Are We Comparing Yet?, On Standards; Justice; and Incomparability

Author

Saussy; Haun

Year

2019

Publisher

transcript Verlag

Language

English

Pages

Link

Last Update

25-Mar-2026

Keywords

Language & Literature

Description

Comparisons, we hear, are never innocent: but once scrutinized for intent, can a comparison be classed as good, bad, or value-neutral?¹ Are there good or bad practices of comparing? What makes it risky? Through a chain of examples, none of them, of course, innocently summoned, but invoked for their potential to illuminate the consequences of comparing and not comparing, I would like to discover what tends to go wrong. I have (I blush to say) a normative idea of comparison, and I will chase it here through examples positive and negative. If the examples are adequate to the purpose, perhaps...