> "It's generally seen as an interesting essay" is academic-speak for "it's good enough for the proles, but smart people like myself generally don't bother to discredit it because people in-the-know already know better."

Actually, it's just English for "an essay which was interesting."

> I've seen nothing that defends either point, just an attempt to discredit my arguments through condescension.

What you've seen is someone trying to explain the point the author was trying to make while someone else was ranting at him.

And your arguments were: if someone failed to get his book published, it could only be because he's a failure and bad writer; the publishing industry couldn't possibly be uninterested in multiple-idea books, because single-idea books have been around for a long time; and, the multiple-idea books of the past and single-idea books of the present are exactly the same thing.

At the risk of sounding condescending, I really didn't think the best thing to do, at that point, was point out the flaws in your arguments. Instead, I thought it would be more helpful to explain what the author was trying to say, since you didn't seem to get it.

> I retire, cowed, and promise to never open my mouth again, massa.

Or, you could just try posting while calm, instead of spewing venom everywhere.