I was listening to a lecture from Edgar Wind, where he says 'ideas in art can quicken, as well as, clog, the imagination'. In it, he specifically mentions didatic poetry, or poetry where you learn something, a moral or knowledge. The poem in some ways has a purpose. He talks about artists, be it poets, writers or visual, today dislike this work. Art is sacrificed for the use of reason, for another purpose. He also says there are a lot of bad didatic poems. Because of this most people feel that this inclusion of knowledge hurts their art, thus causing a fear of knowledge. Further he states that this divide of knowledge and art was driven by artists becoming obsessed more with craft, talking about it in private circles. He claims that because of this imagination and learning have been driven apart. Seen as opposing thoughts. Which isn't just bad for making art, but also hurts the sciences, where the loss of craft, and creativity results in the loss of new ideas and directions. This division reduces artists to only research to help the generation of their metaphors, but not practical discoveries of truth. It also doesn't teach scientists to use beauty as a driver for their discoveries. He ends saying 'ideas in art can quicken, as well as, clog, the imagination' and we should not fear knowledge, but only use it when it enhances our existing metaphors, or compliments them.
I thought, that while this lecture was very academic, it had many truths. It made me think of something abrahamKim said during the first writing club we made. That my stories always seemed to try to teach the reader something. I think maybe then I wasn't matching the ideas to the story, or they weren't complimenting the story. I think for a lot of what inspires me are scientific ideas, but its not just the idea, but its implications on life. Artistically, a lot of creative techniques usually inspire more scientific ideas.
I am not sure if there was a purpose when I set out to write this, but we should all be inspired by knowledge, and not fear its use.
I love your takeaway at the end. And I think that it has a lot to do with our relationship to knowledge. I think that just like how many are scared of math because of the way they were taught it in school, I think many of us have a fear associated with knowledge.
I remember saying that in our writing club. Wow I was so young and stupid lol. But when I was saying that I was adamant about it. Now I've come to more adopt your argument that knowledge is to be inspiring.
Just as I write this comment I realize how much I've feared knowledge growing up. It's crazy the quick realizations that can come to you in a moment. But yes, as a young Korean American in the states, I often didn't know what the hell was going on. My parents couldn't teach me the same things that my cohort knew, so I had a very late start entering the school system.
When I was a five year old surrounded by Americans at school who seemed to know everything about culture and history while I only knew whatever my mom and dad could teach me in Korean, the only thing I really could do was go in heavy on my imagination.
So me describing your stories as too hinged on knowledge rather than characters was infact me just projecting super heavily and I didn't even know it back then. I thought that I had been doing that simply because I liked character driven stories -- which was/is true -- but back then I had no idea it was linked to some underlying fear of knowledge I'd had from my history.
Wow, this is something I never thought about: > When I was a five year old surrounded by Americans at school who seemed to know everything about culture and history while I only knew whatever my mom and dad could teach me in Korean, the only thing I really could do was go in heavy on my imagination.
I didn't realize that kids with an immigrant background *need* this retreat into their imagination as a means of coping, but it makes total sense. I think it also makes sense why so many new, up and coming writers have immigrant backgrounds, given this early foray into the imagination. Interesting.
As for the post, I like the sound of this lecture. I agree that there is a lot worship at the altar of the sciences, too much even, and of course nobody seems to bother writing fables -to what audience? The thing is too, the didactic art thing probably has its roots in religious teaching. Most of the bible was taught as stories, before people could read on their own. This formed a basis for using stories to teach abstract concepts, but now everybody is literate and nobody seems to think stories fill any other role other than entertainment, hence the prevalence of fantasy and magic realism in literature, and as a result we're undergoing a complete devaluing of truth as moral currency (except under the auspices of scientific high priests, of course).
PS: It doesn't seem like there's actually any fear of knowledge, just that nobody believes it can be found in the realm of the arts anymore (no thanks to institutions of higher learning) - but that's because the real fear is that of truth, which is too inconvenient/uncomfortable for our pluralistic societies, or for ideologues who prefer to set an agenda than to pursue truth.
