Can literature help?

[blazeofglory]

Can literature create a state of pacification? Now we know there are havocs, a situation insurmountable in the west, something I liken it to the tsunami that has swept many. Now all I feel is literature is a subject that can communicate all aspects of human situations and in point of fact thru literature we can communicate some of the most complex and insuperable human conditions. Economics is essentially a different domain and thru a normal lens it seems detached from or unrelated to literature but I as a student of both literature and economics have a different idea than the rest and feel that even some of the most sophisticated ideas of economics can be well-phrased or interpreted thru literary styles. It is all-encompassing and even scientific ideas can be properly communicated thru literature. Now people want everything synthetic and life has virtually been synthetic and from that lens why not literature. It can be synthesized with economics and other sciences.

Now going by this standard all I want to put forth here is why we should not make endeavors to address some of the gruesome ideas, economic, social and cultural thru literature.

Should we totally distance us from discussing economic issues thru this forum or it can be part of it contextually.

We know observing thru an economic lens the world is getting sicker. The world is sick thru terrorism, cataclysmically, thru an outbreak of contagious diseases epidemically and now economically. Can we not come upon solutions thru better means and can literature be a forum for discussion such important and relevant issues?

[LitNetIsGreat]

In short (because I have 5 minutes) literature does do all the things you suggest, literature reflects the world, it acts it out on a different stage, incorporating everything the author(s) life the economic and social factors. However, I don't think it is the job of literature to explain, or express anything outside of the art of the author - to do so would only weaken, or dilute, the art.

[bazarov]

Many tried, but no one succeed. So answer would be - no.

[Virgil]

Many tried, but no one succeed. So answer would be - no.

I completely agree. Literatrue and art reflects a time and place, it does not shape it.

Oh and I disagree the world is getting sicker. There are ups and downs and there may be some temorary downs currently, but the world has been getting better and better for the certainly the past century if not longer. More people are living at a higher standard of living across every part of the world than ever beofre. Most are living longer, happier lives with less disease and struggle than ever before.

[Petronius]

Of course it can, but not through one book, or even one specific literary current. I view literary works as virtual experiences devised by superior minds (well, by any mind really, but I refer to those I value), and such experiences, like any real one, can be both sources of knowledge and unconsequencial ways to enrich one's existence.
Literature can help increase awareness to the nature of human beings and societies, the state, the order, and the possibilities of the world, as well as interactions between them - and if accessible to many, and paired with a truly intellectual education system (rather than one based on spoon-feeding safe and sterile knowledge), it can pave the way to reason and peace.

Still, if literature is to help us evolve, singular books must not be inteneded as lessons. An author should be objective in his assessment of his work, honest in letting his opinions and creations blossom, while the readers should be allowed subjectivity on interpretation - the only way to truly learn. In fact, books should be the driving force for the wave of a reformed culture, because culture is actually that which can alter the way society works, not politics or economy.

Sure, this is more of an utopic view. If you ask if I truly believe that humanity can evolve to a state of intellect-driven balance and peace... Well, let's just say I have doubts our species can shake off stupidity.

And, Virgil, if you think the world is heading the right way, you're not thinking long term or are deluding yourself. In the last decades, the world has been like a fat kid stuffing its face with candy. Wealth does not revolve around money, or production, or even technical advancement. It revolves around resources and balance of their flux. Right now, that balance doesn't exist, and with the global population and consumption rising, those resources will go away/fail to regenerate fast enough, and there will be hunger and global conflict - a natural imperative in eliminating the individuals for whom life-sustaining necesities are no longer available. Best case scenario, you won't catch it, but your descendents will. That's not to mention the minor crises deriving from basing our entire socio-economical equilibrium on circulation of artificial wealth (through banking) and intrinsically subjective estimation of value (stock markets).

[Virgil]

And, Virgil, if you think the world is heading the right way, you're not thinking long term or are deluding yourself. In the last decades, the world has been like a fat kid stuffing its face with candy. Wealth does not revolve around money, or production, or even technical advancement. It revolves around resources and balance of their flux. Right now, that balance doesn't exist, and with the global population and consumption rising, those resources will go away/fail to regenerate fast enough, and there will be hunger and global conflict - a natural imperative in eliminating the individuals for whom life-sustaining necesities are no longer available. Best case scenario, you won't catch it, but your descendents will. That's not to mention the minor crises deriving from basing our entire socio-economical equilibrium on circulation of artificial wealth (through banking) and intrinsically subjective estimation of value (stock markets).

Well, what you are criticizing (the "fat kid stuffing its face with candy") is a personal choice. At least that kid has the choice to stuff his face. Based on the rest of your comment there, I see you're one of these apocalyptic people. Well, I've certainly lived long enough to hear how every crises will bring the collapse of the world and America and the system we live in. Ha! If I had a dollar for all that apocalytpic talk. Thing is that this talk and this fear has been going on since the beginning of time. Sure there are moments in history (the collapse of the Roman empire for instance) where such talk is warrented, but 99%, if not more, is bunk. The fact is that people's standard of living has been rising for several hundred years and now we are spreading such prosperity to all parts of the world. The human population has grown becasue of our prosperity. And frankly I believe that large populations has helped not hurt prosperity. But that's a complicated arguement I don't wish to go into now. Despite what you say, resources haven't even begun to diminish.

