Awritingreader’s Weblog

Does the intellectual’s desire to “stay ahead of the crowd,” particularly regarding taste and aesthetic judgment signify an embedded cultural bias/tendency/habit/necessity(?) to elevate the intellectual? Or, is elevating the intellectual a symptom of our aesthetic judgment? Certainly praising the intellectual for their mental work, which is presumably less tedious than physical labor is a reflection of our aesthetic judgment, in that we view it more desire and beautiful to labor where it cannot be seen.

However, I argue that there is an innate quality within the intellectual that perhaps influences our elevation. The educated man/woman can peer into truths and make judgments because they bear witness to the evidence of these truths. While we might value the intellectual merely based upon his/her position within aesthetics, there still remains (at least it seems to me) a true, organic value to intelligence and education. Besides the shape of expansion that education provides in the minds of learners, other more widely effects also take place.

Generally speaking it is the educated who push a society from one point to its next. Discoveries, theories, hypotheses… all these stimulate the society to continue moving along its course in the trajectory of humankind. If we agree with Walter Benjamin that sharing experience is the ultimate aim of communication, then at its basic level, every conversationalist is an “intellectual” and the conversations shared and exchanged push the relationship of two people forward. On a larger scale, this same interchange of information/experience creates our typical notions of the intellectual and their place regarding aesthetics.

What is a Classic?

Tradition. A classic is a work seeped in the history and tradition of the world, either explicitly or subtly. It is time tested, enduring. To accomplish this endurance a classic must also be somehow universal or expansive, that it might impact many and retain its significance and power for one. A classic is culturally constructed and agreed upon by a society to serve the purposes of said society. At the same time however, a classic must hold some seed of intrinsic greatness. This invisible entity cannot be the only characteristic of a classic, but it somehow must be a part for this would be the only explanation for how it came to be so massly identified as such. A classic is popular and widely read, even if critically received. It is not infallible.

Perhaps not necessarily surprising, Ohmann’s definition doesn’t look entirely different from mine, although he might leave out any mention of an intrinsic value and stick to societal control in naming the canon. Essentially, he breaks a classic down into two basic criteria. A book is a classic if its sales made lots of money and if it receives critical attention (but only from the right people). His statement that “it doesn’t matter that Normal Podhoretz hates Updike’s novels, so long as he takes them seriously enough to argue with his peers about them” really intrigues me (1887).

I can easily think of many circumstances where I have read a book simply because the right “authority” told me I should, and I have likewise read books because the wrong “authority” told me I shouldn’t. I’m unsure however, if this influence is a matter of cultural status, one belonging to a higher and the other to a lower class, or if the only status influencing me is simply formed in my mind. Not necessarily economically higher or lower, but just higher or lower in my head…perhaps even without the money factor.

So, while I largely agree with Ohmann that class structures in a capitalist society dictate our canon, I also can’t help but consider that there might be class structures that we each individually form that may have nothing to do with money. It seems plausible that this could be more a mistake of a problematic labeling of others in general, than resting solely on an economic issue. I can’t deny that this aspect informs even my personal heirarchical structures, even indirectly. For example, I, as an educated middle class someone will probably take the opinion of another educated middle class someone simply based on innate similarities formed through that experience. But it at least seems possible that though this indirectly affects the issue, it is not the immediate controlling factor.

It didn’t take long from the start of reading the Richard Ohmann section to stop and find something interesting to ponder. In fact, I didn’t even have to start his essay. In the introduction to the Ohmann reading, the editors quote and summarize Ohmann’s writings from a previous work, English in America. The quote reads, “We train young people, and those who train young people, in the skills required by a society most of whose work is done on paper and through talk, not by physical labor. We also discipline the young to do assignments, on time, to follow instructions, to turn out uniform products, to observe the etiquette of verbal communication” the editors continue quoting, “we eliminate the less adapted, the ill-trained, the city youth with bad verbal manners, blacks with the wrong dialect… and the rebellious of all shapes and sizes” (1877).

