the (non-)uses of literature

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what bad effects does literature have on us?

also a secondary question--is it bad or good to interpret life, or certain events in life, as "narrative"? how often do we force narratives on to situations where it really shouldn't be there?

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 1 December 2003 01:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Sometimes it tries to make you think impossible things can happen and then you get all disappointed when you find out it's not true.

― Aja (aja), Monday, 1 December 2003 01:47 (twenty-two years ago)

It can also make you sound like a dweeb when your correct their misquotes.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Monday, 1 December 2003 01:50 (twenty-two years ago)

It's always a bad thing when teenagers get their hands on Kafka and Camus.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Monday, 1 December 2003 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

"Stop living and read!" - Pessoa

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:24 (twenty-two years ago)

i think that's partly where i'm coming from. i am almost tempted to say that literature can put us at a distance from life. it can take away our ability to have an unmediated experience.

bad example: people saying on 9-11 that it was "like a movie"

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:27 (twenty-two years ago)

there is no such thing as unmediated experience

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:36 (twenty-two years ago)

what about the unmediated experience of a mediated experience? ;)

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, fercrissakes, why don't we just rehash the existentialist debate between Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in Love and Death and just get it over with.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:42 (twenty-two years ago)

narratives are like the idea of discourse, only in my mind, they're the stories we tell ourselves about what something means so that we can feel like there is some meaning to the world and that we know what that is. in one sense, anyways.

but maybe every experience is an unmediated experience of a mediated experience, but not necessarily so. it depends on if you want to force the world and meaning into what you want it to be -- either consciously or subconsciously.

is it about existentialism?

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Sonja: Judgment of any system, or a priori relationship or phenomenon exists in an irrational, or metaphysical, or at least epistemological contradiction to an abstract empirical concept such as being, or to be, or to occur in the thing itself, or of the thing itself.
Boris: Yes, I've said that many times.

Objectivity is subjective...blah...blah...blah...can we spare ourselves?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:46 (twenty-two years ago)

wonderful, but as always no one really knows what any of that has to do with life.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:49 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean, none of that discourse has anything to do with life

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

You are never going to "know" anything. I agree with Pessoa to this degree - keep reading. As for discussion, I don't really see what it has to offer.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Take Vaclav Havel, for instance (I'm not going to get this down perfectly, but...): "Stay close to those who seek the truth and run far away from those who claim to have found it." This is why I have no interest in engaging in theory ("Theory") or any claims or discussions regarding it.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:52 (twenty-two years ago)

this is kind of what i want to talk about tho - has literature got us into the kind of epistemological messes like the one above?

and if you can't know anything, why read? for the "experience" of it? :)

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

no, that's exactly why i seek to apply it only to the personal, there is no truth only an unending quest to understand

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:54 (twenty-two years ago)

it's not about reading, television, history, etc they all tell narratives

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:55 (twenty-two years ago)

but the personal (ie, the 'feminine') has been completely devalued by theorists

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 02:55 (twenty-two years ago)

The very fact that you equate "the personal" with "the feminine" is itself a completely artificial (non-existent?) construct built by theorists with an aim towards an ends. I don't read to learn about life, I only read to arouse my mind. Which are two different things entirely. Paradoxes arouse my mind, but they don't offer any practical knowledge about life to me.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 02:58 (twenty-two years ago)

girolamo, do you think there is any practical value to literature at all?

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:01 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, i am well aware of the construction of the feminine and the personal. i don't read to learn about life but to open myself up to its complexities.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:02 (twenty-two years ago)

what is practical knowledge? how to tie your shoes?

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:03 (twenty-two years ago)

ways of knowing the world is what enables people to enslave, murder, and exploit people. economics is as equally guilty as philosophy and literature

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:06 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing is simple, things only get reduced to simplicity. (and yes! i've been reading Edward Said all day long!:)

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Currently on my table are Milan Kundera's Slowness, three Ansel Adams books on photography processes, two books about PHP, and a book about UNIX.

I read them all on my own initiative and all for the same purpose - curiousity. I don't need to know any of these things any more than the average person, nor do I conceive that they will make anything about life more lucid as a whole. I merely read them because I enjoy satisfying my curiosity. But once it is satisfied, the actual content is more or less meaningless unless I end up using it again (which may be purely by chance - obviously a little more than chance for the computer books, but again, I choose to learn the material; I can choose to stop using it at any time).

(xpost) Your curiosity is complexity. But that still doesn't free itself from the limitations and expanses of the realm of curiosity.

(xpost) I don't believe in value as a whole or objective thing - there are only personal values, which are often fleeting. That's not to say that the whole of mankind doesn't benefit from, say, world peace, but that value only exists insofar as a person chooses to value a thing. So no, there is no inherent value to literature, just as there is no inherent value to any of our lives unless we so choose to define (and redefine) it.

(xpost) Practical knowledge again comes down to personal values.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

nothing is free of limitations, perhaps. but that's no reason to stop trying to understand, and there can be reasons to understand, and yes, each reason will be different for each individual.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I only used the word limitations offhandedly. My point is that it simply is a motif that you are curious about, which is why you choose to read for/read about it.

