# corrective discipline



## Benjamin33

Hello Friends,

I have a question and need your help.
What does "corrective discipline" mean in the following passage? 
Does "discipline" here mean "training" or "restraint/control" or something else?

Context:
Though the pleasure which works of art give us must not be confused with other pleasures that we enjoy, it is related to all of them simply by being our pleasure and not someone else's. All the judgments, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes. So long as a man writes poetry or fiction, his dream of Eden is his own business, but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he describe it to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgments. 

Thanks a lot.


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## PaulQ

In "All the judgments, [...] are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes.", the verb "are" has the meaning "exist [as]", hence "are a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes" = "exist as a means of correcting our subjective judgments [to objective judgments.]"


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## EStjarn

I think the following from The Academic Librarian's Human Resources Handbook gives a fairly good idea what "corrective discipline" is about:

"Corrective discipline, also called progressive discipline, is designed to make employees aware of misconduct or poor performance and to give them an opportunity to correct their behavior or improve their performance."​
(Conpare the entry for "discipline" at AHD, sense 3: "punishment intended to correct or train.")

A literary critic is not just enjoying literature. He or she is supposed to say something "rational" about a given book, with comments on its weaknesses and strengths. Those comments will be using the critic's own "wishes" as a base, that is, the features and qualities that the critic would like to see in a book.

I read "of" in "a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes" as meaning "derived or coming from" (cf. AHD's definition of "of", sense 1). I think this is why my interpretation is different from PaulQ's.


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## Benjamin33

PaulQ, EStjarn, thank you for your replies


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## Benjamin33

EStjarn said:


> I think the following from The Academic Librarian's Human Resources Handbook gives a fairly good idea what "corrective discipline" is about:
> 
> "Corrective discipline, also called progressive discipline, is designed to make employees aware of misconduct or poor performance and to give them an opportunity to correct their behavior or improve their performance."​
> (Conpare the entry for "discipline" at AHD, sense 3: "punishment intended to correct or train.")
> 
> A literary critic is not just enjoying literature. He or she is supposed to say something "rational" about a given book, with comments on its weaknesses and strengths. Those comments will be using the critic's own "wishes" as a base, that is, the features and qualities that the critic would like to see in the book.
> 
> I read "of" in "a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes" as meaning "derived or coming from" (cf. AHD's definition of "of", sense 1). I think this is why my interpretation is different from PaulQ's.





EStjarn, the following is my understanding of your interpretation. Can you tell me if it is what you think? Thank you.

Base: our subjective wishes
Process: rationalization & corrective discipline (we try to rationalize and correct our subjective wishes)
Output: judgments that we pass


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## EStjarn

I believe what follows the "process" part above is what PaulQ suggests. However, my view is that we are not trying to correct ourselves, or our own wishes, when we pass a judgment. Instead, we are trying to correct (uselessly or not) whatever it is that we judge. Our wishes remain intact.

With regard to a book, for example, the judgments of a regular reader is of little consequence for a writer because he or she will never get to hear them, but those of a literary critic may well find their way to the writer.

To pass a judgment is to compare our perception of something with some idea we have of what this something should be like. I'd say this idea is what the author of the passage, W.H. Auden, refers to as "our subjective wishes". To rationalize one's subjective wishes is to put one's idea of what something should be like in words.


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## Benjamin33

Oh, it seemed I totally misunderstood. 
I had another try and is the following close to your interpretation, EStjarn?

(1) Rationalization
The rationalization of our subjective wishes is the explicit description of the wishes.
To rationalize our subjective wishes is to express them clearly.
According to Auden, A literary critic should describe his dream of Eden (which is his subjective wish) to the readers. It means he or she should rationalize the subjective wish for the readers.

(2) Corrective discipline
Our subjective wishes remain intact and what we correct is what we judge if we find some differences between our perception of what we judge and our subjective idea of what it should be like.
The discipline (which is based on our subjective wishes) here can be seen as a "standard" or "system" (Are these two synonyms proper?). We correct what we judge as per this discipline.


