Posts Tagged ‘writing’

10 results.

The Opium of the deaf community?

by Awet on May 20, 2011 at 7:15 pm
Posted In: ASL writing, Deafness

The other day I came across a clever title of a book by Raymond Aron: The Opium of the Intellectuals. It was a polemic directed at Marxism, and argued that it was the opiate of intellectuals. The reason it’s clever is because Karl Marx originally claimed that religion was the opiate of the masses.

I began to think in contemporary terms: what would pass as the opium of our times, as much religion did in mid-19th century, and Marxism for intellectuals in the 1930s & 40s? Ten years ago, my cousin Igor credited television as the ultimate drug of our consumer society. No doubt the Internet may have replaced it today.

Now, considering the subculture the deaf community, what would be our opiate – a drug that fails to fix our ailments but allows us to forget our sufferings? ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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On writing: own the process

by Awet on February 2, 2011 at 10:18 pm
Posted In: miscellanea, Pantheon

Last Sunday, the writers’ club meeting started in identical fashion to the previous one: I arrived first, despite the best efforts of heavy rain and clusterfucked traffic, as well as being 30 miles away. I persuaded the hostess of Fred 62 that the rest of the party was “parking” so she sequestered me at a table in the back, serviced by a winsome waitress in racy stockings. After a few testy exchanges via iPhone, the rest of the gang arrived: Erik & then Bob bringing up the rear. We cut through the fat and through the breakfast dishes like nothing before we got to the meat of the meeting. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Deafness & writing

by Awet on November 2, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Posted In: ASL writing, Deafness, miscellanea, Poststructuralism

Every community has its myths, but one in particular struck me. In the deaf community, your writing competence is supposedly related to how English you sign or mouth your signs. If you sign in pure ASL, then your writing competence in English or any other textual language may not be up to snuff. Now, if you mouth your signs, enunciate your words a little too clearly, you seem to be introducing an unnecessary element to your signing, as if you’re embarrassed of signing without appealing to another language. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Fingersmiths “R” Us

by Awet on May 24, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Posted In: Deafness, miscellanea, Pantheon, Philosophy

Cast:
Bob - a short story author, published a novel
Erik - a screenplay writer
chez moi – a graphic novelist

Setting:
Fred 62 Diner in LA

Yesterday, at 2pm, I arrived at the diner mere moment before Erik did, despite the best efforts of the traffic gods and an unreliable GPS. We agreed to sit outside, and after we obtained refreshments, the conversation lurched immediately into a “whatcha done lately?” mode. Erik is a filmmaker who desires greater control over his craft, so he decided to break into script writing.

After taking turns in exchanging horror stories about grad school, and before we ran out of gas, Bob made his grand entrance. He’s a middle aged man with the wittiest sense of humor this side of George Carlin, or an American version of Lord Henry from the Picture of Dorian Gray. We spoke a bit about the goals of the club, what we expected from it, and what we hope to gain from each other, and so forth. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Deafness & authentic writing

by Awet on April 10, 2010 at 12:00 am
Posted In: Deafness, Literature

Last week I was reading an article on theNation.com about a new generation of writers from Mexico (Jorge Volpi, Ignacio Padilla & Eloy Urroz) in the mid nineties, and it hit very close to home. They called themselves the “crackeros” but what interested me the most was their resistance to writing “Mexican literature.”  Literary critics from America and Western Europe insisted that Mexicans writers must write about Mexican themes in order to be authentic. In other words, the crakeros‘ novels weren’t about Mexico, and therefore, the writers weren’t authentic. That implies that the “universal” is restricted to the Americans and Europeans. Commence severe eye-rolling. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…

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Manifesto of Writing

by Awet on October 30, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Posted In: Aesthetics, Literature, Pantheon

A colleague of mine asked me the following question regarding my ongoing graphic novel project:

I wonder, though, whether Nietzsche’s aphorisms, or particularly Larochefoucauld’s, are the kind of stuff that you are making a use of for your graphic novel stories?

