Thanks for this! As you may imagine, I've encountered many versions of your interlocutor's argument, and they always seem to simmer (oh so slowly!) down to a preference for the abstract over the concrete: a sense that because the abstract can speak of the metaphysical and the concrete only of the physical, the abstract is therefore always to be preferred, the concrete to be ignored. This preference is all well and good (I will never deny the importance of the idea to a good life), except that it totally ignores the nature of the human person as embodied spirit. We cannot understand the metaphysical without the physical; we cannot even speak of ideas without ears and mouths; the highest does not stand without the lowest: and if anyone thinks that his personal state of persuasion (or otherwise) about whose ideas are credible and why has nothing to do with who first taught him those ideas and how--out of what kind of mouth, in what tone, and in what surroundings--I have an oceanfront property in Steubenville I'd like to interest him in buying.
Yes, it does seem that for some, the abstract becomes a place to hide from the joys and pains of reality. I guess you can't stub the concept of a toe. But no more can you savor the concept of a glass of fine wine. Abstration does let us get our arms around the concrete, and that's important. But lose the concrete, and you have your arms around nothing.
Funny how the Psychology today author has to use metaphor, a verb with concrete, physical implications - 'embrace' - to get their abstraction across. Since their premise is meaninglessness, then what they're actually recommending is embracing an empty nothing. Which seems to me a cold and miserable experience.
Yes, this is interesting. But it's also mistaken. It seems to be taking the old high school English teacher idea that novels have hidden messages in them and then complaining because writers are failing to hide their messages, therefore depriving the reader of the pleasure of figuring out the message for themselves, as if they were doing a particularly sophisticated crossword puzzle.
But that's not the kind of experience that a novelist should be giving to their reader. The job of the novelist is not to hide the doctrine and make the reader figure it out; it is to eschew doctrine and provide the reader with a genuine human experience.
That novelists like Sally Rooney can't do this is no surprise. They are captured by an idealogy that is in rebellion against normal human experience. If they created a genuine human experience, it would not pass the ideological test that the politburo demands of all novelists today. They have to conform to official doctrine. And because the politburo is populated by dunces, they have to make the doctrine explicit. You can't expect the politburo to figure the message out for themselves like a grade 11 English class. They are not that clever.
But if people are starting to get sick of this, hallelujah!
Thanks for this! As you may imagine, I've encountered many versions of your interlocutor's argument, and they always seem to simmer (oh so slowly!) down to a preference for the abstract over the concrete: a sense that because the abstract can speak of the metaphysical and the concrete only of the physical, the abstract is therefore always to be preferred, the concrete to be ignored. This preference is all well and good (I will never deny the importance of the idea to a good life), except that it totally ignores the nature of the human person as embodied spirit. We cannot understand the metaphysical without the physical; we cannot even speak of ideas without ears and mouths; the highest does not stand without the lowest: and if anyone thinks that his personal state of persuasion (or otherwise) about whose ideas are credible and why has nothing to do with who first taught him those ideas and how--out of what kind of mouth, in what tone, and in what surroundings--I have an oceanfront property in Steubenville I'd like to interest him in buying.
Yes, it does seem that for some, the abstract becomes a place to hide from the joys and pains of reality. I guess you can't stub the concept of a toe. But no more can you savor the concept of a glass of fine wine. Abstration does let us get our arms around the concrete, and that's important. But lose the concrete, and you have your arms around nothing.
And serendipitously (or perhaps it is the algorithms or the Holy Spirit), my Google Now feed today turned up an article from Psychology Today with the title "How to Deal With a Deeply Meaningless Existence" and the third of its listed "key points" was, "Resist the temptation to make everything concrete, and embrace abstraction." https://www.psychologytoday.com/za/blog/debunking-myths-of-the-mind/202412/how-to-deal-with-a-deeply-meaningless-existence
QED
But also one has to ask, why is the recommended method for dealing with meaningless to embrace abstraction, which is pure meaning?
Funny how the Psychology today author has to use metaphor, a verb with concrete, physical implications - 'embrace' - to get their abstraction across. Since their premise is meaninglessness, then what they're actually recommending is embracing an empty nothing. Which seems to me a cold and miserable experience.
This post might be of interest: https://writersaresuperstars.substack.com/p/why-are-authors-doing-this/.
Yes, this is interesting. But it's also mistaken. It seems to be taking the old high school English teacher idea that novels have hidden messages in them and then complaining because writers are failing to hide their messages, therefore depriving the reader of the pleasure of figuring out the message for themselves, as if they were doing a particularly sophisticated crossword puzzle.
But that's not the kind of experience that a novelist should be giving to their reader. The job of the novelist is not to hide the doctrine and make the reader figure it out; it is to eschew doctrine and provide the reader with a genuine human experience.
That novelists like Sally Rooney can't do this is no surprise. They are captured by an idealogy that is in rebellion against normal human experience. If they created a genuine human experience, it would not pass the ideological test that the politburo demands of all novelists today. They have to conform to official doctrine. And because the politburo is populated by dunces, they have to make the doctrine explicit. You can't expect the politburo to figure the message out for themselves like a grade 11 English class. They are not that clever.
But if people are starting to get sick of this, hallelujah!