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## Thomas Tompion

I think that the clue lies in the final sentence.  If you write criticism of artistic matters - of literature, of music, of the visual arts - you need to make clear to your readers what is your personal view of excellence (your dream of Eden).

Your personal view of excellence is a reflection of your subjective wishes (what you like to see in a work of art).  Each time you make a judgement (say that this is good or bad, or better or worse than something else) you rationalize your subjective views, make them part of a rationale, an interlocking system.  What you like is implicit in your declared preference: when you say that Braque is better than Seurat, you are maybe expressing your liking for cubism over figurative painting of a certain kind.  Those very judgements (expressions of  preference) continually hone your subjective views by forcing you to confront and refine them, eliminating inconsistencies.

The rationalization is the way your judgements interlock to reflect your preferences.  Your views are formed into a coherent scheme (a rationale) by repeated judgements: maybe you also say that Fra Angelico is better than Piero della Francesca, so we can wonder if your preference, in 15th-century Italian painting, for the exuberantly decorative over the peaceful, the mathematical, and the calculated, reflects your liking for the decorative in Braque over the peaceful, the mathematical, and the calculated in Seurat.  Your repeated judgements are beginning to form a rationale, an interlocking system, a coherent scheme of ideas.

The corrective discipline is the process of continual honing of your subjective views I tried to explain in my second paragraph.


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## EStjarn

Benjamin33 said:


> (1) Rationalization. . .



I agree with what you say under this point. You see, these "subjective wishes", or our idea of excellence (borrowing from Thomas Tompion here),  aren't actually thoughts to begin with. Instead they are a kind of raw material from which thoughts are formed.

What I might add is that once our thoughts are out in the open, we may need to defend them, make them seem reasonable, at least when they are to be presented to others. Doing so would also be included in the rationalization process.



Benjamin33 said:


> (2) Corrective discipline. . .



I agree with the first part under this point, but not with how you use the word "discipline". To me it's a corrective measure in this context, something that you do to someone in order to make them change. By calling it "a corrective discipline", that particular sense of the word "discipline" is singled out.

The act of openly passing a judgment has this quality of being  a (normally useless) corrective measure.


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## Thomas Tompion

I feel a good analogy to understand what Auden means here by _corrective discipline_ would be a tennis player practicing a particular shot.  The process is disciplined (involving endless repetition) and corrective (identifying and eliminating errors).  The idea that this is something being imposed on someone else seems to me wide of the mark.

We mustn't forget that we are concerned here with the move from the subjective judgement ("I like this") to the objective statement ("this is good"), or that if there are no true objective statements about art, then my child's drawing of a kangaroo is as good as the Sistine ceiling.


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## EStjarn

The topic is very apt because at WordReference, especially in a monolingual forum such as English Only, we are all involved in, or affected by, literary cricticism (at a micro level, of course), either as "authors" or "representatives of authors" or as "critics". We should therefore be able to easily recognize what Auden is speaking about. Here's my own example.

The other day a poster asked whether the sentence "In the first experiment participated twenty-seven MBA students" was correct. There were no answers for hours and eventually I decided to set the ball rolling by commenting.

The problem for me was that I had no clear sense of the sentence being either correct or incorrect. But I thought it might be correct because of the structural similarity to "On the wall hung a portrait of Churchill", that is, they were both inverted versions of a SUBJECT + VERB + VERB COMPLEMENT structure.

I went so far as to say that the sentence sounded fine to me. Luckily another member, with far greater experience of English than I have, pitched in and informed us that it sounded dreadful, and in a later post tried to explain why.​
Now, if I were to speculate about what happened step by step in the case of the abovementioned member I would say:

1. Reads the sentence. - At the moment a person reads something, he or she is not thinking but is adding from an external source to their consciousness.

2. Reacts to the awkwardsness of the sentence. - This is still beyond the level of thought. Let's say it's a person's consciousness at work. It's the level at which his or her "view of excellence" in a given matter is found.

