Stephanie Curry’s diary on genuinely ambiguous colonial texts and an argument neither of us could win
It started over the starter course and was still, somehow, entirely unresolved by dessert, a genuinely passionate disagreement between two people who otherwise agree on nearly everything about this period, about whether one specific, notoriously ambiguous 1700s political text was meant sincerely or as pointed satire of the position it appears, on the surface, to be advancing.
The Case for Sincerity
My dinner companion argued the text’s internal consistency, argued too carefully and too thoroughly to be a joke, that genuine satire of this period tends to leave more obvious tells, exaggeration, absurdist detail, none of which this particular text contains.
The Case for Satire
I argued the opposite, that the text’s excessive, almost performative earnestness is itself the tell, that period satire often worked precisely through this kind of straight-faced overcommitment to a position, making genuine sincerity and skilled satire nearly indistinguishable by design.
Why Neither of Us Could Actually Win
The historical record simply doesn’t settle this definitively, no surviving correspondence from the author clarifying intent, no contemporary reaction firmly establishing how readers of the time actually understood it. We were arguing, essentially, from interpretation alone, against interpretation alone.
How the Evening Actually Ended
Two dinners later, we’re still arguing, an ongoing, genuinely enjoyable disagreement neither of us particularly wants resolved, since the debate itself has become almost more valuable than whatever answer might eventually settle it.
What This Taught Me About Historical Ambiguity
Some texts simply resist final interpretation, and I’ve come to genuinely appreciate that resistance rather than treating it as a research failure. Not every historical mystery needs a clean answer, and this particular ongoing argument has taught me more about the period’s rhetorical conventions than a settled answer likely would have. Further diary entries continue at bohiney.com, with the original piece live at prat.uk.
SOURCE: https://prat.UK/