I paused at this quote for several reasons, let’s start with the pseudo-confessional one. I have always, always prided myself on my neutral accent. I don’t know exactly where I picked up the notion, but I certainly knew from a young age that I would speak “properly” and pronounce my words just as they were innately intended to be pronounced and I would furthermore take on the added responsibility of correcting others who might not be as enlightened as I was, and share my correct speaking abilities with them. By the time I came to college, I had learned that perhaps my correction of others was unnecessary and unwelcome. I still spoke perfectly, but at least now I didn’t point out other’s constant errors (at least not often). I had let go of many of my pretensions surrounding the use of certain words, phrases or pronunciations, but nevertheless, it came as something of a shock to me when during the study of chapter 10 in my Linguistics course (the chapter on language variation), my professor, and the book both quickly pointed out that accents meant nothing more than a variant, and even certain dialects (let’s say a typically imagined ghetto slang), was nothing more or less than any other type of language. I never considered myself in need of a marxist ideology to correct my presumptuous elitist thinking, but perhaps I put far too much stock in these differences and labeled them according to how my capitalist society viewed them. Surely someone who said “ain’t” or used the term “ya’ll” was mistaken in their speech and obviously didn’t know enough to correct themselves or care about the impact it had on people’s perceptions of them.

Little did I know that I, and many with similar assumptions as me, were really walking around the ignorant ones. A Linguist can so easily see how language variation holds little to no value in terms of linguistics. A difference was simply a difference and the result of common groupings, the differences hold no internal or intrinsic value. As Ohmann (assumingly) rightly points out, these differences and demands we place on people to conform to regarding the input of information and its subsequent output in the form of assignments and tests, is nothing more than a cultural construction. And yet, as I read his description of how young people are disciplined to do assignments and follow instructions and turn out a uniform product, I couldn’t help but notice that despite the contribution of Ohmann and many like him to the cultural conversation in this country (and many others), we still haven’t learned from our Marxist theorists. Children are still taught to write using the five paragraph essay format. We still read the same literary canon to our children and then sink into our own adult versions, happily ignorant that we are non-active consumers. Perhaps now and then we see glimpses of a break from these systems, but more often we simply oblige and tag along. We may be living in what some consider a post-marxist or neo-marxist society, but we have learned nothing from their lessons.

I wanted to return to Benjamin again after re-reading my previous post and realizing that perhaps it sounded a bit harsh. In actuality, although I may not agree with some of the conclusions he draws or even the ways in which he draws them, I find much of Benjamin’s essay intriguing and thought provoking. I read over section nine again today during class and was struck by how I missed the obvious parallel between the storyteller and the actor. Benjamin’s fear is that as craftsmanship dies out, so will storytelling and with that goes an invaluable tradition.

It was Benjamin’s repetitious use of the word “craft” that first caught my attention. In acting, or in the theatre in general, we always talk about our craft: that thing we work on, cultivate, try to perfect, and then give to our audience. As with most skills, actors study under the supervision of a superior. Behind the craft is the element of apprenticeship and intentionality, in this way (slightly akin to Eliot’s concept of tradition) the craft repeats something without being repetitious. The same soul found behind Benjamin’s storytelling still thrives in the world of theatre. Even within the very form that the two methods take, we can find striking similarities. The actor, like the storyteller, has sole command over the tale being told. The audience, like the listeners, attentively take in the words being spoken. They remember the stories from theatre because like those of storytelling, they engage the listeners and allow the audience to forget itself in place of absorbing what is being offered. At its very best, a work of theatre collaborates not only with fellow actors, directors, and workers to increase wisdom and understanding, but it also emits the story artfully, and if done well, with counsel and experience successfully transmitted to the audience. These characteristics fall directly in line with Benjamin’s notion of storytellers and storytelling. Though perhaps not a perfect overlay comparison, it may be said that while the days of appreciating the craft of storytelling by sitting around a fire and listening to the wise performer might be gone and undervalued, the same basic notions and principals are transmitted through the craft of theatre by sitting around a convex stage and listening to a rehearsed and practiced actor reciting the lines of a fine and wise scribe who perhaps captures the wisdom and knowledge of the storyteller through a script.

Perhaps Walter Benjamin missed his calling as a therapist because he seems to have an immovable affinity for stories as agents of counsel as though their only purpose is to treat ill readers. “In every case” Benjamin states, “the storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers” (3). He continues to argue that this notion has become antiquated simply because the modern ability to communicate experience is decreasing. This assertion therefore, implies that for Benjamin counsel must come from experience and it must be the goal of the storyteller. He continues as a strong critic of the novel and eventually a critic of even information itself, arguing that neither method of communication is effective for the purposes of storytelling, a genre that he holds in high esteem due to an extremely vague and non-descript “wealth of the epic” that storytelling seems to provide. So just using these three pieces of Benjamin’s argument, we can identify a few troubling and perhaps incomplete points that he attempts to make.