Pretty much. The Maxims was the result of a conversation game between La Rochefoucauld and Madam de Sable and Esprit played in their drawing rooms. They wrote down sentences expressing ideas of morality and psychology in solitude and then debated them afterwards. Unlike preachers, there are no appeals to a superior moral authority, for their judgments that studied human nature and custom were ambiguous and performed at the level of man. Instead of the ponderous treatise or the prose of Cicero, or academic language, they chose short forms ( maximes, sententia) that deigned to provoke rather than instruct. And La Rochefoucauld played this game the best by turning the myth of Narcissus upside down with a spectacular demolition of heroism.

Where La Rochefoucauld says self esteem is invincible, all-pervasive, endlessly variable, Schopenhauer adds that self-deception is not an accidental state of mind but part of its normal function. Indeed, such insights of La Rochefoucauld and Nietzsche, among others (Stendhal, James) are part of the grand heuristic scheme of my intent to write stories, and they were absolutely essential for the profiling of the characters. Much like your plot devices, my heuristic scheme relies on a collection of wisdom from the greatest strategists (Sun-tzu, Clausewitz), statesmen (Bismark, Talleyrand) courtiers (Castiglione, Gracian) and seducers (Lou Salome, Benjamin Disraeli).

As you’ve put it in the past, stories are a great vehicle for culture, which passes along its tradition through mythology and practices. The stories in the majority of fiction are intended as didactic exercises, wherein a moral is taught. The the protagonist as hero does the right thing, indirectly teaching the reader what the right action is, and the reader understands this vicariously.

However, in comic books, the content of its stories depend for more on a visceral impact, the drawings, in which reduces the requirements of the instructive goals of the story to a simplistic good versus evil theme. Granted, the content has matured when writers began to emphasize the psychological perspective, particularly in the works of Miller with Daredevil in the early 80′s, and Batman shortly after. But despite his creative efforts, others in the industry misunderstood this revolution by revamping the characters with a grim theme, making them darker, more edgy, and thus more willing to utilize whatever means in order to bring about the same ends.

Generally, comic book characters are archetypes, but inferior writers cannot imagine them as anything other than mere mouthpieces of banal modern propaganda. These cardboard cutouts rely on the superficial appearances of our society: be civilized, decent, democratic, and fair. But woe to whoever tries to actually play by those rules of appearance, for they are crushed by others who are far less foolish. The game is complex, for some of the best players are those who deny the very existence of the game – they use strategies that conceal the nature of their manipulation.

So the psychological content remains premature, at best superficial, especially when compared with some of the transcendent examples in recent literature (Jude the Obscure, The Idiot, Beast in Jungle, etc). Thus the didactic goals haven’t progressed much further, and this is where I come in. There are rules of behavior that tend towards efficiency, in which are basically strategies for personal gain, and they’re far more instructive than the moral preacher’s cliched tale of Gallant and Goofus. Heh.

Balzac said “there are no principles; there are only events. There is no good and bad, there are only circumstances. The superior man espouses events & circumstances in order to guide them. If there were principles and fixed laws, nations would not change them as we change our shirts and a man cannot be expected to be wiser than a nation.”

This general project, the subordination of ethics to strategy, is very modern, especially when the rules of ethics are sacrificed when in order to achieve perfection, one must adapt to the circumstances. The strategies have a long history themselves, how people become successful (in military, society, politics, Hollywood, business, seduction) and most importantly, how they think and behave. There is a large chasm between ideas and experience, where our ideas are understood but not applied or put into practice, and our fertile experiences go unexamined and fail to inspire us with ideas, thus we ignore its lessons. The solution is strategy that links between the two, and they help deal with the greatest game of all: life. My intent is to show these rules or strategies by telling the story version with gods, immortals, and some mortals.

