Hockeywings ...
An aristetilian form of thinking, I would say that thinking about a subject and then applying yourself to that subject would be a better form then, say, reading a book, feeling sympathetic over a fictitious character and adjusting your life or values or more understanding of yourself over a fictitious character.
It's all part of the same process. Certes, the odds are well-stacked against me ever falling into a mysterious dimension locked inside a magic carpet, nor my ever being a little girl in Alabama in 1935, yet there still exist moral reflections of reality isolated in a pseudo-experimental environment. To read the literature of yesteryear is a telling reflection on both history and anthropology, if not the psychology of the author as well. Perhaps we do not directly apply the implication's of Homer's epics, yet they do contain an encapsulation of the moral state of humanity during a given period.
The device employed is similar to the device employed to compensate for the weakness of history: that it is not the present. Reality passed, especially that reality that occurs so far in the past as to escape one's living experience, takes on a fictional aspect. History is subjective, and what it demonstrates is therefore subjective. So it is with fiction.
Similarly, then, consider religions. That Christianity has actually
helped some people and therefore contributed to their positive contribution to humanity is a testament in its favor; how much of a testament, of course, is subjective. And thus we reflect on the value of a religion, based in subjectivity, and its effects on people's actions. Regardless of how one qualifies the result, that it produces a dramatic result at all speaks toward the human need for isolated abstractions of moral considerations.
What we take from our characters, be they in fiction, history, or religion, is subjective. But in each case, the abstractions presented to fulfill that metaphysical need in people produces a result.
In the end, people
do project situations and offer consideration; oftentimes these considerations and projections would not be were it not for the subjective isolated abstractions that you find in history, religion, and, yes, fiction.
If we compare the Bible, to, say, Ray Bradbury: the moral considerations of the latter, being the optimistic considerations, translate better than the menacing spectre of the apocalypse.
What, then, is the difference between off-the-cuff considerations of an arbitrary projection, and sympathetic considerations with an isolated, manageable projection?
History, for instance, must necessarily remain cold and aloof. In that sense,
Roll of the Thunder Hear My Cry,
A Light in the Forest, and
To Kill a Mockingbird especially have given me insight into the cold history of Civil Rights and equality.
A Tale of Two Cities is rich with such consideration;
The Scarlet Letter an expose on moralist addiction. Joyce's
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man ... what the hell can I possibly say about that one? Tim O'Brien's
The Things They Carried, a crusher about the Vietnam War, in its narrowest description. Cady's
Singleton broods over exceptionally human notions. And the more fantastic: McKammon's
Boy's Life, King's
The Body; Brust's
To Reign in Hell is a spectacular philosophical romp that leaves one sympathetic to the Devil, in a way. And how abstract can abstract get? I think of Bradbury's "The Crazy" character in
Death is a Lonely Business and
Graveyard for Lunatics--actually, all the characters. What he creates on the page is a high-speed confession of human experience, told in mythical terms. Without extemporizing, moralizing, or climbing up a high horse, a writer of fiction conveys a sense of human love that, frankly, finds few equals in literature. Of course, from my perspective, it is because I recognize philosophic fragments of that almost desperate loyalty. (While I always recommend those two Bradbury novels, I recommend reading them in reverse order;
Graveyard first, and then
Lonely Business.)
The reason we have
any arts is because we need them. What people do with them ... well, so far they've proven less dangerous than history or religion, though you wouldn't know that in the United States, for instance, by simply looking. And since I run the risk of becoming extraneously political, I will cease on that point.
In the end, it's a matter of perspective. Some people do avoid fiction, and that's well and fine. But even reading a stroke novel from the local blue shop provides opportunity for introspection.
As a testament, I spend periods away from fiction, reading only history, science, and philosophy (including religion) ... my life tends to destabilize when I do that. The moral conflicts I see in life are naked in history, which seems condemned by philosophy to repeat itself; this is evident, though the subtle differences within each cycle ... okay, I'll let that one go for the moment because it's tangential.
And that's one of the things fictional literature has the power to avoid; by isolating itself and being
not real it escapes the processes of necessity. Noting that humans invent according to necessity, and that the conceptual
vision essentially means keeping up, by making something
not real, one is free to examine it without the practical interference of life. Fiction is not subject to practical priorities the way reality is. As I watch a sticky situation this morning, the idea of what idea is being considered transforms with each passing event. As we conclude the inquiry and find out what missing stuff is where, and that all is safe, the questions of how these things went missing and why get put by the wayside. As we approach a time when we necessity does not dictate other priorities than considering the hows and whys, the issues will have become irrelevant, and they won't be addressed until the next time the situation arises. The fiction is set and encapsulated like history. Rushdie's
Fury presents a different New York than we are likely to ever see again because of WTC 9/11. Nonetheless, it is an incredible examination of the human condition under specific, human burdens. Much like a good song, it addresses specific sympathies 'twixt humans, and provides an opportunity for reflection. I'm listening to Duran Duran's
Ordinary World for instance, and it's poignant for someone like me:
And I don't cry for yesterday,
there's an Ordinary World,
somehow I have to find.
And as I try to make my way
to the Ordinary World
I will learn to survive ...
This generalization is a perspective which I think everyone is familiar with. The particular way it is presented, by some circumstance of aethetics, strikes me more directly than the selfish, muddled pseudo-metal tantrums currently popular. I have an excellent reassembly of the Beach Boys' unfinished epic,
Smile that casts an amazing sympathetic vibe. Of course, learning what small portion of the history I'm familiar with brings the music home. The lessons of that history are brilliantly embodied in the music. Of course, I know the guy who cut this version, so I got to see a good portion of it built. And there is another tangent that I should drop.
Back to Rushdie's
Fury: simply, I am not Malik Solanka, his character. But many of Solanka's sentiments, mannerisms, and perspectives as spelled out in the text resemble parts of my own perspective closely enough that I can examine how I relate to the perspective. While I'm treading dangerously on Sufi turf, it does in fact constitute a form of looking in a conceptual mirror. (For an example to the contrary, I cannot sympathize with the fiction of Bret Easton Ellis in any way; such books as his do not, in my opinion, have much to say about anything; thus it holds the same potential as the aforementioned stroke novel.)
Toward your point in general, though, it is, indeed, what people do with it. Even the most pabulum art can have dangerous effects in some people. Music has been persecuted as behavior-modifying and mind-controlling; literature has been persecuted as warping and deviant; movies, paintings, dance, stage plays .... And some of this has exemplary cause in the sense that somebody chose to blame the art for human actions. And there are fanatics about history; check in with the most frothing Socialist or Communist you know. What they do with the narrow slices of history they become well associated with (narrow = presupposition towrad "frothing") is often quite perverse, much as someone might pervert a narrow slice of a holy text or a scene in a novel or movie, or even a line in a song.
And, in a hideously pathetic effort to steer this back toward
Cupric's topic, those perversions are part of what is at issue. In fact, well to take a risk as to fact, the topic seems to point toward that very idea, of what one does with the text. What
Cupric has pointed out, the selective familiarity with the Bible seemingly predominant in the Christian culture, is exactly that idea.
Hmph ... look at me and my soapbox.
I think the important part of it is that fiction can help fill that need to project the same way history and religion do. The rest of it ... okay, so I was rambling ....
thanx much,
Tiassa
