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Fantods, whole no. 9, Winter 1945
Page 6
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page 6 EFTY-NINE I may as well insert at this point my reason for disliking most of the classical philosophers. They have a very objectionable habit of writing stuff which in its origin was clearly human-social, and then trying to masquerade it as logic. If they'd be a little more frank about the thing I could tolerate them better. Now suppose the reader throws out all demands for logic and requires only that the writer conform to his emotions and his human-social prejudices. What do you get? Obviously: Poetry. William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell illustrates the type of philosophy which is really in a class with pure poetry (such as Shelly's Spirit of Night, etc.). In the first place, Blake's pictorial descriptions of his "memorable fancies" -- Rintrah roaring, the appearance of Leviathan -- are clearly poetry. But the statements regarding Good and Evil appeal to the same section of you mind, so to speak, as do the flights of fancy. The latter would not be judged effective if the words used did not somehow have associations which made them horrible, or beautiful, or inspiring, or whatever, to the reader. Also, to appreciate the philosophy you have to have the proper associations. A reader who had been scratched by a greeneyed cat at the age of six might be much more frightened by a greeneyed BEM than would the average man; and Blake's "proverb of Hell" to the effect that "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion" would be approved most by someone who had, perhaps by an accident of his environment, been in the position of opposing convention. Except in a work which is being measured by the human-social or word-association yardstick, choice of symbols is not important. A mathematician may indicated vector quantities by underlining or by superscribing arrows,there will be no slightest difference in interpretation by his readers. But let a philosopher substitute "God" for "Nature" (even though he defines his terms) ,or let a writer on ethics substitute "logical behavior" for "selfish behavior" (even though he indicates he believes the two equivalent), and the difference in impact is tremendous. In poetry a tree may be verdant green or leprous green, and although the light reflected from the leaves may have the same composition in both cases the reader will recognize quite a difference. And now it's clear that the criteria for two fields not yet mentioned -- prose fiction and social science -- fall neatly in between those for poetry and science. Fiction first. As literature comes farther and farther away from the pure subjective fancy of, say, Poe's Silence or Fall of the House of Usher, and a greater degree of objectivity is used, the reader demands more and more that the author conform to the realities of experience. In the extreme case of the completely objective method used, especially in the short story, by Hemingway and others, even the choice of words with the proper emotional associations is no longer a major problem. The chief requirement on the author's style is simply that it be brief and clear. Trees are no longer either verdant or leprous green,in fact most often they're not even green; they're just trees. And pictorial description is the only use to which this method could possibly put words carrying subtle associations. Finally, the social sciences. They start with pure science (e.g., stock exchange reports and statistical analysis), range through near-science (psychology), semi-science (Karl Marx), and, incidentally, hokum (Ec A and Gov 7b as taught at Harvard), to some pretty pure poetical inspirations in
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page 6 EFTY-NINE I may as well insert at this point my reason for disliking most of the classical philosophers. They have a very objectionable habit of writing stuff which in its origin was clearly human-social, and then trying to masquerade it as logic. If they'd be a little more frank about the thing I could tolerate them better. Now suppose the reader throws out all demands for logic and requires only that the writer conform to his emotions and his human-social prejudices. What do you get? Obviously: Poetry. William Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell illustrates the type of philosophy which is really in a class with pure poetry (such as Shelly's Spirit of Night, etc.). In the first place, Blake's pictorial descriptions of his "memorable fancies" -- Rintrah roaring, the appearance of Leviathan -- are clearly poetry. But the statements regarding Good and Evil appeal to the same section of you mind, so to speak, as do the flights of fancy. The latter would not be judged effective if the words used did not somehow have associations which made them horrible, or beautiful, or inspiring, or whatever, to the reader. Also, to appreciate the philosophy you have to have the proper associations. A reader who had been scratched by a greeneyed cat at the age of six might be much more frightened by a greeneyed BEM than would the average man; and Blake's "proverb of Hell" to the effect that "Prisons are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks of Religion" would be approved most by someone who had, perhaps by an accident of his environment, been in the position of opposing convention. Except in a work which is being measured by the human-social or word-association yardstick, choice of symbols is not important. A mathematician may indicated vector quantities by underlining or by superscribing arrows,there will be no slightest difference in interpretation by his readers. But let a philosopher substitute "God" for "Nature" (even though he defines his terms) ,or let a writer on ethics substitute "logical behavior" for "selfish behavior" (even though he indicates he believes the two equivalent), and the difference in impact is tremendous. In poetry a tree may be verdant green or leprous green, and although the light reflected from the leaves may have the same composition in both cases the reader will recognize quite a difference. And now it's clear that the criteria for two fields not yet mentioned -- prose fiction and social science -- fall neatly in between those for poetry and science. Fiction first. As literature comes farther and farther away from the pure subjective fancy of, say, Poe's Silence or Fall of the House of Usher, and a greater degree of objectivity is used, the reader demands more and more that the author conform to the realities of experience. In the extreme case of the completely objective method used, especially in the short story, by Hemingway and others, even the choice of words with the proper emotional associations is no longer a major problem. The chief requirement on the author's style is simply that it be brief and clear. Trees are no longer either verdant or leprous green,in fact most often they're not even green; they're just trees. And pictorial description is the only use to which this method could possibly put words carrying subtle associations. Finally, the social sciences. They start with pure science (e.g., stock exchange reports and statistical analysis), range through near-science (psychology), semi-science (Karl Marx), and, incidentally, hokum (Ec A and Gov 7b as taught at Harvard), to some pretty pure poetical inspirations in
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