3. Produces a thought that corresponds to the reaction. - Here's where the rationalization process begins, in my view. It's a step that is so automatic for us that we tend not to consider it a step.

4. Communicates the thought to others. - Here's the "corrective discipline", which I would rather call the "corrective measure". It is aimed at those wiho fail to "hear" what's wrong with the sentence, to those who have not developed "a clear view of excellence" with regard to this particular sentence structure. It gives them the opportunity to start building that view from something, whereas previously there had been nothing.

5. Attempts an explanation for why the sentence is dreadfully-sounding. - The rationalization process continues in this step.​My difficulty with understanding the topic sentence the way PaulQ and Thomas Tompion interpret it is mainly to do with that I can't relate their interpretation to my own experience and that I find it unlikely that Auden would use the term "corrective discipline" creatively, so to speak, since its meaning seems quite well established.


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## siares

Would someone please explain how the structure: *X is a discipline of Y* is used above?
I was only familiar with it in this context:
_X is a branch of Y_ - _X directly pertains to Y - X's main characteristics is Y_, as in _Quantum mechanics is a discipline of physics._

It seems the interpretations of above go like this: _X disciplines Y._
Why is the uncountable noun 'a discipline' used here instead of a verb?


Thomas Tompion said:


> tennis player practicing a particular shot. The process is disciplined (involving endless repetition) and corrective (identifying and eliminating errors).


Using the structure above, would this be possible to rewrite into;
_Training is a corrective discipline of bad habits_. ? (I wouldn't understand this)
Or what other examples are possible for this structure? I searched in context but didn't find anything.

Judgement*s* = a corrective discipline of: is the discipline a process here (as the 'corrective' implies); or a result of a process (as 'judgements' imply)?

Thank you.


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## Thomas Tompion

EStjarn said:


> [...]
> My difficulty with understanding the topic sentence the way PaulQ and Thomas Tompion interpret it is mainly to do with that I can't relate their interpretation to my own experience and that I find it unlikely that Auden would use the term "corrective discipline" creatively, so to speak, since its meaning seems quite well-established.


Its meaning is well established in other contexts, like prisons, but I don't think we should be surprised to see Auden using it for discipline coming from within and correcting and refining our views of phenomena.  The expression is well established in that context too.


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## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Would someone please explain how the structure: *X is a discipline of Y* is used above?
> [...]


Hi Siares.

Your request puzzles me because the structure isn't used 'above', or 'below' for that matter, as far as I can see.  Who has used it where? I think I'd be as foxed by it as you seem to be.


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## EStjarn

siares said:


> Would someone please explain how the structure: *X is a discipline of Y* is used above?



If I understand siares correctly, my view is that the phrase "a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes" corresponds in structure with, for example, "the work of his own hands". The noun phrase that follows "of" is the origin of the noun phrase that precedes "of". (It was mentioned briefly in post #3.)


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## siares

Hello Thomas, have I misread it here:?

All the *judgments*, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them,* are* in part a rationalization and in part *a* corrective *discipline of* our subjective *wishes*.
......*.**X.........................................................................................is......................................a............discipline of..................Y.*

Thanks Estjarn, I see in your post 3:


EStjarn said:


> "derived or coming from"


With hands, I get it; they are the source of work.
With judgements (=discipline) emanating from subjective wishes, less so. (E: no, this actually does make sense.. I could make myself to see this from:
'Judgements of subjective wishes'.)
I still wouldn't understand how 'a discipline' is connected to them (wishes) in:
'A discipline of subjective wishes'. (?)
unless 'a discipline of' is used as 'the realm of'.

Also, your interpretation is different to Thomas Tompion's; as in, your Y is different (belongs to audience) - I think!


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## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Hello Thomas, have I misread it here:?
> 
> All the *judgments*, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them,* are* in part a rationalization and in part *a* corrective *discipline of* our subjective *wishes*.
> ......*.**X.........................................................................................is......................................a............discipline of..................Y.*
> [...]


No, I don't think you have.  Thank you for your elucidation.

