My apologies, I thought this was a site for grown up people who like to think now and again.
It would appear I have made a mistake.
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My apologies, I thought this was a site for grown up people who like to think now and again.
It would appear I have made a mistake.
I appreciate the viewpoint put forward runs counter to received wisdom and is thus highly unfashionable, but it might have been rewarding if members would have tried to think beyond the stock response.
Or is that what is expected in these benighted times?
So in other words... if some individuals here question... or worse yet, openly reject the ideas that you have put forth, then obviously they are simply mindlessly following the fashionable thinking of the time and unable to think beyond the usual stock response?
And this does not strike you in any way as presumptuous?
My apologies, I thought this was a site for grown up people who like to think now and again.
It would appear I have made a mistake.
OK... let's look at the lack of thinking here. You threw out the following statement of "fact":
My point is that there is a link between literature and moral well being...
I countered this with the following post:
Is there? And how does this apply to artists/authors whose moral stances are diametrically opposed?
Did you make any attempt to prove your point? No... rather you made a sweeping dismissal of my questions and a snide comment presuming my lack of intelligence of education:
It might be to the point if the ideas promoted were discussed instead of flippantly and somewhat shallowly dismissing points raised.
On the other hand this may well be an illustration of how education appears to have failed.
It seems rather pretentious to assume that all those who disagree with you are inherently less intelligent or less educated than yourself. I tend to avoid making such assumptions until I know a person for a period of time, but perhaps you are gifted with a greater degree of insight.
Rather than repeatedly throwing out such presumptive and insulting comments as:
I worry about some comments on here which appear to indicate that basic reading skills are not being taught in schools.
What seems to be taught instead is to value commonplace opinion and the ability to make snap judgements based on rigid mindsets.
... perhaps you might consider the possibility that there are more than a few members here who may just have as much (or far more) experience and mastery in literature, reading, and reading comprehension as you... and yet who have (gasp!) come to an opposite point of view from yourself. Rather than tossing out the repeated insults which have been tolerated up to the present, perhaps you might do better to delve deeper into explaining and proving your assertions concerning the links between literature and morality and how examples such as Gesualdo, Caravaggio, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine, etc... are irrelevant.
No problem--It's clear you have no interest in doing any. It's also clear that you're quick to disparage and insult senior board members whenever they, or anyone else, offer opposing viewpoints. I'm afraid that doesn't surprise me. Typical of egotistical narcissists. If you talked to people like this where I live you'd be six feet under.Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
BTW--sorry for that.Quote:
Originally Posted by hawthorns
I guess I'm as thin-skinned as the OP. But being called "benighted" after graduating from a top-tier university in molecular biology was just about the limit.
It seems there's a literary trouble brewing in this thread. I don't get it. I like to think my reading comprehension is good. The starter said "our historical evaluation" not "the historical evaluation," which is more rigid and authoritative. Since the "historical evaluation" mentioned is democratized, it just follows that everything goes. A gay sympathizer can evaluate Whitman's "When Lilacs Last in the Door-yard Bloom’d" as queer and a naturalist can see influences of Quacker farms and gardens. As for me, it is an elegy to the assassinated president the author politically loved--unless a proof comes up that says they physically shared love, although Lincoln also slept with men.
I can understand how this thread devolved (or evolved? not sure) into silliness and parody. The original question was a little... philosophical? metaphysical? It's all very subjective. I would still argue that a writer's body of work is often a reflection of their experiences and passions, as opposed to simply something made to sound pretty. I'm sure some would disagree. It also is a question of the body of work I am familiar with--Faulkner, Steinbeck, Joyce, Mann, Fitzgerald--at the expense of what I am unfamiliar with--Tolstoy, James, Wilde, etc.
Agreed. Their personal experiences, passions, and insight coupled with a superhuman ability to articulate it is what makes the greats so satisfying.Quote:
Originally Posted by dysfunctional-h
But the original question,
Do the personal virtues or vices of writers and thinkers affect our historical evaluation of their intellectual or literary achievements?
addresses vice and morality. I feel that the answer to the question should be *mostly* no. Can it affect our historical evaluation? You bet. Look at Caligula, Nero, Tiberius, Commodus, and Caracalla. Several had become symbols of such murderous debauchery that an effort was made to efface their memory entirely from the written record. But do their actions and morality mean there's literally nothing of value in their memoirs? Of course not--look how widely read Roman literature is today (well...students of the classics, anyway). Furthermore, I think history has shown that a creator's vices have little impact/influence on their artistic creations.