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How to write a book full of cliches

by Awet on September 8, 2006 at 3:35 pm
Posted In: Aesthetics, Literature, miscellanea

“In the beginning, there was the Word. But in the end there only is Cliché.” – Stanislaw Lem

Writing a book full of clichés must be somewhat similar to those “worst essay” writing contests often held in English Departments in Universities everywhere, but certainly it involves a whole different level of irony!

A book full of clichés is a species of kitsch, fake art. Some of the qualities of a kitsch book: it may contain disingenuous remarks and appear ostentatious, be simple enough for the unwashed masses and easily marketable.

Kitsch is the byproduct of the middle class, for it highlights the sheer boredom of their lives. Unlike the masterpieces in the works of the genius, kitsch does not possess elitist qualities or appeal to snobbery.In order to establish a book riddled with clichés, some formula needs to be followed:

Narration: stock phrases that don’t really mean anything. i.e., have a nice day)

Formulaic plot: very predictable story, often depending on a very well-known story arc

Character Archetypes: they must be one-dimensional lacking anything interesting, or well-defined motivation

Dialogue: consists of quotations (they cannot contain any insights, mere bromides or tired phrases often said by dullards)

And this, of course, calls for a clichéd quote:

“It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then, like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.” – Stephen Fry

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Metaphor is fundamental

by Awet on August 20, 2006 at 8:53 pm
Posted In: Nietzsche, Philosophy, Poststructuralism
Metaphor is fundamental

Previously, I discussed the concept of metaphor here, and I thought a lot was left unsaid.

All philosophical concepts are interdependent; they depend on other concepts, which means they cannot be analyzed in isolation. There are no precise definitions for philosophical concepts, because they institute a new way of thinking. For instance, the concept of love does not refer to a particular example, but rather, it “enacts” or “creates” a new possibility or a new thought of love. Not only are dictionary definitions superficial and shallow, they are also restrictive, whereas the philosophical concept is open and expansive. Therefore, to understand a concept philosophically is to find the new connections and new possibilities they reveal.

For Nietzsche, when thoughts and concepts are superimposed on the flux of reality, they dissect it into convenient units. In other words, to think is to substitute a fixed image in the place of fluid reality. This leads to the conclusion that all thoughts are metaphorical.

We have been trained to understand a noun, say, the “pig,” must refer to the animal in the farm, gorging from the trough. When we choose to use that word metaphorically (He’s a pig! ) we are referring to someone who acts greedily, eats too much or noisily. Yet, the word ‘pig’ is arbitrary, whether it refers to an animal or something else. In both cases, in the face of infinitely different reality – each pig, razorback, Miss Piggy, Francis the Pig, Babe, Piglet – we affix some word that will apply in all cases. This practice inspires an illusion that there is a general type, a “pigness” and it refers to something; a fixed form for our labels of convenience.

Nonetheless: if language creates concepts, then, language, as well as thoughts, is metaphorical. I perceive a concrete and physical reality and refer to it with something else: the sign or the concept. However, the illusion that there is a “truth” behind language remains, and moreover, we also believe in the illusion that there are methods of speaking or writing that will escape metaphor and refer to the “true” world behind appearances. Nietzsche is consistent here – there is no “true world” but merely appearances behind appearances. It is interpretation all the way down!

This is problematic, though. If one truly grasp the implications, then despair looms because of convenient illusions, where we project a fictional “true world” beyond language and appearances, and this “promised land” always remains eternally unapproachable, unattainable. After such illusions are shattered and we finally give up our addiction to truth, we have no choice but be resigned to welcome nihilism as our final guest.

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Sometimes a spade is not a spade.

by Awet on June 22, 2006 at 3:16 pm
Posted In: Literature, Nietzsche, Philosophy
Sometimes a spade is not a spade.

Aren’t metaphors merely a colorful way of saying something literal, that is otherwise, a nonboring way of saying something boring? Merely the rhetorician’s weapon that subjects his/her audience into compliance? The dictionary of literary terms denote the metaphor as a figure of speech where something is described in the terms of another, or attribute something with a quality that is associated with something else. For instance, Whitman’s metaphor for grass is “the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” The relation between the two terms in a metaphor is implicit, unlike a similie, where it is explicit.

