He says that starting in the 1930s or so teaching rhetoric was phased out of the education system. Teachers decided to suddenly promote "originality" when it comes to writing. "Find your own voice." "Be unique." "Never, never plagiarize."
The problem is that the great literary masters studied rhetoric, emulated their contemporaries and copied the style of legendary writers before them.
The current advice to find your own voice has made us worse writers. Cane argues that before you can be a "unique" writer, you need to copy the voice and style of the greats.
My own take is that writers today are just as good, if not better, than they were back in 1800s or earlier. But I see his point. A central tenant of neuro-linguistic programming is to find someone who's good at something, break down what they do exactly, and copy ("model") it.
If writers did this, perhaps they'd be even better. On the other hand it would require some tough, tough reading. The literary greats weren't known for writing short, exciting, concise, minimalist books.
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