Distressing in the extreme.
The original statement seems to have been understood that we judged works of literature not on their merits as literature, but rather as reflections of how their authors lived their lives.
Clearly and absolutely nonsensical.
What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves. We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.
Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.
If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.
If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?
Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.
Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.
I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.
Can't believe I indulged this troll...Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
Ahh, and there you have it: a different point of view and the dummy gets spat out.
What was disturbing was the instant tramlining, as though the original question was superficial.
But as i said before and i suppose you did not read, the human individual in not an absolute of certain traits, he is a complex and contradictory creature. Once again there is no such thing as an evil man, only a man who has done evil things.Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
To return to Carravagio which i originaly mentioned, he was a murderer yet in his art he was able of such feelings of compassion and sadness and beauty that even most priests never feel in their lives. Following your theory this is impossible, carravagio must either be good or evil, but in truth he was evil and good, such as all of us we have all done evil and good, and my personal belif is that those who have great potential for evil have eqaully great potential for good, while those who have a moderate potential for good equally only have a moderate potentil for evil. This latter is but my own speculations, but it would explain why many great artists who were murderes and rapists and other horrible things were in their art able to express feelings of such pureness and goodnes and beauty that a saint would feel envious. It would also explain why so many men of the past who lived lives of pure goodnes were able to understand so well the deoravity of mans evil.
For a troll, he surely can write a bombastic manifesto in defense of what he believes in. What a waste if you're just trolling. Write an academic paper or your autobiography.
Talk about serendipity: I almost fell off my chair this evening when I came across this remark in an essay about Barthes, and the way he tried to read texts:
"We may try to be semioticians, but autobiography is always breaking in".
What I attempted to establish is that, like it or not, when we read works of literary merit they act on us in various ways, some of which appeal to our moral selves.
The key word here is "SOME". SOME works of literature and art act upon us in a moral way... SOME not. SOME of the ways that literature and art impact us are through their appeal to our moral selves... SOME appeals to other aspects of ourselves.
We draw conclusions from our reading which influence the way in which we live our lives. If we did not we would be mere dolts or clods without feelings or appreciation.
But what we take from literature or art is not so easy as you would suggest. What you might take and what I might take are likely quite different. Each individual brings something unique to a work of art and takes his or her own "meaning" from it. This is what Oscar Wilde speaks to when he writes: "It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."
Literature is of benefit to us as human beings.
Perhaps so... but again this is not as easily proven as you seem to suggest. For every example of the individual who was enlightened by his or her experience with art, there was the tyrant, dictator, and murderer who was just as profoundly in love with art.
If that is accepted and I see no reason why it should not be from the evidence available, then the abiding puzzle is whether or not there is a connection between what the writer is and what he or she writes.
Art is not exclusively autobiographical. Perhaps no artist can fully escape the influence of autobiography upon his or her work... but it is not the sole source of inspiration. One might also note that the very concept of "self expression" runs into difficulty when we recognize that Walt Whitman was right when he proclaimed: "I contain multitudes". The human being is far to complex to be reduced to a mere single self let alone to an art work.
If a writer is a human being who has behaved badly in their lives, then how do we account for the fact that his or her works works provide the reader with a sense of moral well being?
Are these bad actions the sole measure of his or her being? As Alex suggested, the painter Caravaggio often acted in violent and cruel ways. One might argue that such "violence" is mirrored in the violence... and the extreme drama of his paintings:
http://postfiles2.naver.net/20110818...12.jpg?type=w1
Yet at the same time... his paintings convey an unrivaled sense of realism... and humanism... such a depth of human feeling... such empathy for the poor and downtrodden...
http://www.bloggang.com/data/pinggy-...1214991019.jpg
Charles Dickens was not a evil person as such, but he treated his wife extremely badly and more or less demonstrated that he was a selfish, amoral human being without feelings for other people.
Which is the complete opposite of what we get from his work that teaches us among other things to value the rich diversity of other human beings.