Not only is metaphor the basic linguistic unit of poetry, often found in romantic and modernist poetry, it is also a pervasive presence in all forms of language. Generally, the metaphor is a catch-all category for all figures of speech. Yet, as long we remain within the conception of metaphor as an embellishment of speech, we only decieve ourselves – for it is actually the original impulse of language, where its primal level is poetry. The concepts we now determine as literal used to be metaphorical, and we have long forgotten their origins.

However, metaphor in philosophy should not be mistaken as a merely aesthetic phenomenon found in poetic language, for even metaphors contain an explanatory principle.

If language is actually based on rhetoric, as opposed to logic – the presumption of the philosophers before Nietzsche – then signs representing ideas do have spatiotemporal qualities, a history, thereby making platonism impossible, and the boundary between sense and reference is erased….

Hardcore empiricists like Thomas Hobbes condemned metaphor as an “abuse of language,” largely because of its capacity of obfuscation and corruption. He couldn’t get beyond the narrow conception of metaphor as an “ornament” of language, which insists that rational language is free from such contaminants, and well-equipped with the reliability of literal meaning in natural language.

For Nietzsche, metaphor is the ultimate key to language, religion, concepts, perception, for it is the very symbol of interpretation, the foundation of meaning and truth themselves. Nietzsche agreed with Hobbes that metaphor distorts, but departed from the Leviathan in the insistence that truth can be apprehended by metaphorical thought. The very privileging of metaphor promises a philosophy that elude the neatness of conceptual language. In the Birth of tragedy, Nietzsche condemns conceptual language for it contains little more than “dead metaphors,” totally inappropriate for the expression of the truth of the world. We are but representations of the essence of reality, mere appearances of the “indescribable-in-itself.” Once we forget that our concepts come from metaphorical origins, then the belief that concepts represent reality sinks in and entrenches our minds.

Concepts themselves, say, the concept of a book, have been abstracted three levels away from the original sense data, sensation. First, the sensory stimuli is transformed into an “image” by the complex physiological processes of the brain, a representation of perception, a coherent symbol of significance. Then this “image” is ostensibly given a sound, a word, a generalization, making language the second level of abstraction. Lastly, within consciousness the word-sound becomes the concept. In other words, there is no direct conception that ideally correspond to reality, or at least the first level of sensation, for the initial sense data is metamorphed three times in order to arrive at a concept, which is merely a “figurative metaphor.”

For instance, “cause” and “effect” are conventional fictions that designate and communicate, but not explain, given that there is no ‘causal connection’ in the in-itself. If we are the inventors of causes, then our thoughts are essentially mythopoetical – where the grammatical subjects of language is converted into the substance of the world. Once we realize that we always transform our experiences with metaphors, not duplicate or reproduce them with concepts, and that metaphors themselves become concepts, and build vast edifices and systems, then our conceptual thought is necessarily “anthropomorphic through and through, and contains not a single point that is true-in-itself, objective, universal, apart from man.” (Concerning truth n falshood in an extramoral sense, I) We are the architects of our prisons, and cannot go outside the bars of reason.

Once metaphor is realized as the master key of meaning: then epistemology is little more than a set of aesthetic preferences. Metaphysical knowledge is the most useless of all knowledge, although post metaphysical thought is possible, as long interpretation consists of concepts derived from active metaphors.

Therefore, there is no metaphysics or epistemology or even an axiology in the philosophy of Nietzsche. In essence, the style of Nietzsche demonstrates that all his linguistic artifacts are metaphors themselves. Sarah Kofman did a huge favor for the future of Nietzsche scholarship by publishing a book called “Nietzsche and Metaphor,” in which she pointed out nietzsche’s aim: the deconstruction of all metaphysical oppositions where the indefinite metaphorical play of style places his texts beyond metaphysics.

