A writer-editor-teacher’s quote of the week 211

Classic style does not reject plain style, although it rejects the theology behind it and sees that theology as illegitimately elevating a necessary foundation into an achieved style. From the perspective of classic style, plain style is deficient because the theology behind plain style ignores the fact that, left to themselves, people are vulnerable to special interests and prone to special pleading. People are weak, and common wisdom is often self-serving. It is perfectly possible for common wisdom to be an anthology of  a community’s complacent errors, because common wisdom does not include any principle of critical validation. Without critical testing, common wisdom becomes received opinion.

Classic style views itself as repairing the deficiency of plain style by introducing sophistication and individual responsibility. First, classic writers and readers are an elite community, consisting of those who practice the critical discipline of its theology. Anyone can take up this practice and so join, but the style is aristocratic, not egalitarian. Second, classic wisdom cannot be the wisdom of children because it depends upon a wealth of adult experience. In plain style, everyone is equal; truth is everyone’s birthright. It is seen by all; it is everyone’s possession. It can come out of the mouths of babes. In classic style, truth is available to all who are willing to work to achieve it, but truth is certainly not commonly possessed by all and is no one’s birthright. In the classic view, truth is the possession of individuals who have validated common wisdom; for them, truth has been achieved, and such achievement requires both experience and a critical intelligence beyond the range of babes.

– from “The Principles of Classic Style” in Clear and Simple as the Truth: Writing Classic Prose, second edition by Francis-Noel Thomas and Mark Turner

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