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THINKING_THROUGH_THE_UNTHINKABLE
February 11-23, 2013
UNTHINKABLE
What's the real conclusion, going
to be, however provisional and
inadequate?
It's easy enough to present a set of
condundrums-- on the one hand this,
on the other hand that-- but once
that's done, how exactly am I going
to live?
What mental tricks will I use to
moderate my tendency toward one
extreme or another?
What policy to adopt on when to
speak and when to stay silent?
In sum:
o dramatics cloud judgement and
lead us astray DRAMATICS
o drama is at the core,
the foundation of all values.
NARRATIVE_DRIVE
One trick I can sometimes pull off is
to listen for a different message
underneath the things being said.
When the dramatics seem to me to have
gone astray, there may be reasons for
them that I don't see, there may be
something going on that hasn't been
articulated...
One can attempt to find in the
common reaction a common wisdom, But all this said, there
a common cause, and hence a path really isn't any good reason
to effectiveness rather than to assume that there's a good
alienation. reason. Sometimes the mass
insanity really just is a mass
insanity.
Then you get to try to come up
Give them a with some clever strategy to
different story. derail the madness...
A stronger story.
RELUCTANT_STORYTELLER But there really may be
nothing for it but to keep
OTAKU_CONSUMED silent and hope it blows
over soon, and in the
Does it have to be a meantime console yourself
flattering story? I that your isolation is born
don't do flattery well, of clear-sighted insight.
but dwelling on the
audience's failings is
not often a winning GOLDLEAF_FRAME
strategy.
I often conclude that we
need to take our stories
more seriously...
NARRATIVE_DRIVE
It may be that
this necessarily Perhaps there's a need
leads to manifestos, for sacred narratives?
an insistance that
our fictions change
to become strong enough
to be taken seriously.
MANIFESTO
I like to start with the
notion that within our
apparently nonsensical
obsessions is an expression
of something deeper, perhaps
a key to a sense of values, TAKEN_LIGHTLY
a vision of how the world
should be.
Our fiction offers a key to our psyche.
Our fictions about reality offer another.
Walking this path is problematic,
because it's abundantly clear that
pulp has feet of clay: it's full The hero stumbles across
of contrived situations to justify situations where extreme
violations of morality and yet violence is required, and
preserve self-esteem. so gets to indulge in
extreme violence without
being a monster.
ROMANCE
The heroine is required to
indulge in slutty behavior
to achieve a higher good,
such as save her lover's life.
The heroine has high-status
males chasing after her
without having done anything SKIP_BEAT
to encourage them.
Stare that in the face, and
you know how fallible we are,
how weak our egos.
Everything gets a sugar-coating,
though that's sometimes
PRETTY_TRUE disguised under a thin layer of
something bitter.
Pop fiction relies heavily
on "stacking the deck" to
get the desired outcome:
applying it's lessons to
the recalicitrant Real
Given that it's often so immoral at World is difficult.
heart, it makes it problematic to
use it as a moral center.
Hence the constant sneers
Similarly, perhaps, the delusions at notions that seem
of the excited political mob "like something out of
make a poor guide to reality of a bad movie".
any sort.
One might (and many
have) regard this as
a flaw of our fictions,
and insist on more
realistic fabrications.
Or one might (and many
have) insist on abandoning
the fiction for the non,
and turn from stories
to histories.
Feb 21, 2013
Note that this is not a conundrum
for anyone but me: most don't
take they're fiction as seriously
as I do, and hence aren't troubled
by how weak a reed it is.
One solution would be to buy in to the
conventional attitude, which has
contradictions, but perhaps not so bad.
Another solution would be to say
that sometimes one view is right,
and sometimes the other;
narratives play many roles, and
some are more suited to one purpose
than another.
A need for a further
distinction, taxons Methods then.
other than high and low.
Try different examples of
fiction, consider which
category it might belong to.
Morally grounded,
morally perniscious,
morally neutral?
SHARPENING_TAXONS
If at the center of all fiction
is a struggle to preserve self-esteem,
then we might rank our fictions by
that standard... would
the kinds of maneuvers in play
preserve one's own sense of self
worth outside of fiction.
A fiction worthy of us...
An approach:
FINDING_VALUES
Tell a story (or find some stories?) about:
o someone trying to rise above stories,
whose apparently icy nature is
continually misunderstood by the
breast-beating drama queens.
o someone determined to live according
to the high standards of heroic
fiction, continually criticized for
lack of realism. They're unwilling
to surrender the human dimension
to a system of rules.
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