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Should philosophical discourse be clear and distinct?

by Awet on January 31, 2006 at 1:12 am
Posted In: Philosophy

Some people think there are things in the realm of knowledge that are absolutely beyond the ken of the man in the street (MITS).

I would have to say no, because that would mean the MITS is completely incapable of learning, and that the supposed realms of knowledge are wholly inaccessible.

However, it is my belief that such translation or transmutation from academic language to the vulgar street language always results in misleading interpretations because of the inherent ambiguities in the day to day language that is meant for practical purposes, rather than abstract reflection or deep contemplation. A bridge may be made, but the MITS has to put in some work, and walk towards the “realm of abstract knowledge.” the MITS cannot have everything handed to him or her on a silver platter, rendered in painless and easy-to-digest information.

The MITS is limited by the prejudices of common sense, and those prejudices prevent him or her from seeing further than the short-term goals of expediency or practical life. Most realms of knowledge, if one meant to refer to the abstract musing of scholars and intelligentsia, contain a vocabulary that requires far more than passive learning; an active understanding that attempts to apply the concepts to experience, experiment with them and interpret them for others. The only way a person (MITS or would-be scholar) can understand the technical terminology is through active use, actively reading and writing with these concepts. If the person can explain what he learned to another MITS at a reasonable level, then he does understand at some level.

By then, after a period of scholarly exercises, the MITS is no longer an MITS.

But for the MITS who refuses to do anything (on account of other more important things to do, or sheer laziness) will see nothing more than bromides and superficial takes. I have met far too many of the like but that does not diminish my optimism.

A great writer can transmit the ideas of ivory tower residents, yet there are difficulties within such attempts at popularization. Philosophers, generally, do their work by talking/writing to other philosophers, and that involves a priestly language wholly inaccessible to the general public. The popularizers aren’t usually the philosophers themselves but good teachers or academics who can write for the layperson. Nevertheless, they are limited by their audience’s ability to grasp difficult concepts that have little to do with daily life, and require special training with foreign vocabularies.

However, there is an activist program in the works in certain circles. For example, there is a program at the state university that calls for teaching philosophy at the elementary to high school level here in the USA, like they already have in Europe. My cousins from Italy were aware of several philosophers by the age of 16 to 18.

Some say that the public does not do enough to familiarize itself with the range of issues considered by philosophers.

I suspect this is an American issue rather than European, and most Americans are wedded to a certain mindset that is decidedly pragmatic. Philosophy as a reflective discipline is not a very good example of pragmatism.

Perhaps this is symptomatic of a wider anti-intellectualism or a culture of “sound-bites”.

Television, magazines, Hollywood blockbusters, airport filler and other byproducts, which are the chief tools of mass consumerism, have institutionalized a culture of sound bites. Philosophy has no such place in mass consumerism, unless its exponents can reduce their wizardry to fit the ADHD-prone audience in the forms of aphorisms and quotes like Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche’s books never caught on for 50 years until continental thinkers took his philosophy seriously and an English translator saw past the superficial Nazi propaganda.

If people do notice the disdain for philosophy (or philosophers) before, why does it exist and how should it be addressed? Does popularizing the subject require “dumbing it down”? Well, this disdain will continue to exist unless democracy is no longer the vogue, and people begin to award credit for skill and talent instead of whatever coincides to mob thought, or their own norms. Popularizing the subject will always require dumbing it down, no matter the skill of the writer or the intelligence of the audience, chiefly because of two things:

One: the appeal to mass audience must cater to the lowest common denominator, which is by default always closer to the average person than the skilled or creative or special individual.

Two: a popular treatment of the subject uses the generic terms of common language that glosses over the sophisticated distinctions and employs quick generalizations and cheap analogies to the ordinary ideas of the day. The nature of the subject is foreign to daily activities – reflection, questioning, doubting, and analysis – that require obedience, memorization, results, etc.