@gabriel i'll write more on that because I think it's a bit more nuanced than just immigrant kids. Because I can imagine that many immigrants come into enclaves of immigrant communities and they might actually have their own dominant culture/history that they fit into. And even in this circumstance they might still have to live a double life because eventually they will venture out to the global/majority world.
Speaking of the alterization of science/knowledge, I actually believe that great storytelling to be a great medium to provide a subset of the population a meta-education on the falliability of science and how actually this exact flaw is what makes science useful. That it is failliable! rather than god's word! It is dynamic.
In a sense we basically need the ever expanding sentiments about science of real science lovers like Naval Ravikant to be infused into stories that will scale to many minds. Just like how stories that gave agency and even fucking made the black slaves in America the protagonists we need stories where the scientific process and community and overall discourse around it is actually itself a game. Kind of like how The Wire shows how much of a game the Justice System is... just as much as the game of hustling drugs.
Yeah I learnt more from the wire than I did from living in Baltimore for many years.
About the immigrant imagination comment - your writing reminded me of a guy who came to the US as a teenager from the villages of Ethiopia and felt so much cultural shock - particularly because he came alone. He told me that he used to spend 2-3 hours everyday watching anything on tv including cartoons so he would understand jokes and banter better. He is now a short story writer.
abrahamKim
I remember saying that in our writing club. Wow I was so young and stupid lol. But when I was saying that I was adamant about it. Now I've come to more adopt your argument that knowledge is to be inspiring.
Just as I write this comment I realize how much I've feared knowledge growing up. It's crazy the quick realizations that can come to you in a moment. But yes, as a young Korean American in the states, I often didn't know what the hell was going on. My parents couldn't teach me the same things that my cohort knew, so I had a very late start entering the school system.
When I was a five year old surrounded by Americans at school who seemed to know everything about culture and history while I only knew whatever my mom and dad could teach me in Korean, the only thing I really could do was go in heavy on my imagination.
So me describing your stories as too hinged on knowledge rather than characters was infact me just projecting super heavily and I didn't even know it back then. I thought that I had been doing that simply because I liked character driven stories -- which was/is true -- but back then I had no idea it was linked to some underlying fear of knowledge I'd had from my history.
> When I was a five year old surrounded by Americans at school who seemed to know everything about culture and history while I only knew whatever my mom and dad could teach me in Korean, the only thing I really could do was go in heavy on my imagination.
I didn't realize that kids with an immigrant background *need* this retreat into their imagination as a means of coping, but it makes total sense. I think it also makes sense why so many new, up and coming writers have immigrant backgrounds, given this early foray into the imagination. Interesting.
As for the post, I like the sound of this lecture. I agree that there is a lot worship at the altar of the sciences, too much even, and of course nobody seems to bother writing fables -to what audience? The thing is too, the didactic art thing probably has its roots in religious teaching. Most of the bible was taught as stories, before people could read on their own. This formed a basis for using stories to teach abstract concepts, but now everybody is literate and nobody seems to think stories fill any other role other than entertainment, hence the prevalence of fantasy and magic realism in literature, and as a result we're undergoing a complete devaluing of truth as moral currency (except under the auspices of scientific high priests, of course).
Speaking of the alterization of science/knowledge, I actually believe that great storytelling to be a great medium to provide a subset of the population a meta-education on the falliability of science and how actually this exact flaw is what makes science useful. That it is failliable! rather than god's word! It is dynamic.
In a sense we basically need the ever expanding sentiments about science of real science lovers like Naval Ravikant to be infused into stories that will scale to many minds. Just like how stories that gave agency and even fucking made the black slaves in America the protagonists we need stories where the scientific process and community and overall discourse around it is actually itself a game. Kind of like how The Wire shows how much of a game the Justice System is... just as much as the game of hustling drugs.
About the immigrant imagination comment - your writing reminded me of a guy who came to the US as a teenager from the villages of Ethiopia and felt so much cultural shock - particularly because he came alone. He told me that he used to spend 2-3 hours everyday watching anything on tv including cartoons so he would understand jokes and banter better. He is now a short story writer.