I wouldn't call this a conventional construction.  I'd probably have preferred _All the judgments, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline acting  upon our subjective wishes._

The question is whether or not Auden intended to mean that the judgements were a corrective discipline consisting of our subjective wishes - what he seems to be saying, or a corrective discipline acting upon our subjective wishes - what he could be easily understood as meaning.  I suspect he intended the discipline to be corrective of the subjective wishes, and thought his meaning was so clear - and I agree with him - that people would understand it in this way.

Does the practice of the tennis player act as a corrective discipline consisting of the shots, or does the practice act as a corrective discipline upon the shots?  I'd opt for the second view.


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## siares

Thomas Tompion said:


> discipline acting upon


Thank you very much. This would read so much better. I am relieved to learn that the other construction 'X is a discipline of Y' is not conventional for the meaning 'X disciplinarily acts upon Y'.



Thomas Tompion said:


> I'd opt for the second view.


Me too, solely because subjective wishes then would be the object of 'rationalisation' and 'correction'.
Both make sense if the subjectivity of views is 'undesirable'.
I would find it less logical if the subjective wishes were to be object of rationalisation by the author on one hand, but a corrective measure to readers on the other.


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## Thomas Tompion

siares said:


> Thank you very much. This would read so much better. I am relieved to learn that the other construction 'X is a discipline of Y' is not conventional for the meaning 'X disciplinarily acts upon Y'.
> 
> 
> Me too, solely because subjective wishes then would be the object of 'rationalisation' and 'correction'.
> Both make sense if the subjectivity of views is 'undesirable'.
> I would find it less logical if the subjective wishes were to be object of rationalisation by the author on one hand, but a corrective measure to readers on the other.


It may be worth remembering that the 'of' may be justified by the word 'corrective' rather than by the word 'discipline'.  It would be more conventional to reverse the order of noun and adjective in those circumstances  - 'discipline corrective of our subjective wishes'.

It's not that the wishes are in any way undesirable, but that they need honing and refining if they are to become a rationale.

I regard the suggestion that the reader is being in some way disciplined, or corrected in an aggressive manner, as misleading.

It's important to see that 'rationalize' here does not mean, as it can in other circumstances, 'to give a reason (often a spurious reason) to explain one's actions', but 'to form into a rationale, or coherent system'.  The movement from 'I like this' to 'this is good' requires the establishment of rules of excellence, and this is what Auden is explaining.


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## EStjarn

Thomas Tompion said:


> Your personal view of excellence is a reflection of your subjective wishes (what you like to see in a work of art)



I agree with the above. I would add that when we make a judgment, we use our personal view of excellence as a benchmark.

If we say that our judgments hone our subjective wishes, we are talking about a closed system: Our wishes produce our view of excellence, our view of excellence is behind our judgments, and our judgments would hone our subjective wishes? There's a logical fallacy here.

Take this very discussion. We have two views of excellence with regard to the interpration of the topic sentence. My view will not be honed because I express it, but because it is challenged by a different view. This forces an analysis of both views, and I will always end up liking the view which makes most sense.


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## Thomas Tompion

I wouldn't take very seriously the suggestion that one couldn't refine one's views as one expresses them, that one only comes to see inconsistencies, for instance, when someone else points them out.  There may be some people like that, but I know plenty of people who are good at spotting their own faults.

  Auden is saying that one's view of excellence is derived from one's subjective views, that as one refines and tests those views against each other, one develops a rationale, or system.  Once one has derived such a system one can start making objective statements.

I think the difficult point philosophically is the shift from 'I like this' to 'this is good', where the second statement has meaning over and above the first.  However, that is not the point at issue in this thread, I'm pleased to say.


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## siares

Thomas Tompion said:


> It's important to see that 'rationalize' here does not mean, as it can in other circumstances, 'to give a reason (often a spurious reason) to explain one's actions'


I understood it in the other sense, which you described in post 8 - something along the lines of honing one's instincts.
After gaining some knowledge, experience and perspective, along with self-awareness, I think a good critic would no longer give spurious reasons to explain the merits of something. (although some subjectiveness would necessarily remain).