I can hear the objection: but, but, clear doesn´t equal shallow or less sophisticated!
Lets look at that claim: what is purported to describe as “Clear” is a relative term that depends on the understanding level of the reading audience. If the reading audience is not familiar with philosophy, then what is clear to them must be said or written in their language, and that language is the average joe’s common-sense language.

Now, common sense language, due to its mode of communication as a pragmatic tool, has its limits. What is clear in common sense language usually contains unexamined presuppositions and hidden assertions. If they are not unpacked, as is the tendency of philosophical analysis, then common sense philosophy incontrovertibly appears trite, shallow, and ultimately irrelevant.

Therefore, clarity is not a prerequisite of philosophy – but the limits of the audience’s ability to understand anything beyond the instant results from the activities in their day-to-day life. Clear and distinct language almost entails multitudinous yet ambiguous interpretations.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with clear language in the works of philosophy, but clarity itself is not necessarily a virtue. Clarity helps only as a primer for the uninitiated. There is no need to enshrine it as a metaphysical god when it’s not even practical to do so!

The defender of blunt speech will continue to insist that clear writing isn’t dumbing it down. However, having read a great deal of the relevant literature, I fail to see the difference between the two. For instance, Bryan Magee is a good “in a nutshell” writer, but he is not a good source for deep philosophical analysis. I do prefer the clear writers to the difficult, obscure ones, but it is the difficult ones who are the original thinkers, not the middle men who speak our language.

People claim they don´t have a problem with specific terms in philosophy, as long as they are explained. So, what is clear for most doesn´t mean ambiguous or unspecific either. When a specific term is explained, it does employ the common words we already know or are familiar with. That is common sense language, in a nutshell. ;)

The best example I can give of clear and accessible writing is this very good introductory series written by Hugo Holbling on my discussion board. Indeed,
Hugo’s pieces are excellent, for the newbie. However, were he to compile a book, it would be called “Introducing philosophy,” and would be for the general public. Those who are bitten by the philosophy bug won’t be satisfied with his works. While they will be intrigued by the summaries, they more than likely will read the original works for themselves, in order to gain a greater grasp of the subject. In addition, the other philosophers will be busy reading the original works in order to do scholarly work. Hugo is capable of writing original work, but in order to do that he must abandon the general public and sacrifice their aesthetic criteria to convey his thoughts. Read an article submitted for a peer review journal sometime; they aren’t full of 5-cent words that scare no one.

Priestly language may bore the most of us. Yet, one man’s junk is another’s art.

Bottom line: the defender of clear and distinct speech is relying on an aesthetic judgment, which is an impractical one for philosophical scholarship.

Some may not like to hear this, but popular works do more damage than most may think. They only appeal to the audience’s aesthetics, and if those aesthetics are in direct conflict with philosophy, then philosophy is sacrificed for some sacred cow. After all, not everyone is inspired to do history after reading Will Durant. They may appreciate it, and gain some sense of history, but unless they already have a desire for some kind of academic excellence… Durant becomes their authority of history and their understanding remains frozen at a bourgeoisie level.

Of course, introductory essays with clear writing will reach a greater audience. If someone wanted to appeal to fans of rap music, they would write in rap lyrics, and adopt the required gansta handle, gain street cred, and appeal to a certain sect of people. They would in turn be inspired to study philosophy until they achieved mastery of the technical terminology. There is nothing is wrong with this approach in itself. But since Hugo is appealing to a sect that does not engender to highbrow academic language at all, that would mean the odds of someone being “inspired” is slim to none. I speak with people who like rap or street music all the time and even though I am not using any foreign 20 dollar words, they are always saying the same thing: why don’t you talk real?” A deep and inherent distrust of “highbrow language” is far more problematic than a classical liberal is going to admit.

There are already popular works in philosophy, such as Matrix and Philosophy, Seinfeld and philosophy, Simpsons and philosophy, etc. So there are inroads being done by appealing to popular audiences’ common tastes. However, philosophy by default will always remain a hermetic discipline.

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