Maybe this reply isn't really necessary, but I'll write it anyway
But the feedback from chatGPT the AI chatbot I use the most was devastating.
Honestly, this critique hit me hard. I don't think you become a good writer if you follow everything an AI chatbot recommends to you.
Last autumn, when I was in a somewhat questionable mental state, I unexpectedly started writing poetry and shared it with chatgpt as well. Unlike you, I never took the nonsense it came up with to heart. Maybe that's because I hate AI and everything associated with it. Maybe because it tends to say things that are far too generic. Or maybe because I like my own graphomania more than the edits of some silly AI. In any case, as cliche as it may sound your writing should be something that you like. AI will find something to nitpick in almost any text unless it knows it was written by someone famous.
pseudo intellectual posturing
Writing is hard work. Me instead I am shit posting on here.
Sorry, but I genuinely think that's the case. If you hadn't sent it to me, I would never have read something with a title like that. But that's not really a problem for a genre like the essay, or for social and psychological commentary in general. And the fact that it comes across as pseudo-intellectual doesn't mean it isn't a good essay draft.
Even in more serious philosophy, most texts are pseudo-intellectual in one way or another — pretty much all of French philosophy, Nietzsche, Skovoroda, and, God forgive me, rus philosophy, including dugin. Either there's barely any coherent thought or position at all, as with the latter, or an obvious idea is presented as though it were a profound revelation. And that's not necessarily a problem.
Writing something that is genuinely original, intellectually substantial, unlike anything else, and at the same time free from
overstatement,
uncontrolled shifts in scope, and
too many competing theses is extremely difficult — and, frankly, not all that necessary.
I could name quite a few examples. Unfortunately, they're all from eastern europe, so you've probably never heard of them and probably never will again.
Dmytro Dontsov wrote a text called
Ideology or Nationalism, and for many Ukrainian patriots it became both the beginning and the end (unfortunately) of their intellectual life.
You know what's absurdly funny? If you've read Nietzsche and remember that rather silly dichotomy between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, then you'll notice that this text simply transfers it onto Ukrainian politics of that era. It's an incredibly dumb text, yet so many people absolutely love it.
There's also the rus journalist Oleg Kashin. He's the most boring political commentator I've ever read. In twenty years of writing, he hasn't produced anything I found genuinely interesting. And for the last four years, every single article he writes — regardless of the topic — end with the exact same sentence: "And this is part of vladimir putins collective crime." Yet there are around 1,500 people who read this stuff and pay €10 a month just to access his Telegram channel.
Damn, this all sounded much more convincing and coherent in my head
.
Anyway, it makes me a little sad that you think your own writing is shit, because I really don't think that's true. I just want to say that the very things a chatbot criticizes about your writing might be exactly what people like about it..
You know, we don't criticize Impressionist paintings for not being realistic (well, at least most of us don't). Or maybe here's a better example: if Kant had tried to write as effortlessly as Hume, he probably wouldn't have succeeded — and we wouldn't remember him as that dense, overloaded, analytical philosopher.
I'm not sure whether you'll take this as a compliment, but I actually think your writing reminds me a little of Yurii Shevelov's.
I've completely wandered off into the woods with this train of thought.
In any case, I hope you'll feel better soon and won't be so hard on yourself especially not through the lens of ai.