EStjarn said:


> My view will not be honed because I express it





Thomas Tompion said:


> I wouldn't take very seriously the suggestion that one couldn't refine one's views as one expresses them, that one only comes to see inconsistencies, for instance, when someone else points them out.


I think this process of self-correction is evident when a person spends weeks thinking about a problem; even without outside input the thoughts one finishes with often differ from the starting point. It is easiest to see when the process is noted down: have I really written this? How did it appear on the paper - I wasn't aware I thought that..

Estjarn, I was thinking of the word 'discipline' as you read it (I've looked up 'corrective discipline' when you said the term was well-established).
I have trouble with applying 'discipline' to someone else's inner attitude.
I can understand:
Hardship disciplined him.
but not
His leader disciplined him. (meaning: inspired his mind. I would imagine that as an outer disciplining..which may or may not have reached him.)
What do you think?

Would someone please comment what is judgement*s?*
Is it:
property of mind - capability of making judgements
a judgment making process
results of the process?
I just don't understand the plural there.. E: when connected with: are a discipline&rationalisation (since these are processes)


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## Thomas Tompion

Judgements in this context are decisions that you prefer this to that.  I've already suggested two such judgements in the course of this discussion.

Judgements reflect one's wishes, one's likes and dislikes, etc. Don't be misled into thinking that this implies circularity: the likes and dislikes are a prelude to the judgements;  one would be unlikely to make judgements in fields where one was indifferent.  The process of making judgements hones one's likes and dislikes, acting as a corrective discipline, and renders subsequent judgements more informed, more sophisticated, as one's ability to take decisions, make judgements, takes takes upon itself the character of a rationale, a coherent system.

Judgements are an important step in the movement from the subjective to the objective statement.

I don't know why you are talking as though they were singular, Siares.  If you make more than one, you are dealing in judgements, the plural.


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## siares

Sorry I've edited my post above in the meantime saying I specifically don't understand how 'a judgement' (in my mind this is a result of thought process) can be 'a process' (as discipline is).
Maybe I associate Judgement with Reason and that is why I would like to see a singular there.
(I would not understand 'reasons' as a process either).

I believe the rest of your post was addressing Estjarn's view?


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## EStjarn

I found myself passing a judgment in all quietness just now about something someone wrote in a different thread, something to do with the member's use of lannguage, a small thing, just a phrase that I thought I would have fashioned differently.

I suppose we pass judgments all the time, but this was special because I have found that I tend to be guilty of the same kind of "error" myself, a style issue that is to do with not wanting to sound too direct and because of it using words such as "seems" and "perhaps" when many would simply use "is" and skip the adverb. I like the indirect approach, but when taken too far it loses its force. This was a case where it was taken too far.

Since the topic of this thread is fresh in my mind I thought of the effect that my judgment had on my "subjective wishes" and found that they were intact. But that doesn't mean there was no effect at all. What happened was that I told myself to be more watchful about this aspect in my own use of language.

I suppose this is somewhat in line with what Thomas Tompion is arguing. There's an element of self-correction involved. However, that self-correction is to do with "performance", not with "view". That is also what the tennis example suggests: the player's view of excellence does not change with practice; what changes is his or her ability to perform in accordance with it.


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## Thomas Tompion

I never said that a judgement was a process, of course.

A process is a series of actions leading to a particular result, usually.  Making a judgement is an action, and making a series of judgements is a  process.

I remember when I first ate a pineapple; it put me in a position to make a judgement between the taste of pineapples and that of apples, with which I'd long been familiar.  I came to make a judgement between them, based upon my likes and dislikes.  This judgement put me in a position, maybe, to compare pineapples with bananas, with which I had only a slender familiarity, and this process of making judgements gradually honed my estimation of the qualities of these respective fruits (ie. my likes and dislikes, my subjective impressions, my wishes) acting as a corrective discipline, until I felt I was in a position, so sophisticated had my reactions become, to say this is better than that.  I'm not presenting myself as unusual in this regard; I think most people go through a similar process, though they may not think of it formally.

