The Political & Philosophy Thread

[Einherjar86]

Haha, that would be nice. Yeah, it would be nice if you could teach literature by demonstrating a proof.

One of the most atrocious misunderstandings in the humanities is the hokey idea that somehow art, literature, etc. means what its audience thinks it means, or how they experience it. I heard a grade school teacher taking a troop of kids on a field trip through an art museum, and asked them what they thought about a certain painting (we were in the modernist wing, I can't remember who the painting was by, but it was probably a Picasso or Matisse or something). Several of them said different, totally asinine things, and the teacher said "See, this is what's great about art--it means what you want it to mean!"

It made me cringe: a) no it fucking doesn't, and b) grade school students' brains shouldn't be polluted with this kind of nonsense. At that age, teach them to exercise their totally unique and genius creativity, and then burst their fucking bubble when they get to college. Art isn't personal, it's historical, and its meaning is historical (although that doesn't mean it's singular).

 

[Dak]

I'm not sure how you'll feel about this, but there has been a palpable shift in the classroom atmosphere over the past year or so. There is an increasing tendency for certain students to resist faculty not over the legitimacy of arguments being made in the classroom, but over the credibility of the instructor herself. It's never happened to me, and the reports are overwhelmingly from women--basically, suggestions from student comments that their position as instructor doesn't grant them an advantageous perspective on the material. Or, in other words, that any student's opinion is as equally appropriate as the instructor's.

Trump's presidential campaign and election has been wind in the sails for this kind of attitude. So faculty have taken to holding department meetings and such to discuss how best to interact with such students, and how to seriously consider their resistance without giving in to it. I've been thinking a lot about this, even though I haven't directly experienced it. There's a legitimate notion about these days that we're nearing the end of education, and it's not necessarily due to the student loan bubble (although that's also a concern): it's due to an increasing hostility toward, and distrust of, educators. Obviously I agree that there are inept and/or overly political instructors, but the general attitude is disconcerting.

What I meant was that getting a bachelor's degree in many fields requires what appears to be little more than breathing, and that having a degree is no longer a signifier of very much other than that it's so easy to obtain that suspicion must be cast on anyone *without* one.

Haha, that would be nice. Yeah, it would be nice if you could teach literature by demonstrating a proof.

One of the most atrocious misunderstandings in the humanities is the hokey idea that somehow art, literature, etc. means what its audience thinks it means, or how they experience it. I heard a grade school teacher taking a troop of kids on a field trip through an art museum, and asked them what they thought about a certain painting (we were in the modernist wing, I can't remember who the painting was by, but it was probably a Picasso or Matisse or something). Several of them said different, totally asinine things, and the teacher said "See, this is what's great about art--it means what you want it to mean!"

It made me cringe: a) no it fucking doesn't, and b) grade school students' brains shouldn't be polluted with this kind of nonsense. At that age, teach them to exercise their totally unique and genius creativity, and then burst their fucking bubble when they get to college. Art isn't personal, it's historical, and its meaning is historical (although that doesn't mean it's singular).

I don't see how claiming meaning is historical is significantly different than claiming it's personal. There's just a barrier to entry to who gets to make such personal claims of meaning (which is couched in terms like "historical" rather than personal). At least honest psychology admits that "clinical judgment" is still innately personal, no matter how well educated.

 

[Einherjar86]

I don't see how claiming meaning is historical is significantly different than claiming it's personal. There's just a barrier to entry to who gets to make such personal claims of meaning (which is couched in terms like "historical" rather than personal). At least honest psychology admits that "clinical judgment" is still innately personal, no matter how well educated.

Are you suggesting that, at the risk of oversimplifying, "historical" meaning is simply the result of the elite scholars agreeing upon whatever pieces of art/literature they personally prefer?

The process of how art becomes historically meaningful is nothing like this, for the record.

 

[EternalMetal]

Haha, that would be nice. Yeah, it would be nice if you could teach literature by demonstrating a proof.

One of the most atrocious misunderstandings in the humanities is the hokey idea that somehow art, literature, etc. means what its audience thinks it means, or how they experience it. I heard a grade school teacher taking a troop of kids on a field trip through an art museum, and asked them what they thought about a certain painting (we were in the modernist wing, I can't remember who the painting was by, but it was probably a Picasso or Matisse or something). Several of them said different, totally asinine things, and the teacher said "See, this is what's great about art--it means what you want it to mean!"

It made me cringe: a) no it fucking doesn't, and b) grade school students' brains shouldn't be polluted with this kind of nonsense. At that age, teach them to exercise their totally unique and genius creativity, and then burst their fucking bubble when they get to college. Art isn't personal, it's historical, and its meaning is historical (although that doesn't mean it's singular).