[Petronius]

Well, what you are criticizing (the "fat kid stuffing its face with candy") is a personal choice. At least that kid has the choice to stuff his face. Based on the rest of your comment there, I see you're one of these apocalyptic people. Well, I've certainly lived long enough to hear how every crises will bring the collapse of the world and America and the system we live in. Ha! If I had a dollar for all that apocalytpic talk. Thing is that this talk and this fear has been going on since the beginning of time. Sure there are moments in history (the collapse of the Roman empire for instance) where such talk is warrented, but 99%, if not more, is bunk. The fact is that people's standard of living has been rising for several hundred years and now we are spreading such prosperity to all parts of the world. The human population has grown becasue of our prosperity. And frankly I believe that large populations has helped not hurt prosperity. But that's a complicated arguement I don't wish to go into now. Despite what you say, resources haven't even begun to diminish.

I'm not apocalyptic, I'm just making observations, and they don't really scare me, proof that my own social bubble functions pretty well, although I myself am not an American dreamer. I too find many bleak predictions of the future silly in their choice of resentation, although some people's desperation may be warranted if they take their observations seriously.
I'm not saying humanity can't adapt, or that nothing will be done to prevent disasters should they arise (nor am I saying a global crisis will be the doom of mankind and humanity), but it's always wiser to judge objectively and in advance wether threats exist, and if they do (and they do), prepare for them when you can still do it casually.
Perhaps for you it's not as striking that developed countries, with economies based on services, finances, commerce and technology live off of cheap raw resources from less developed or third world countries; that countries such as Belgium and Japan, with a staggering population density of over 300 citizen/ square kilometer have to import about three quarters of their food. What will happen to these countries if the ratio of gains from their specific export branches and prices for food from the ever developing (and less agrar) countries from which they import will change against their favor? Or if climatic changes limit the global organic resources?
What will happen, for the matter, when the waters of the Indian ocean supplying the like-named coutry with resources of marine nourishment, will fail to reproduce enough fish and crustaceans to supply both the demand and the necessary gene pool for certain species to survive. Unlike us, the animals we pull out of their ecosystems in order to eat something exotic and spicy which we pay for with money from our very Earth-sustaining job in PR, do not experience a growth in numbers proportional with the demand.

The world population has increased with prosperity? The world popyulation grew to less than two million from prehistory to the begining of the 20th century, and in the following hundred years it reached six and a half, of which four million just under the second world war, during the propagandistic conflict between the democratic west and communist east, locked in a contest of growth. Such a jump in human population is unprecedented, and it has come with massive deforestations, pollution, endangering of animal species, massive consumption of subsoil resources, and a sense of global awe of what will actually happen if a large scale crisis were to arise today, which luckily halted the thirst for armed conflicts between the great geopolitic powers... to some degree at least. It's scary that you, citizen of one such great power, are not at all concerned with how things evolved in the last decades and where they may lead. I'm not saying scared, but concerned... anything but derisive. How the large population helped prosperity I will really, really want to hear.

The problem with the fat kid stuffing his face is:
1. Others are hungry
2. The fat kid is addicted, irresponsible, and hurting himself with a free choice motivated by stupidity and lack of self-control... quite a paradox!
If this is a world-spread attitude, then there is a problem with the global chain of culture. Our values and priorities are not as good as we think. Thinking things through does not imply scary large scale changes... not necessarily.

In the end, I'm not saying that the current financial crisis is a big deal... I hope proverbial "people in charge" will manage to fix this one, because they should be able to. All I'm saying is that it's a systemic flaw and the system itself should be revised a little if we are to prevent it from repeating itself.

[Virgil]

I'm not apocalyptic, I'm just making observations, and they don't really scare me, proof that my own social bubble functions pretty well, although I myself am not an American dreamer. I too find many bleak predictions of the future silly in their choice of resentation, although some people's desperation may be warranted if they take their observations seriously.
I'm not saying humanity can't adapt, or that nothing will be done to prevent disasters should they arise (nor am I saying a global crisis will be the doom of mankind and humanity), but it's always wiser to judge objectively and in advance wether threats exist, and if they do (and they do), prepare for them when you can still do it casually.
Perhaps for you it's not as striking that developed countries, with economies based on services, finances, commerce and technology live off of cheap raw resources from less developed or third world countries; that countries such as Belgium and Japan, with a staggering population density of over 300 citizen/ square kilometer have to import about three quarters of their food. What will happen to these countries if the ratio of gains from their specific export branches and prices for food from the ever developing (and less agrar) countries from which they import will change against their favor? Or if climatic changes limit the global organic resources?
What will happen, for the matter, when the waters of the Indian ocean supplying the like-named coutry with resources of marine nourishment, will fail to reproduce enough fish and crustaceans to supply both the demand and the necessary gene pool for certain species to survive. Unlike us, the animals we pull out of their ecosystems in order to eat something exotic and spicy which we pay for with money from our very Earth-sustaining job in PR, do not experience a growth in numbers proportional with the demand.

