposedly serve the noble majority are true; those that supposedly don't become lies -- the facts are irrelevant.

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[misterjuiceman]

Most restaurant critics aren't chefs. Most film reviewers/critics aren't filmmakers. Most book reviewers/critics aren't novelists. That's how it is out there in the world.

It could be quite the conflict of interests if that were the case.

 

[TheWraith]

Knowing how to cook and being capable of restaurant quality cooking are two very different things. I can use a camcorder pretty well, doesn't mean I could make a quality feature film. Not the same thing. Doesn't mean I can't tell the difference between a good and bad meal at a restaurant or a good and bad film. That's also the truth.

 

[RogerP]

Most restaurant critics aren't chefs. Most film reviewers/critics aren't filmmakers. Most book reviewers/critics aren't novelists. That's how it is out there in the world.

Indeed. I find it more than passing strange that anyone could hang the label of "truth" upon the notion that only those who have created an object may validly hold and express an opinion as to its properties.

We've done this dance before. Some will cling with spectacular desperation to the notion that there should be One Voice and that this voice should be Theirs.

 

[dbhdnhdbh]

.....

This is why I would rather spend the extra $ to ship my shoes to someone like Nick at B. Nelson for quality work. Sadly, the one local cobbler whom I would trust with anything more than the most basic work has retired.

Quality work for sure, but...Perhaps I live in the wrong area, but I do not find B. Nelson to be any more expensive than my local cobblers. Add in the convenience of mail service, and I doubt I would use local folks even if they did offer a better price. But I am not paying several hundred dollars for a resole by a bespoke maker.

 

[RogerP]

Quality work for sure, but...Perhaps I live in the wrong area, but I do not find B. Nelson to be any more expensive than my local cobblers. Add in the convenience of mail service, and I doubt I would use local folks even if they did offer a better price. But I am not paying several hundred dollars for a resole by a bespoke maker.

You're quite right - I should have clarified - extra $ for me because it involves return shipping to another country.

 

[DWFII]



It could be quite the conflict of interests if that were the case.

How is that relevant? I never said they had to be chef. My wife is not a chef but she knows what shoe's doing. This is another red herring.

Perhaps the better analogy would be that you ought to have some experience doing something, before you presume to teach it. You ought to know something about cooking before you start writing recipes. And you damn sure ought to have tested the recipes before you start feeding them to strangers.

And hey, I'll concede the point...a "foodie" (read food groupie) doesn't have to know how to cook to appreciate food.

But if you admit to not knowing how to cook, your role is passive...short of carping about someone elses efforts. Stay out of the kitchen, stop haranguing the cook and talk about things you do know something about.

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[DWFII]



Knowing how to cook and being capable of restaurant quality cooking are two very different things. I can use a camcorder pretty well, doesn't mean I could make a quality feature film. Not the same thing. Doesn't mean I can't tell the difference between a good and bad meal at a restaurant or a good and bad film. That's also the truth.

My daughter is a chef...you don't need to tell me about this. I know what I like but I don't try to tell her how to cook.

I wish this thread had more rational, linear thinkers...

The issue isn't...hasn't been...appreciation. It is about presuming that your tastes, or your limited experience trumps all else. Trumps people who have worked for decades refining what they do. Trumps the observations and experience of people who, very simply, are doers...not just users. If you want to continue the food analogy it's about people who eat the food but complain about the cook.

Who live off of, or make their reputation from, the efforts of other people.

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[RogerP]

It could be quite the conflict of interests if that were the case.

You're right, of course. The motive to misrepresent should be quite obvious.

 

[TheWraith]

My opinion doesn't trump all else (I have never said that it does or should, nor intimated that), nor should anyone's here, including you, DWF. That is another truth.

 

[DWFII]



My opinion doesn't trump all else (I have never said that it does or should, nor intimated that), nor should anyone's here, including you, DWF. That is another truth.

No, it's a perfect example of one of those postmodernist "truths" (lies) --where facts are irrelevant.

Those who speak the truth from experience...from knowledge and not just speculation...speak with vastly more authority than those who speak from ignorance. If nothing else they have earned it. And no amount of whining or cries of "unfair" will ever change that.

Only in a culture of immaturity and concomitant narcissism can the authority of experience and truth be so determinedly...and petulantly...questioned.

"It's not arrogance to say what you know professionally. It is arrogance to reject expert opinion without having expertise of your own."
​

In the end it's not about whose opinions trump. It's not about whose words carry the most authority. It's about who's blowing smoke out of their backside because they want a free ride. It's about being responsible and answerable to truth.

And, sometimes, Frank, you can't just redact the important qualifiers in a sentence, paragraph or thought...well, you can, but it just makes clear that you do think your opinion trumps all else.

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