I think this is the root of the problem. I remember back when I was going through grade school and would analyze literature, the 'correct' analysis was the authors perspective. I know that this is a simplification of the exercise, but the main goal of such analysis was to at least grasp an understanding of what the original authors message or viewpoint was. Only later in high school did my teachers challenge us to critically and personally assess these viewpoints (which can only be relevant if you can grasp their contextual meaning). I think that the critical assessment nowadays is happening too early in education, and that children are raised to think too much for themselves and not about what others are thinking.

This line of thinking spreads towards the criticism of professors, but so does the prevalence of the internet. People no longer need to go to school to become educated about various subjects, because the internet has a wealth of information on pretty much everything. Professors are held to a higher standard these days because information is cheap. And who needs the knowledge of a professor you fundamentally disagree with, right?

 

[Dak]

Are you suggesting that, at the risk of oversimplifying, "historical" meaning is simply the result of the elite scholars agreeing upon whatever pieces of art/literature they personally prefer?

The process of how art becomes historically meaningful is nothing like this, for the record.

But that is the ultimate determinate is it not? No one else gets to determine the accepted process (even if they "participate" in it) nor the outcome.

 

[Einherjar86]

I think this is the root of the problem. I remember back when I was going through grade school and would analyze literature, the 'correct' analysis was the authors perspective. I know that this is a simplification of the exercise, but the main goal of such analysis was to at least grasp an understanding of what the original authors message or viewpoint was. Only later in high school did my teachers challenge us to critically and personally assess these viewpoints (which can only be relevant if you can grasp their contextual meaning). I think that the critical assessment nowadays is happening too early in education, and that children are raised to think too much for themselves and not about what others are thinking.

This line of thinking spreads towards the criticism of professors, but so does the prevalence of the internet. People no longer need to go to school to become educated about various subjects, because the internet has a wealth of information on pretty much everything. Professors are held to a higher standard these days because information is cheap. And who needs the knowledge of a professor you fundamentally disagree with, right?

Ugh, I hate the whole "author's perspective" is the meaning of the text. Obviously an author is an entity and has to be accounted for, but works of art are way more complex than what the author was intending to do.

But that is the ultimate determinate is it not? No one else gets to determine the accepted process (even if they "participate" in it) nor the outcome.

No, I don't think it's the ultimate determinate, especially today. A canon is determined not by a small group of privileged scholars, but by the entire body of scholarship. Obviously one particularly big-name scholar could make significant headway, but a canon materializes over time and due to the prevalence of scholarship or study dedicated to particular authors/artists. And particular authors/artists generate more interest depending on how they're producing their work, what networks they help to comprise, and what kind role they serve beyond being artistic figures (do they write letters, are they editors, are they journalists, are they bloggers, do they travel, do they have other jobs, what circles do they run in, etc. etc.). So much goes into the construction of a canon, and it's way more complicated than a group of scholars sipping brandy in a Victorian library talking about their favorite books.

 

[Dak]

No, I don't think it's the ultimate determinate, especially today. A canon is determined not by a small group of privileged scholars, but by the entire body of scholarship. Obviously one particularly big-name scholar could make significant headway, but a canon materializes over time and due to the prevalence of scholarship or study dedicated to particular authors/artists. And particular authors/artists generate more interest depending on how they're producing their work, what networks they help to comprise, and what kind role they serve beyond being artistic figures (do they write letters, are they editors, are they journalists, are they bloggers, do they travel, do they have other jobs, what circles do they run in, etc. etc.). So much goes into the construction of a canon, and it's way more complicated than a group of scholars sipping brandy in a Victorian library talking about their favorite books.

I'm sure it's a very well-thought out, somewhat well-defined process which has been revealed through years of dialogue and unfolding. But only the esteemed may delineate/define what dialogue is allowed and what unfolding counts, no matter how varied the "participants of the process of construction" may be. In other words, participants do not determine themselves.

 

[Einherjar86]

But only the esteemed may delineate/define what dialogue is allowed and what unfolding counts, no matter how varied the "participants of the process of construction" may be. In other words, participants do not determine themselves.

Can you provide an example of this, because I'm not sure I can figure out what you're talking about.

 

[Dak]

Can you provide an example of this, because I'm not sure I can figure out what you're talking about.