I once called upon a friend of mine in the country, who is a chef.  I found him sitting in front of eight large glasses of an ice-cold coloured solid.  He explained that they each contained a version of a pistachio ice cream, with one variant (the quantity of pistachio) altered.  It was weakest in glass 1 and strongest in glass 8.  He was developing a recipe for pistachio ice cream.  He asked me to taste them all and to decide which one I liked the best.  He did the same.  As a result of our preferences he developed his recipe.  He is a professional; it's important that his choices are the best, for then his ice cream sells well.

I really don't think Auden's meaning is as elusive as we seem to be making it, Siares, unless you are misled into thinking that by 'corrective discipline' he means what goes on in prisons.


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## siares

EStjarn said:


> I thought of the effect that my judgment had on my "subjective wishes" and found that they were intact.


 They could still change inconspicuously on more encounters with similar usage.



Thomas Tompion said:


> I never said that a judgement was a process, of course.


But the OP says it..
Judgements are rationalisation.
Judgements are a discipline.
Both rationalisation and disciplining are processes.
That's why I would prefer 'making series of judgements' is a process of rationalisation and a discipline..

I understand what the sentence is saying, and my view is the same as yours; but I understand it despite its structure; rather than being aided by it. (I don't understand how I understood it; if I had been given the sentence with swapped words, like this:
_to make -wishes - rationalization - however -  corrective - we try - that - them - are in part a - a discipline of our - pass,-  judgments, - subjective . - aesthetic -  and in part - objective ,- All the - or moral, - we_
I wouldn't have been able to put it into correct order.)



Thomas Tompion said:


> I really don't think Auden's meaning is as elusive as we seem to be making it, Siares.


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## PaulQ

You should prefer 'making series of judgements' is* both* a discipline and a process of rationalisation..."


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## siares

This outer disciplining of my preferences is gratefully received.


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## EStjarn

siares said:


> I have trouble with applying 'discipline' to someone else's inner attitude.



siares: "This outer disciplining of my preferences is gratefully received."


siares said:


> They could still change inconspicuously on more encounters with similar usage.


There's a smiley at the end of your remark, so I can't tell for sure whether you are serious. But if you are, then it is similar to suggesting that a tennis player who can't get his first serve right may by and by come to think that his flawed first serve is the height of excellence. I'm not saying it can't happen.


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## siares

EStjarn said:


> tennis player who can't get his first serve right may by and by come to think that his flawed first serve is the height of excellence. I'm not saying it can't happen.


First flawed serve would not need to seem to perfect informed by subsequent judgements. It would still be a first step; but now on a different journey to that it originally seemed to commence.
This reminded me of a classically trained musicians and singers who play folk music. Flawlessly, they think, as they take it up for the sake of playing in social gatherings. Too prettily, they realise, after they hear (and listen to) village music. It is hard work to lose the learned excellence; or realise it must be given up so that another might be reached for.


EStjarn said:


> "This outer disciplining of my preferences is gratefully received."


I was being playful thanking PaulQ.


EStjarn said:


> There's a smiley at the end of your remark, so I can't tell for sure whether you are serious.


I was, that was a wholly different smiley, it is there because this process I observe in myself delights me. There is an exquisite pleasure in being disconcerted.


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## EStjarn

siares said:


> I was being playful thanking PaulQ.



But it was also the answer to your question, no?

*Note: *In tennis a first serve is a recurring event. For each point, the player who serves has two serves. The first serve is called the first serve and the second is called the second serve.


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## siares

OK, playfully does it, then! When I have a right mindset do receive some correction, then the outer disciplining will take effect. But I must be able to hear it, and allow it, so to speak, beforehand.
Or I could have been evasive and say my literal question was What do you think?, addressed to you.

I'll miss this pleasant thread when it's done.