The world population has increased with prosperity? The world popyulation grew to less than two million from prehistory to the begining of the 20th century, and in the following hundred years it reached six and a half, of which four million just under the second world war, during the propagandistic conflict between the democratic west and communist east, locked in a contest of growth. Such a jump in human population is unprecedented, and it has come with massive deforestations, pollution, endangering of animal species, massive consumption of subsoil resources, and a sense of global awe of what will actually happen if a large scale crisis were to arise today, which luckily halted the thirst for armed conflicts between the great geopolitic powers... to some degree at least. It's scary that you, citizen of one such great power, are not at all concerned with how things evolved in the last decades and where they may lead. I'm not saying scared, but concerned... anything but derisive. How the large population helped prosperity I will really, really want to hear.

Sounds apocalyptic to me. You sound pretty scared. "Oh my God, the word's resources are ending. Oh my God!!" I started a thread on the populating increase once. Read through this and if you wish you can comment here: http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=36208

The problem with the fat kid stuffing his face is:
1. Others are hungry
2. The fat kid is addicted, irresponsible, and hurting himself with a free choice motivated by stupidity and lack of self-control... quite a paradox!
If this is a world-spread attitude, then there is a problem with the global chain of culture. Our values and priorities are not as good as we think. Thinking things through does not imply scary large scale changes... not necessarily.

1. Others have been hungrier in previous eras. That makes no sense in this argument at all.
2. Addicted by who's standards? People are living longer today than ever before. And what are you a dictator to tell people they can't eat as much as they want? Because I do think there is a group of people that want to micro manage everyone's life. And what's that got to do with limited resources? It does sound like you're graspng for apocalyptic scenarios over little minutia of issues.

In the end, I'm not saying that the current financial crisis is a big deal... I hope proverbial "people in charge" will manage to fix this one, because they should be able to. All I'm saying is that it's a systemic flaw and the system itself should be revised a little if we are to prevent it from repeating itself.

Are you an economist? Are you seeing economists saying this is the end of prosperity? What systemic flaw? Capitalism? You must be a socialist then. We have an issue that came up. We will fix it, like we have with other issues that come up every other year. We will always have issues. There is no utopia. But there is no dysptopia either. We live in the best of times the world has ever known.

[JBI]

No, simply because of language. What language would said work be written in?

[Petronius]

1. Others have been hungrier in previous eras. That makes no sense in this argument at all.
2. Addicted by who's standards? People are living longer today than ever before. And what are you a dictator to tell people they can't eat as much as they want? Because I do think there is a group of people that want to micro manage everyone's life. And what's that got to do with limited resources? It does sound like you're graspng for apocalyptic scenarios over little minutia of issues.

1. I was not refering to other people, but to other generations and even other species.
2. What's the difference between being controlled by a dictator and being controlled by mass-media? I'm not even going to discuss your aerial assession of my humble person because it lacks substance and motivation. I couldn't care less how people live their lives if mine's not affected by their mistakes.

Are you an economist? Are you seeing economists saying this is the end of prosperity? What systemic flaw? Capitalism? You must be a socialist then. We have an issue that came up. We will fix it, like we have with other issues that come up every other year. We will always have issues. There is no utopia. But there is no dysptopia either. We live in the best of times the world has ever known.

I'm a final year student in finance & banking, my schooling including courses in geopolitics and ecology. I'm neither a capitalist nor a socialist, and economy doesn't reduce itself to these two mainly political doctrines. The systemic flaw is that a strong banking system ensuring a permanent liquidity flux works fantastic during development, when most of those money go into investments and produce a plus a value... when resources are strained, and the market is saturated with strong economic agents and is weary of risky investments, all that flux of money will go into consumption, and you can research yourself and see why that's not very rosey. In fact, the fall in American economy was somewhat predictable, the banks just thought and hoped they'll get away with it. But going into details about economy is dull for me and not why I frequent a literature forum.

Your professor Williams sounds like a soap scientist good to ease the mind of the middle-classed American on an evening show, with a blonde and busty moderator at his side. Honestly, "human beings are the most valuable resource and the more of them the better"? That's disgustingly anthropocentric and juvenile. Most valuable from what perspective? Because I, the Human Being am a mini-god, or because I'm an exquisite pulling donkey? I urge you to abandon the hazy-happy goggles and study the matters from a different perspective than the American one.

The second post in your thread makes some good points... I'm sorry but further reading doesn't seem very appealing for the time being. This thread is about how literature and art can build a better world, and my only reason for derailing was to underline what an intellectual world will actually have to fix.