Day 43
I used to find that penning a title for each blog entry was the hard part. This system has been very nice in that one way.
Too much philosophy these days. Every time I think I've got something figured out, I come up with what seem to be equally good reasons why it's all wrong.
What I have begun to solidify as a belief over the last few months is the belief that language itself is often the problem, and not the 'problems' it works on. Language, often, doesn't so much elucidate issues as it does generate them.
Again with the Wittgenstein: We try to cram too much into mere words. A word or sentence is like a teacup, as the analogy goes; it will only hold a teacup's worth, even if you pour a gallon over it. I see people using words, and their ideas are spilling out of the words as they are thrown around in every direction. The words contain too much. They become impossible to articulate, to understand, to clarify.
Or worse, they become too easy to understand. Like an infinitely complex game of 'telephone,' the message is incalculably altered on its short path from your mind to my own. Interpretation rules over language like an ill-informed democracy with countless political parties rules over the public.
Is the language of music any different? Of dance?
The body has its own language, distinct from that of the mind, in turn distinct from that of the tongue.
In turn from that of literature.
And from that of poetry.
The more I learn, many of the questions to which I formerly believed I had the answers, I now reply with just more questions.
Too much philosophy these days. Every time I think I've got something figured out, I come up with what seem to be equally good reasons why it's all wrong.
What I have begun to solidify as a belief over the last few months is the belief that language itself is often the problem, and not the 'problems' it works on. Language, often, doesn't so much elucidate issues as it does generate them.
Again with the Wittgenstein: We try to cram too much into mere words. A word or sentence is like a teacup, as the analogy goes; it will only hold a teacup's worth, even if you pour a gallon over it. I see people using words, and their ideas are spilling out of the words as they are thrown around in every direction. The words contain too much. They become impossible to articulate, to understand, to clarify.
Or worse, they become too easy to understand. Like an infinitely complex game of 'telephone,' the message is incalculably altered on its short path from your mind to my own. Interpretation rules over language like an ill-informed democracy with countless political parties rules over the public.
Is the language of music any different? Of dance?
The body has its own language, distinct from that of the mind, in turn distinct from that of the tongue.
In turn from that of literature.
And from that of poetry.
The more I learn, many of the questions to which I formerly believed I had the answers, I now reply with just more questions.
Comments
Looking back, in my experience, I've always had an affinity with 'the trouble that is language' view of philosophy, characterized here-- the idea of the futility of words trying to capture too much (i.e. implicating entire contexts, or ways or of life, to those who are unfamiliar with those contexts) or, conversely, containing so little that we are apt to take meanings for granted far too quickly, unwittingly attaching some idiosyncratic or superfluous significance of our own.
This view resonates with me on a personal level, because it arises from very personal, life-long frustrations. I've often despaired of my own ability to communicate with others, because, even at the best of times, I tend to intuit ugly gaps between the words I manage to cobble together vs. the understandings I hope to convey. At my worst, I feel simultaneously impatient and inept while trying to clarify ideas that I am most interested and passionate about, compounding my disservice to the expressions themselves and my gradual alienation from the people whom I hope will learn or at least acquire some beneficial new understanding in the process.
But this despair also arises, in a large measure, from observing people around me argue, fight, and misunderstand one another on a fairly even basis. Fierce (or, just as often, subtle) volleys of words between parents, friends, or strangers, that sometimes threaten to become toxic. I often feel an oblique but increasing sense of tension when people begin to 'talk past' each other or become intransigent in their point or style of communication, suddenly given to misinterpretation of another's words in order to protect their own ego-identity: the odd fear of stooping to the direction of the thoughts or feelings of another, especially when they are conveyed in an 'alien' dialect or emanate from an uncongenial character. It bothers me because I know how easy it is to fall prey to this attitude myself.
But there is hope too. Language has provided us a means of apprehending the problems it creates for us (at least temporarily), and we do use it to clarify and build on our relationships with one another, though I feel this requires uncommon patience and attentiveness in certain cases.
For my part, I do think there is a significant difference between the language of good music, good dance, and good poetry, and the language of everyday, take-it-for-granted rag-bag of verbal communication. This is evidenced in the 'magnetic' force we feel if and when we attend to the beauty in the composition or choreography of a great artist. The artist relies on the harmony and fluidity of melodies, words, or gestures, in very specific ways, composed with great care, in order to stir our feelings and startle us into reflections about who or what we are. The poem/dance/symphony as a whole provides the 'linguistic context' within which each note, chord, rhyme, pause, movement, has tangible significance.
Imagine if we could have our cake and eat it too; if we could speak and move about in our common daily tongue with the same force and beauty that great artists aspire too, but with none of the laborious preparation. What a world that would be!
On the other hand, we might all become Ents. You know, like in Lord of the Rings: "Don't be hasty... boorrarooom!"