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## EStjarn

siares said:


> I have trouble with applying 'discipline' to someone else's inner attitude.



The reason Auden says "a corrective discipline" is because he wants to single out a particular sense of the word "discipline" (it has some five different senses according to AHD): the sense that refers to a measure whose purpose it is to correct behavior or views that (from the point of view of the "corrector") is flawed.

So to me "corrective discipline" simply means "corrective measure". It is not a punishment in this case. A judgment is simply a force in the form of a person's view that acts upon another, a view that this other person may or may not accept. Whenever they do accept it, which is known to happen, their "view of excellence" is altered.

(The above is _not_ suggesting that a person's inner attitude cannot change by other means.)

I don't believe rephrasing Auden's version so that it may fit our interpretation is the way to go here. He is too reputable a writer for that, "regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century," according to Wikipedia. I think we need to look at the topic sentence exactly as it is written.


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## siares

EStjarn said:


> I don't believe rephrasing Auden's version so that it may fit our interpretation is the way to go here.


I have never heard of corrective discipline before this thread and I inferred its meaning from overall feel of OP sentence only, which to me suggested the interpretation which is different to yours. As I said, I worked backwards from (heard) (or maybe imagined) meaning to understand the structure.

If you are suggesting that the original structure needs to be examined from the scratch, without rephrasing, I would very much like to read people's views; because I myself am unable to do that as I am still unable to internalise and rest easily with 'X is a discipline of Y' (or even with 'judgements are rationalisation'). If you find examples of similar structures, I would be very interested to read them. I know you wrote the example of 'X is the work of his own hands', but I cannot reconcile this entirely with 'X is a discipline' used as 'X disciplines'; or 'X is a corrective measure of (why of?). I still sometimes revert to reading OP as: Judgements are a rationalisation and a corrective branch of wishes. (Corrective doesn't make sense there, but what the heck).


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## EStjarn

siares said:


> If you are suggesting that the original structure needs to be examined from the scratch...



I don't suggest we start from scratch, but I do suggest we stick to the sentence as it is written.


siares said:


> If you find examples of similar structures, I would be very interested to read them.


a side effect of the medicine, a figment of the imagination, a punishment of the church,  a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes


siares said:


> I still sometimes revert to reading OP as: Judgements are a rationalisation and a corrective branch of wishes. (Corrective doesn't make sense there, but what the heck).


That would suppose a third reading of "a corrective discipline".

My objection would be the lack of parallelism between "rationalization" and "branch", with the former being an act and the latter a feature. It's a style issue, where "bad style" is the result of being careless about how the elements of a parallel construction relate to each other in terms of meaning and form.

(A writer may choose to "shock" readers by breaking the expected pattern, but that is probably not the case here judging by the rest of the passage and the entire introduction from which the passage was lifted, which reveal a clean, non-jocular use of language.)


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## EStjarn

_All the judgments, aesthetic or moral, that we pass, however objective we try to make them, are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes. *So long as a man writes poetry or fiction*, his dream of Eden is his own business, but the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he describe it to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgments.
_
Auden is referring to the writing process. It consists of two main parts: the creative part and the corrective part. In the first part content is of the essence, in the second it is form.

What do we do when we have written a first draft of anything? I'd say we normally review it to perfect its form according to our "subjective wishes". That is, we pass judgments based on our view of excellence on our piece of writing and make corrections in accordance with them. And there's no need, normally, for us to describe or explain to ourselves _why_ we ought to make those corrections.

Each judgment that we pass on something that we have written, then, is a corrective measure that we respond to without much resistance. Without those judgments, the form of our work, if not necessarily its content, would often leave much to be desired.


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## siares

EStjarn said:


> I suspect the issue whether this corrective activity affects or not "our subjective wishes" is a red herring.


What? You say that now?
I woke up hating 'corrective discipline' as a tautology.
What is the opposite? All I could think of was 'brainwashing'.