I don't want to stop personal understanding, I seek to stop pedantry. And theory largely has prostituted itself towards this aim, often knowingly. It is of no value for me to discuss with others what I read, watch, or listen to, anymore than I choose to. There certainly, I would say, is no inherent value in the exercise in and of itself.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:14 (twenty-two years ago)

my experience with literature and theory is that it can teach you how to engage critically with this world. it has its uses, like existentialism, but they're both good to grow out of. But then, people make decisions all the time based on current trends in theory, then, it might be important that some people are still engaged with it.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:19 (twenty-two years ago)

On that basis it might be just as useful to dispense with the exercise entirely. But that is obviously my bias.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:20 (twenty-two years ago)

as for literature, i was always looking towards those examples that opened up a little more room in my mind about ways of being, ways of living, ways of thinking; that doesn't mean to go out and follow them, but once possibilities start showing themselves to you...... don't people react in violence (towards self or others) when they feel they have no where to go? are we limited by examples, by what we already know? then knowing a little bit more, more than we'll get in some eye-candy movie or tv show, is going to open up more life to us

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:23 (twenty-two years ago)

On that basis it might be just as useful to dispense with the exercise entirely. But that is obviously my bias.

if things weren't already as they are

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Couldn't you say, though, that by having more possibilities made as examples, that it is only more frustrating because it makes it harder for one to imagine a different alternative? Obviously there will always be something else, but this often tends to be the young artist's stumbling block - either pure homage or an attempt at a pure construction.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

only if the first examples we were given were of unlimited possibility

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:28 (twenty-two years ago)

only if the first examples respected all people
only if the world were perfect

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:29 (twenty-two years ago)

As one's imagination is finite (to a degree), the examples need not be limitless to impose a feeling of entrapment within the paradigm currently ascendant.

As John Barth once said, "You're coming to a party. But the party's been going on for several thousand years, and a lot of great jokes have already been told. Have most of the lines been used up, or are we just getting started?"

While the latter (I'd hope, and history tends to show) is likely the correct answer, that still does nothing to assuage the fact that the predominant feeling in the present tends toward the former.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

aah, but that's about theory, i'm talking about life.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:33 (twenty-two years ago)

the idea that our possibilities as individuals in the ways that we live our lives..... and a person can not learn theory from its source, but one way or another, they will, only many times it will be embodied in what's around them, many times its hate, misunderstanding, a perpetuation of harm against other people, and also maybe in such subtle ways that we'll never know them.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:36 (twenty-two years ago)

sorry, that's supposed to read can not learn theory from its source....

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:37 (twenty-two years ago)

As much as you might believe that, its value is only as relative as it is judged to be by other individuals, though. It has absolutely no meaning in and of itself.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:44 (twenty-two years ago)

the source of theory IS what's around ppl.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:45 (twenty-two years ago)

also nothing has meaning in and of itself.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:46 (twenty-two years ago)

But does there need to be theory, nonetheless?

And it's not the source of theory, it as often as not is what is used to justify theory.

(xpost): Exactly! Nothing has any meaning beyond the personal perception of it, so attempts to theorize it largely are attempts to take it outside of personal perception and describe it widespread across disparate (and often incompatible) personal conceptions of it.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:48 (twenty-two years ago)

no, nothing has meaning, but people still live in a world where things do

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:53 (twenty-two years ago)

meaning is between your ears

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:54 (twenty-two years ago)

the source of theory IS what's around ppl.

exactly

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:54 (twenty-two years ago)

People live in a world where they choose to give things meaning (common or not) as follows their inclinations and/or needs.

Orbit is OTM.

Theory's big lie is that it is "based upon the reality of the world". It isn't. If it were, it would be provable, and thus science of some sort or another. Theory really would be better named as "Hypothesis" or "Postulate", but it's much harder to fellate things with names like that.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 03:57 (twenty-two years ago)

most people don't get to choose meanings, we can only choose to redefine them

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:58 (twenty-two years ago)

aah, yes, the wonderful lie of science

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 03:59 (twenty-two years ago)

You choose meanings everyday. Every interaction and perception you make is predicated upon the meanings you (consciously or not) choose. There is nothing stopping you from redefining, obliterating, or creating new meanings except yourself. Just so long as you understand that your CHOICES for what meanings you opt for are completely personal and unique (if not the meanings themselves).

Science, for what it is, is a coherent system. Just like a computer - not necessarily right, wrong, or perfect, but it works within a framework of agreed-upon rules of observation and communication. Science is not a lie, but it would be better for "Theory" if it were, because its very presence, while not the sole arbiter of the only real lie, the idea of "truth", is embarrassingly elegant by comparison to the weak "Theory".

