{"id":551,"date":"2017-12-06T09:00:58","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T09:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/?p=551"},"modified":"2021-09-12T00:24:00","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T00:24:00","slug":"a-competition-of-ideals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/?p=551","title":{"rendered":"A competition of ideals <h3>A review of Simon Denny\u2019s <em>The Founder\u2019s Paradox<\/em><\/h3>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While I really want to draw attention to certain arguments and things I think have a lot of cultural importance in the world, to say something resolute\u2014like, this is this way or that\u2019s that way\u2014I find really hard to do. I don\u2019t interact with the world like that, and I don\u2019t feel like that about things in the world. My craft is exhibition-making. That is really what I do \u2026 I really value art, and it\u2019s art for a reason.<br>\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.noted.co.nz\/culture\/arts\/simon-dennys-new-auckland-exhibition-is-a-must-see\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Simon Denny<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Wandering round Simon Denny\u2019s latest show, <a href=\"http:\/\/michaellett.com\/exhibition\/simon-denny\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Founder\u2019s Paradox<\/em><\/a>, at Michael Lett in Auckland, I find myself thinking of a similarly titled episode from Malcolm Gladwell\u2019s Revisionist History podcast,<a href=\"http:\/\/revisionisthistory.com\/episodes\/10-the-satire-paradox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Satire Paradox<\/em><\/a>. In the episode, Gladwell discusses what he perceives to be failed satire: satire that does not make its position sufficiently clear and so loses its bite. He offers several examples. Tina Fey\u2019s imitation of Sarah Palin comes under fire for being too charming, too easy for Palin to co-opt and turn into \u2018good sport\u2019 capital (one wonders what Gladwell would make of Thomas Sainsbury\u2019s Paula Bennett, subsequently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stuff.co.nz\/entertainment\/tv-radio\/98622892\/MP-Paula-Bennett-imitates-comedian-Tom-Sainsbury-imitating-her\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">embraced by the politician<\/a>). Gladwell also criticises Stephen Colbert\u2019s caricature of a conservative pundit on <em>The Colbert Report<\/em>, suggesting that it was so ambiguous that it even managed to appeal to conservatives, who misread the show as a satire on liberals. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pantograph-punch.com\/post\/founders-paradox\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Continue reading<\/a> on The Pantograph Punch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While I really want to draw attention to certain arguments and things I think have a lot of cultural importance in the world, to say something resolute\u2014like, this is this way or that\u2019s that way\u2014I find really hard to do. I don\u2019t interact with the world like that, and I don\u2019t feel like that about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[79,38],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-michael-parekowhai","tag-simon-denny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/francismcwhannell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}