Your example of Dickens, not unlike Caravaggio, would seem to call the idea of measuring the ART based upon the ARTIST into question.
I am not surprised at some of the nonsense on here, but am slightly disturbed by the apparent one-dimensional quality of what has passed for thinking.
Again with the presumptions of superiority.:mad2: I'm always struck by the fact that those who truly are the greatest thinkers need not make some false show or egotistic declaration of their own abilities. From my own experience, I have found that the more I learn, the more I realize that I have yet to even touch upon.
Your question wasn't superficial, just your answers.Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
Generalization can be an enemy of literature. If the quoted one is the gist of your proposal, I find it not always applicable or happening.
Do you suggest that we dismiss a rapist's masterpiece that is about love? Inversely, are we going to dismiss a lover's masterpiece about rape? In my view, a writer is a writer first before he or she is anything else.
Any analysis of reading will establish different elements in the experience which contribute toward the pleasure of the act. (In fact the analysis itself can also be pleasurable). Some of these elements will be to do with emotional, moral or intellectual aspects of the work. When we do this analysis we look at matters to do with public taste (general approbation) intermingled with our own personal histories as well as matters of usage of words etc,.
The autobiographical attitude responds to things we know about the author and no matter how rigorous we are in our analysis they will have an influence.
No arguments with your first paragraph--that seems logical enough. :thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
It's the second that strikes me as a non sequitur: I'm with you up to the preposition "to." You seem to accept what follows as a statement of incontrovertible fact, but so far I haven't seen any convincing evidence that either supports it or confutes previous arguments/posts. It seems like a logical conclusion if we assume a perfectly linear relationship between an artist's morals/vices and his/her creation. However, I just don't think that's the case. We'd also have to require that readers hold identical moral values so they'd be sure to react in precisely the same way. My view is that people are too complex for these to become reality, especially with regard to the masters. Genius has shown it's fully capable of understanding moral truths that inspire and appeal to us even when it bears no relation to itself.
Reading is a human activity. As such the reader is influenced by different things that have happened to him or her over the course of his or her life. A writer is likewise a human being.
It would be amazing if like did not respond to like.
vagantes, you have an amazing talent for what hawthorns described in his last post; writing something that is perfectly reasonable (like your first sentence in your last post), and then following that with a non-sequitor. "It would be amazing if like did not respond to like" assumes that the things that happen to the reader matches those of the writer, or that even if they have experienced the same things they would have responded to it in the same way. The most traumatic experience in my life was my long apostasy from Christianity, but I feel I came out of it with a very positive philosophy towards the universe, while some atheists come away from that experience with a terribly nihilistic view. So I can read the writings of another atheist writing about their abandonment of Christianity and completely fail to "respond" to that likeness because what they took away from it is completely different than what I took away from it. There are only a handful of universals when it comes to the human experience, and there are an infinity of variations built upon those universals. It seems that most of us have within us the capacity to be someone completely different with just a few changes in cognitive wiring. What's more, artists thrive upon being to express and represent people other than who they are. I don't know how you would propose we criticize the work of Shakespeare or other authors whom we know little about through your theories.
Speaking of 'traumatic experiences,' I think most of us would attach that description to this thread. I said my peace...
pax ex
How many genuinely "moral" writers are there? Perhaps the lure of writing fiction for "immoral/amoral" writers is to explore a morality that does not exist in their personal life rather than to promote their immorality.Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
I didn't know that Dickens was "amoral". "Immoral" perhaps if we judge him by the facts you've given, although as I've said, what writer is genuinely "moral"?
These facts do not make his writing less "worthy". What if we found out that he was actually a loveable old man who donated much of his money to charity? Does that make his writing any better?
Perhaps it isn't surprising that less-than-perfect writers should write seemingly "moral" stories. In order to be immoral, or even amoral, one is engaging with the nature of "morality".
Is this the writer's autobiography or our own moral values? Yes, our readings of texts are bound to be skewed by our own personal morals, but this is our "problem".Quote:
Originally Posted by vagantes
You also ignore the fact that not everybody is familiar with the writer's real life, or has an interest in discovering it.
Both.
To ALL and ANY concerned..
Learn to ignore people you're irritated by.
Continuing dramatics, bickering, and arguments throughout the fora will get you a TIME OUT.