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Skipping 55 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

new thread: how we are all exploited by the price of schools and Federal Stafford Loans

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:47 (twenty-two years ago)

See, I came *that* close to going that route. Luckily, I saw the light in time. My contempt for "Theory" lies in overfamiliarity with the way in which the system itself (not its ideas) works.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:48 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm being forced to read by paying money to force myself to write papers for classes that don't offer much in return. but i don't regret it.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:50 (twenty-two years ago)

all systems suck. blah.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:50 (twenty-two years ago)

And I'm sick and tired of discussing things I read! There's really no greater pleasure than simply reading and not having to do anything else.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:51 (twenty-two years ago)

really? because i always want to discuss. there's no greater pleasure than finding i was totally right (um, sarcasm, y'all)

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:52 (twenty-two years ago)

because discussion is another way of getting another perspective. for me, to absolutely trust my own perspective would amount to the dogmatism of *Mandy*

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah, the tyranny of graduate seminar dissections...er, discusssions.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:53 (twenty-two years ago)

democracy is tyranny.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:53 (twenty-two years ago)

For me, the perspective is gained in going back to the work again at another point in time.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

i love platitudes. because i'm never sure if i'm being serious when i say them

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

And democracy isn't tyranny - over-read pretentious grad students are.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Dogmatism of Mandy? Is this another band I haven't heard of?

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I am SO there, Orbit! Drinks at 7?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 04:55 (twenty-two years ago)

Orbit, it can be if we try:)

pretentious. yes, that's dogmatism. but then again, it's not easy to guage people's intentions until you know them.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:56 (twenty-two years ago)

who wants to start a band? *heads over to ILM*

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Haha! If you live in L.A. -- sure --- we can theorize the best martini and empirically ground our observations at the bar.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I will totally start a band called Dogmatism of Mandy right here right now.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 04:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I'd join, except for the fact that I can't play anything and I'm leaving for London in a month.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:00 (twenty-two years ago)

it would be an ironic band

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:00 (twenty-two years ago)

So...Literature! What's the use?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

we could give you a microphone and you could theorize ;-)

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

but we could engage the audience with post-existentialist musings.... but Orbit, you sing, okay?

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I did, in my more callow days, once write an anti-philosophy.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:02 (twenty-two years ago)

conversation is so much better than theorizing

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I can do that, m.

Girolamo are you going to London forever?

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

an anti-philosophy? do tell...

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:03 (twenty-two years ago)

i think we should start a chat and get this anti-band off the ground ;-)

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:05 (twenty-two years ago)

seriously, but 15k is betting on me finishing this semester.... it was entirely possible before i discovered ILX

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:06 (twenty-two years ago)

anyone want to discuss Orientalism?

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:07 (twenty-two years ago)

the anti-band: that is so punk-rock!

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:07 (twenty-two years ago)

discuss Orientalism

Girolamo, I'll meet you at the bar *takes off*

(:-)

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm going to London for two years for sure (grad school). Beyond that, I'd ideally like to stay, or at least not go back to America. We'll see, I suppose.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:11 (twenty-two years ago)

ohmygod, it's December 1st

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Girolamo, what are you studying? if you don't mind me asking....

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm going to film school. Not to study - to make. *thumps chest* ;)

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Girolamo make film, ugh *thump*. Girolamo go to wrong place to make film. Girolamo stay in L.A. to make film.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:29 (twenty-two years ago)

You really believe that?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:29 (twenty-two years ago)

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:30 (twenty-two years ago)

LA's the one place NOT to be. I also believe that all writers should NOT be in NYC. I mean fine, do your business in these cities - that's certainly a priority. But don't work there. It's petty.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Interesting perspective. To *find* steady work in film, it is nice to be hooked up with the UCLA or USC film school mafia. And L.A. is where most deals are made. So, yeah, it makes sense to me.

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:32 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm going to film school. Not to study - to make. *thumps chest* ;)

yeah, well i'm in a new band!

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:35 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha! Are you in L.A. also?

― Orbit (Orbit), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:35 (twenty-two years ago)

damn, no.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:38 (twenty-two years ago)

damn, no. but we can do it Postal Service style!

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:38 (twenty-two years ago)

You Can DO IT!

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 1 December 2003 05:46 (twenty-two years ago)

This is so, like, Manhattan: can you name all the moons of, er, Jupiter?

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:47 (twenty-two years ago)

bad joke.

― possible m (mandinina), Monday, 1 December 2003 05:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Nothing has any meaning beyond the personal perception of it

Or has Shakespeare has it in Hamlet (I think - books packed for a move so I can't check the quote), "Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so" - proving that we can learn from literature! Hurrah, that sorts this one out!

As for this strange favouritism towards the theory that calls itself 'science' there's a good thread in the archives on Thomas Kuhn, who offered plenty of good examples of science NOT working in the way it claims it does. Also see Foucault's talk of epistemes, which relates strongly to this. The current certainties around the scientific method look very shaky if you take any kind of wide perspective. Even if you take a very strict view of that idea, then all that makes up science is only theories that haven't been shown to be false so far. Some are very widely accepted and the subject of loads of study, with no more solid basis than what you are dismissing as Theory.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 1 December 2003 16:21 (twenty-two years ago)

"Nothing has any meaning beyond the personal perception of it"

What about IMpersonal perceptions of "it"? That's where things get interesting.

― Neil Willett (Neil Willett), Monday, 1 December 2003 17:28 (twenty-two years ago)

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