Style:


EStjarn said:


> My objection would be the lack of parallelism between "rationalization" and "branch", with the former being an act and the latter a feature. It's a style issue


That is a pretty point; and, I am hardly in a position to delve into style as I am drowning in grammar.

Sense:


EStjarn said:


> Auden is referring to the writing process. It consists of two main parts: the creative part and the corrective part. In the first part content is of the essence, in the second it is form.


I disagree OP is about writing process, because of the second sentence:
_the moment he starts writing literary criticism, honesty demands that he describe it _(his subjective wishes, his dream of Eden)_ to his readers, so that they may be in the position to judge his judgments._
Why is it demanded subjective wishes be revealed for authors judgements to be judged better?
Because the first sentence: (paraphrase)
Judgements are, in part, merely a play on subjective wishes.
I think the passage is a maxim on reader awareness; rather than a comment on nuts and bolts of writing process.

I still stubbornly want to know about grammar of this red herring (and was thinking about this before you called it that).


EStjarn said:


> a side effect of the medicine, a figment of the imagination, a punishment of the church, a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes


Thank you for writing this for me, but they are not what I need, because they differ from OP structure semantically:
OP structure:
my paraphrase: X verbs Y
expressed as: X is a verb-like noun of Y
meaning: X's characteristics/influence acts upon Y (Judgements act upon wishes = Judgements discipline wishes.)
(X is a side effect of the medicine would be, in that structure, a sideways-style effect X has on the medicine.)

This is what I can't find other examples of in context (it is hard to search):


Thomas Tompion said:


> It may be worth remembering that the 'of' may be justified by the word 'corrective' rather than by the word 'discipline'. It would be more conventional to reverse the order of noun and adjective in those circumstances - 'discipline corrective of our subjective wishes'.



Also hard to search adjectives which take the 'of';
I made this up:
_Tactic is a course mindful of the overall strategy. _(Tactic minds strategy (sort of)).
This doesn't work: Tactic is a mindful course of strategy.

_My interpretation of the OP sentence is a manifestation of my subjective wishes._


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## velisarius

All the judgments[...] are in part a rationalization and in part a corrective discipline of our subjective wishes. 

 Our opinions on someone else's work are partly a rationalisation of our own subjectivity but also partly a "lashing into shape" of our subjective preferences.

I think "corrective discipline" is meant to bring to mind some kind of corporal punishment, like flogging  or whipping. 

There are two ways that our own subjective views come into play when we write literary criticism: we tend to rationalise them (perhaps we find convincing logical arguments to justify our disliking a work whose author's outlook on life we abhor) but we also find ourselves engaged in a dialogue between our own ideals and those of the writer (we find that by examining the writer's outlook on life we are forced to examine our own, and perhaps be influenced by the other). I see "discipline" as the opposite of "indulgence", as when we indulge ourselves by rationalising our preferences. I see "corrective" as meaning that we are refining and re-shaping or honing our preferences.




.


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## Thomas Tompion

It's amusing, Velisarius; we don't often disagree, but we are at opposite poles in this thread, both about 'corrective discipline', which I think has nothing to do with punishment, and about 'rationalization', which I think has nothing to do with finding spurious reasons to justify our emotional reactions.

However, like you in your last sentence, I see the 'correction' as being self-correction in the sense of refinement of one's critical stance, as a result of repeated self-questioning.  I couldn't see what that had to do with punishment.


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## velisarius

I'm sorry, T.T. but I didn't make myself clear. I don't think Auden is talking about punishment, but I do think that "corrective discipline" brings to mind some kind of flogging. In fact I thought he may have used the phrase rather playfully as a metaphor: the refining or honing of our own preferences is being seen as some kind of painful but necessary and beneficial process that we put ourselves through. 

I don't think the "rationalisation" is finding "spurious" reasons - the human mind does tend to rationalise what it first feels, and this is part of how the mind works. I mean that we feel something first and then look deeper into ourselves to find the logic behind this, and after all we can express a logical thought but we can't express a feeling directly onto paper.


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## Thomas Tompion

Perhaps we aren't as far apart as I thought.


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