What is problematic for me on a basic level is this notion of the epic which Benjamin mentions and sprinkles throughout his essay as sort of, the value of storytelling. While epic does not seem to be a definition for storytelling, it somehow can be handed on through the oral tradition of storytelling and fails to have the same impact through other mediums. Benjamin never makes it clear what precisely he talks about when speaking of the epic quality. And though it may be a minor point and perhaps even overlooked by many readers, he does seem to rest his arguments upon the subtle notion/assertion that
this trait is the singular characteristic of storytelling. So because he never makes this initial point clear, I found myself struggling throughout the rest of the essay to really understand why I should care for and value the storytelling tradition above other methods.

Benjamin seems to have a special dislike for the novel and nearly points his finger of blame at the novel for the decline of storytelling. For Benjamin, storytelling has innately the experience to counsel (his main objective for the one telling the story), conversely, the novel stands as the antithesis of the story and neither comes from nor goes into oral tradition; the novelist is isolated and is himself uncounseled and therefore cannot counsel others. So for Benjamin, the novelist lacks the necessary experience to bring the theme of counseling to completion. He further argues that attempts to infuse the novel with instruction (counsel, experience, etc…) have been unsuccessful and led to a modification of the novel form.

I would argue that Benjamin is largely unfounded in this assertion and certainly views the function of the novel in a limited and incomplete way. Particularly with his point of experience, I might propose that perhaps the novel is the sum of experience. Whereas an oral story may tell one tale and leave us with one lesson, one instruction, (or at most a few), the novel can ponder a lifetime of experience and craft it into a sort of mega-tale that encapsulates and entwines within one, what might take 10 or 12 episodes of storytelling to accomplish. In this way, the characters within the novel assume the role of the storyteller and each “person” has their own set of experiences and therefore their own offering to the purposes of wisdom and counseling. Benjamin’s argument that the isolated novelist has no experience to use for counseling is simply without proof. The novelist has much experience with the world and is somehow able to artfully capture multiplicitously the entire lesson of a society. Furthermore, many novels have successfully implanted instruction within their pages, most prominently I think of Middlemarch, and the ways in which lessons are learned, morals taught, and wisdom instilled to both the characters within the work and the readers outside it. So, using this logic it seems to me no less valid a tool for counsel than Benjamin’s prized storytelling.

Next I’d like to take up the issue of information. Benjamin credits information as not only a threat to storytelling, but even a threat to the novel as well; information is the “new form of communication” he argues and it is incompatible with storytelling. Again I would say that Benjamin is being far too limited in his scope of consideration, or perhaps he is just being unclear and I misunderstand his intentions, but from my point of view, information, just like the novel, is easily reconciled with Benjamin’s web of experience, counsel and storytelling. Very simply put, an experience is had, which then gets processed into our minds as information learned from the experience, and counsel is nothing more than this information shared for the benefit of others. Therefore, storytelling is little more than a manifestation of information and while it may be one means to communicate, it is certainly not the exclusive way. And try as he may, Benjamin unsuccessfully tried to separate and harmfully critique both information and the novel.

………………………………

I ended my last post discussing value and while I find the absence of a distinction or clarification of value a whole in Smith’s argument and her essay in its entirety as excellent and renewing, I think that somehow the larger issues of value, usefulness, and a rather general utilitarian theory are ultimately unsettling for this reader. After all my previous praise I still feel displeased as a whole with the argument, largely because although I would say that I advocate for a basic level of usefulness in art, building its value entirely on its uses is an extreme that seems to demote art and therefore writing, to a lowly place and I believe the product of creation to be more than this.

There is a fine fine line between human desire to have our art as “Holy” or somehow sacred, a medium that perhaps grazes the divine, and our desire to have it accessible, ready for us and our evaluation. I become evermore convinced that the reason I struggle nearly irreconcilably with art as a mere object, simply what it is on its own, is because I hold an underlying belief that art just may be the best instrument for a perfect harmony, a sort of cohesive point of contact for the divine and the worldly. My own critical philosophy is shaping up to be one that believes in a godly presence within art. (I would pause here to clarify that I believe that art/works (of writing) are nearly interchangeable words for my purposes, but that a poem or novel is perhaps differently inspired and connected than say, Smith’s critical essay. There is an element of Art and craft that must be innate within the works I am considering here). I guess this is beginning to sound a bit Emersonian, but the further we come in this class and grapple with these questions and implications, the more convinced I seem to be that the only reasonable and responsible answer between the struggle of humanity, divinity and autonomy in art must necessarily be a fusion of the three.

