 Author Bob Perelman takes the suspicion of empiricism one step further in his 1994 The Trouble With Genius : Reading Pound , Joyce , Stein , and Zukofsky . Perelman discusses the parable as one of two anecdotes in ABC of Reading that frame Pound 's discussion of Chinese ideograms . The former describes attendance at two hypothetical concerts : one of Debussy and another of Ravel . Pound states that a person who attended both concerts knows more about the composers than someone who has only read " ALL of the criticisms that have ever been written of both " . Perelman considers the contradiction between " everyone " and " knowledge " to be the key to Pound 's thinking : only a gifted or lucky few are able to apprehend the truth ( whether by attending the concert or observing the specimen ) ; the rest can only make do with " a fog of clichés , received ideas , second @-@ hand and second @-@ rate opinions , written darkness . " With regard to the parable , Perelman observes the lack of " scientific institutions , pedagogic procedures , or communicable terminologies " where any mediating written descriptions ( " sunfish " , " diplodokus " ) only serve to obscure knowledge . Knowledge ultimately resides within Agassiz rather than the world , and " [ w ] hat looks initially like a commitment to empiricism has led instead to an authoritarian idealism . " 
