From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 11 2005 - 10:24:11 BST
Hi Mark,
Cutting to the chase:
> I would dispute that 'ideas come out of cultures'.
>
>
> msh 08-10-05:
> Then I ask you to consider the following thought experiment, which
> I've offered to two or three different listers in an attempt to show
> the impossibility of creative thought sans culture. So far, no one
> has responded:
>
> Imagine an individual transferred straight from the womb into a
> sensory deprivation chamber, to be kept there in total isolation for
> 21 years. What sort of cognition or reasoning would this individual
> be capable of upon release?
<snip expansion>
> ... it's clear to me that an individual isolated from experience,
> including interaction with other human beings, would be a thoughtless
> lump of quivering hydrocarbons. No brilliant insights, no great
> inventions, no cultural contributions of any kind. Cultures and
> civilizations advance, to the extent that they do, by virtue of the
> fact that they ARE cultures and civilizations, that is, they are
> conglomerations of highly- interactive people, all of whom, in a
> moral society, would be capable of making quality decisions based on
> input from their environment. The idea of the lone genius working
> away in isolation to make the world a better place is pure Randian
> fantasy.
>
> msh continues (to sam) 08-10-05:
> I'd be interested in your response to what I've said, above.
I think you're misplacing the point which that thought-experiment makes.
It's indisputable (I would have thought) that someone not exposed to
language etc would be unable to think on being 'released'. But that just
confirms that the social level is the prerequisite for anything higher. What
you need to come up with is an argument showing that new static intellectual
patterns are wholly determined by the social level (which I think is what
your argument entails). Or else show that the entailment doesn't apply.
So to put that more positively, the social level is the precondition for
both the articulation of ideas, and the reception and propagation of ideas -
but that doesn't mean that the intellectual level is reducible to the social
level. That leaves open the possibility (reality IMO) of new intellectual
static patterns being dependent on formation within the minds of a single
individual. Which brings us to the Dickens point.
> msh 08-10-05:
> Sure, Dickens had a voice. But, without having read Milton,
> Shakespeare, Dryden, Donne, he would have been voiceless. Or, to
> extend the idea to film, focusing on France, Renoir (debt to Sacha
> Guitry), led to Marcel Carne, then Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol. Or,
> start on this side of the Atlantic with Woody Allen building upon
> Bergman and Fellini, not to mention Buster Keaton and the Marx
> Brothers.
All of which is simply saying that an individual speaks from the basis of a
tradition (you're not going to find me arguing with that!). But it seems
you're saying that just because someone speaks English, they can't say
anything new in English, because all the words have previously been used.
That doesn't fit with what I know to be your love of poetry. What is poetry
if not the formation of something new from the pre-existing? I'm just not
sure what you're objecting to. What is the connotation of 'original' which
is objectionable, in the sense of saying that Dickens was an original
writer? (Even if you accept the idea that there are only half a dozen plots,
something like the Christmas Carol is - would you accept? - different to
what went before).
And on a related point - how do you understand patents? Are they wholly
illegitimate (that's not a question of the economics of major drug
companies, it's a question of conceptual coherence)
I'll reply to the other bits in the Lila 24 thread, where they are probably
better placed.
Cheers
Sam
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