May I request a communal sigh of relief and perhaps applause at Smith’s essay and the refreshing human voice she re-instills into criticism after the last few taxing critics who seem to mechanize the art of poetry rather than communicate with it on a human level? (Ok, I know that last sentence was practically drowned in over-generalization and bias, but just let me have my moment).

Ahhh,

Ok, ready.

Herrnstein Smith’s theory of Personal Economy opens a huge gamut of possibility in considering a work. In successfully arguing this position, Smith not only re-introduces the reader but makes the experience of this reader nearly central to understanding a “good” or “bad” work. I tend to believe that doubt, dichotomy, and perhaps even vast inclusion are signs of wisdom (since absolute assertions rarely remain absolute). By allowing each person’s personal economy to be not only present, but also malleable and evolutionary, we have what I view as the makings of truth.

Smith asserts, “a subject’s experience of an entity is always a function of his or her personal economy” (1914). The personal economy is made of the product of one’s experience with their world and society and each new encounter brings with it a changed personal economy. Therefore, any poem may be good but we must ask some questions, “for whom?” and “at what point in their life?“. Using this standard, any and all works can be good. This is an extremely inclusive approach and though tempting at first glance, the consideration that any poem may be “good” seems to trouble me more and more. I’m wondering if there is a difference between considering a poem “good” and simply liking it. Our personal economy may bring us to quick (and probably valid) emotional conclusions, i.e “I like it“. But does this necessarily make it “good“? “Good” is a value judgment and surely Smith would align with the side of validating that which is deemed as having value… and of course this judgment is our personal economy, but then, do we value something because it is “good” or do we value something because we like it, and our liking it simply gets misnomered as “good“? This then implies two types of value, a distinction Smith doesn’t quite clarify. For example, if I were the granddaughter of Picasso, I might value a painting because it was my grandfather’s, because something about the painting was familial and close to my heart. On the other hand, if I were a curator at a museum, I would value the painting for its artistic contribution, but also for the name and subsequent fame. The values are incredibly different here and it seems that the motivation behind the value is not quite considered fairly, when it could have vastly different implications in determining good vs. bad or valuable vs. useless.

(One of Picasso’s many renditions of “Las Meninas,” the famous painting

by Diego Velázquez used two posts ago)

Michel Foucault states: “Finally, the author’s name characterizes a particular manner of existence of discourse. Discourse that possesses an author’s name is not to be immediately consumed and forgotten; neither is it accorded the momentary attention given to ordinary, fleeting words. Rather, its status and its manner of reception are regulated by the culture in which it circulates” (1627).

We discussed this idea in class today and came to the conclusion that names create certain kinds of usages. Therefore, a name works differently depending on its position in culture. And if we assume this to be true then Literature isn’t something that’s there, literature is something that culture makes by the way they choose to talk about it. I find this argument fair enough and can confess that I’ve read certain works or purchased certain book simply because they had a particular name attached to them; a name that signaled authority, quality, and an air of culture or superiority. I certainly don’t read Spencer because I find his works enthralling and wonderful, I read Spencer because I am told that they are so, and by the time I’m done reading his works, I may not personally feel enthralled or wondered, but I should recognize why he is identified in this way.

We talked about Shakespeare and J.K Rowling, identifying how in our culture (in most cultures now), Shakespeare signals serious authority while Rowling aligns with popular culture and a child’s level of entertainment. It is easy enough to recognize that throughout much of our lives, Shakespeare was pointed to as some kind of supreme artist. The mention of his name in conversation or a consideration of him or his works in an essay automatically elevated the discourse to a higher level. He is held in our society as a genius and therefore must be known and celebrated, so we read him in our classes and show cartoon versions to our children and we then grow up assuming his greatness.

I wonder though, if this power of the name can extend beyond cultural appreciation to a point of cultural imitation. We assume that our culture allows us to like Shakespeare, but could the name and the authority behind that name, that identity, actually become so powerful that we continually construct our culture to match the icons within it? And thereby, hinder society from a natural progression in thought or belief because we must maintain these to continually honor Shakespeare, for example.

It’s a tempting thought, and perhaps not altogether impossible, but my instinct is to say “no”. There are so many things within Shakespeare’s works that assume a societal and contextual understanding that we may recognize as contemporary readers, but don’t necessarily ascribe to. His depiction of women for one thing, or class structure. It seems that a work may remain poignant, while losing the immediate truth authority granted it, in the context of its original publication.