This really applies to pretty much any field in the humanities, but I'll stay on literature for continuity (I don't mean to pick on it in particular). Without the academics of the field, the field does not - for all intent and purpose - exist. Regardless of the what processes are determined, who is determined to participate in those processes, etc., ultimately it is the academic(s) that comprise that field that are the final arbiters of what *is* that field and in that field. Not the blogger(s), not the writer(s), not some schmoe off the street, not even academics in other fields.

 

[Einherjar86]

I feel like this is a bit different than what you said earlier. The "academics in the field" aren't some select and limited group; it's the entire community of scholars who occupy various levels of importance in the field, and the popularity of certain writers owes itself to all of them. When you said that "only the esteemed" determine what authors are worthy of discourse, I took you to mean a select group of tenured or emeritus professors publishing in major journals because they're important scholars and their opinions have been vetted. That definitely isn't how a canon develops. But your point now seems to be a tautological one, which is that "the academics in the field determine the field," which yes, I agree with.

I don't agree that personal taste determines the field, however, because a) aesthetic taste is not the driving factor behind what literary critics study. In fact, I would relegate taste or preference of a given textual work to a low point on the relevance scale. I don't read Gravity's Rainbow or Naked Lunch for pleasure, I read them because they're chock full of fascinating cultural tidbits, and they're responding to a network of cultural circumstances that warrants investigation. Obviously what I find interesting will be different than the next person, but that's why you want scholarship spread out across a field and not restricted to the musings of a select few. And b) aesthetic taste is actually a target for most literary critics, especially since the poststructuralist turn. Many critics are wary of aesthetics as basically an apology for elevating personal taste or preference as a determining factor for what counts as "good" art. "Good" and "bad" aren't considered even relative in literary studies, they're just empty terms; they don't tell us anything about why Gravity's Rainbow is worth studying as a text that is in communication with various historical phenomena. And this isn't something that comes down to personal preference, it's something you can tell by reading closely and studying the form and content of the work, and by reading Pynchon's other writings.

 

[Dak]

But your point now seems to be a tautological one, which is that "the academics in the field determine the field," which yes, I agree with.

Yes, I meant esteemed etc. in the "ivory tower" sense, as in, the plebs and even the authors themselves have no authority. It is necessarily tautological.

I don't agree that personal taste determines the field, however, because a) aesthetic taste is not the driving factor behind what literary critics study. In fact, I would relegate taste or preference of a given textual work to a low point on the relevance scale. I don't read Gravity's Rainbow or Naked Lunch for pleasure, I read them because they're chock full of fascinating cultural tidbits, and they're responding to a network of cultural circumstances that warrants investigation. Obviously what I find interesting will be different than the next person, but that's why you want scholarship spread out across a field and not restricted to the musings of a select few. And b) aesthetic taste is actually a target for most literary critics, especially since the poststructuralist turn. Many critics are wary of aesthetics as basically an apology for elevating personal taste or preference as a determining factor for what counts as "good" art. "Good" and "bad" aren't considered even relative in literary studies, they're just empty terms; they don't tell us anything about why Gravity's Rainbow is worth studying as a text that is in communication with various historical phenomena. And this isn't something that comes down to personal preference, it's something you can tell by reading closely and studying the form and content of the work, and by reading Pynchon's other writings.

I think personal preference extends beyond aesthetics or pleasure. I derive little to no pleasure and find nothing aesthetically pleasing in doing the majority of my homework. Yet it is my personal preference to do it and do it well.

 

[Dak]

Trump just named a 3 star Army general (West Point Grad and also a History PhD from UNC) - with a history of being outspoken - as his NSAdvisor. Seems like the only people Trump tolerates that may counter him are generals (Mattis being the other).

 

[rms]

his book sounds interestingly enough, and something for that thread you tried to get some love on

 

[Dak]

his book sounds interestingly enough, and something for that thread you tried to get some love on

Yeah, unfortunately Vietnam is a conflict I'm much less interested in from a military perspective than a political one.

 

[rms]

does seem like a more difficult subject to study in terms of military tactics/strategy than previous conflicts

 

[Dak]

does seem like a more difficult subject to study in terms of military tactics/strategy than previous conflicts

There doesn't appear to be any cohesive strategy or aims across the arc of the conflict, it was just a recursive series of "seize/hold/retreat" patterns. WWI had a similar issue on the ground but it had more defined/supported political aims.

 

[Dak]

Disclaimer: I have in no way independently verified all these claims.
Assuming these claims about available benefits etc are true, no wonder a generous welfare state needs super strict borders:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-21/welcome-sweden-eldorado-migrants

 

[CiG]

You wrote this?

 

[no country for old wainds]

his post seems to imply the opposite?

 

[CiG]

Ah true.