On the Will to Ignorance, Familiarity, and the Temptation to
Submerge the Novel.
I was writing a poem with four stanzas. The last flourish of
detail that I embellished the poem with was actually the defining point
(literally) of the poem: A period at the end of it.
This, coupled with the period at the end of the first
stanza, created an effect so unprecedented in its subtle Awe in my poetry that
I felt immediately compelled to shrink away from it. The voice of the Familiar
tried to seduce me: I should move the period to the end of the third stanza,
where it would fall into the neat pattern of the conventional rhyme scheme:
A.B.A.B.
The Familiar appeared, as had the devil to Christ, in the
form of three temptations:
1.
That of the Sciencist. (The follower of
Scientism).
2.
That of the Empiricist.
3.
That of Common Sense and Practicality.
The Sciencist spoke first. He said that I could only know,
for certain, where the period belonged by testing both forms, and then choosing
the one that felt best. Yet this stands in contradiction to the Scientific
Method. I will use two Scientific studies to prove this thesis.
The first is Carl Jung’s study of the Two Types of Thinking.
The second is Daniel Gilbert’s theory of the Two Types of Happiness. I will
delineate the latter, having thoroughly all ready depicted the former.
Daniel Gilbert said that human beings, having been proven to
do so by studies he had conducted in Harvard, experience two distinct types of
happiness that he could identify. The one was what he called Natural Happiness.
The other was called Synthesised Happiness.
The former (Natural Happiness) is experienced when one “gets
what one wants”. The mentality of seeking to repeat what had been satisfactory
hitherto takes places predominantly in the frontal lobe. The frontal lobe,
Daniel Gilbert asserts, is capable of projecting an outcome onto the future
based upon the experiences of the past that had been identified as good and
which had made one ostensibly happy. When individuals seek a desired outcome,
they act according to the extrapolations of the past onto the future that the
frontal lobe is responsible for. However, there are problems inherent in this.
When an individual seeks a desired outcome, he or she limits his or her own
capacity for experiencing new phenomena. For this reason, Daniel Gilbert says that the
ability to choose between variables, whilst it is in service of Natural
Happiness, is the opponent of Synthesised Happiness.
Synthesised Happiness is what occurs when one does not get
what one wants, but one adapts to an unexpected situation. This is no mere
alternative or saving grace in the event of failure. It is essential in the
process of breaking out of old habits.
Yet there are situations wherein the freedom to choose is constructive. The artist may render a poem or other work in one fashion and then return to it and change it without any ghost of recrimination or frustration. This is because what is at work is not the will towards Natural Happiness but that which is the source of Synthesised Happiness: The Unconscious.
Jung's dichotomy of Directed Thinking and Non-directed thinking becomes important at this point. He attributes Directed Thinking to Consciousness and the ego, and he attributes Non-directed thinking to the Unconscious. One might say that Daniel Gilbert's Natural Happiness is analogous to Directed Thinking, to Consciousness, and to the ego. On the other hand, Non-directed thinking would correlate more accurately to the process of Intuition which is at work in the Synthesis of Happiness.
One is reminded of a quote oft attributed to Albert Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a rare gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a culture that honors the servant and forgets the gift." A further algebraic parallel could be drawn to the dichotomy of Neville and Malfoy. Neville Longbottom, judging by his name, is the modern personification of the Intuitive hind-brain as it had been understood by the medieval alchemists. He is representative of the Medulla Oblongata. Draco Malfoy, on the opposite hand, is representative of the Rational fore-brain. This is why his surname mmeans "Bad Faith". Neville is obviously analogous to the capacity for Synthesised Happiness. He is clumsy and does not strive for his own end. Yet Malfoy is representative of the very Bad Faith that Daniel Gilbert warns us against. It is also because of the symbolism of Malfoy's character that he is depicted in the films as having a large forehead.
Here I will extend this dichotomy of Rational and Intuitive to the realm of Artistic creation. Where the superior form of my poem (the one that ended with a period) was the product of the Unconscious, of the Intuitive mind, and Non-directed Thinking, I might say that what was in effect was the process of INSPIRATION. On the other hand, when I saw tempted to preserve a style which was more generic or orthodox, what was at work was the ego, the Rational mind, Directed thinking, and therefore what I will define as CONTRIVANCE.
A CONTRIVED emotion is always of an inferior quality to an INSPIRED one. This can be seen simply because both Non-directed thinking and Directed thinking can be experienced at the same moment. This allows, in one singular point in time, for one to make a comparison between the two functions and to discern that the former is inferior to the latter -- what wells up from the Unconscious is always Superior to what is created by the process of MANIPULATION.
In comes the Empiricist. The Sciencist taps out, and the Empiricist takes up the Sciencist's mantle. The Empiricist asserts that, even if I am totally convinced that the Inspired form is collosally, if not astronomically Superior to the Contrived, I must give each an equal audience. If I had settled upon the former and allowed it several days to take root in my psyche and to "sit on my desk", as it were, I should also forsake it for its "brother" and now seek, to the best of my ability and device, to apportion the same degree of time and impartial objectivity to the Contrived form. Only then, when I have approached it with as little bias as possible, could I make the assertion that one is superior or inferior to the other. I may, he also would say, find that the Contrived is the Superior.
Yet again there is a fallacy in this, which is more subtle. One problem is that what the empricist is tempting me towards is egoic inflation. He is, as it were, tempting me to paint the tree red to prove that it is red. Yet I will assert that his greatest fallacy is in presuming that I should find "something better" by this method. I will now coin the term "The Fallacy of the Unprecedented Joy". This fallacy we commit when we make statement "I am happier now than I had ever been before in my entire Life". Although it is a moving pathos, it is fundamentally illogical, and not only illogical but misleading, a probable outcome of our own inflation. The truth is that, no matter how moving a present passion is, one can never fairly say that it is of a superior or inferior quality to one that has all ready run its course. Since passions arise from the Unconscious, they are a product of Non-directed Thinking. This means that they cannot be controlled, cannot be repeated (although we may entertain the illusion that we are in control of them, such as in the temptation of romantic infatuation), and therefore pass the capacity for analysis. Even if another, a second, passion should well up in the process of experimentation, which is what the Empiricist insists upon, and even if the ego were possessed, by virtue of this passion and in response to its seduction, of the illusion that this passion is "greater" than the one that appeared at the conception of the poem and which came to fruition and acceptance with time, this would be a fallacy because there IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT. Since we cannot control the passions that well up from the Unconscious, we have no rightful authority in saying that one is Superior or Inferior to another.
And here enters the voice of Common Sense in its attempts to assuage me. It argues that, if what I had just asserted were true, then I should have no way of knowing that the second passion is INFERIOR to the first, and there rests no reason for me not to test it. Yet the reason that I would not perform the Empiricist's experiment would be that I would, from the moment I consented to that temptation, be guilty to affirming a value which was Old and effacing a value that was New. There may very well BE a moving passion to do this, and with it would come inflation, yet I would be sacrificing the capacity to love this Inspired form of the poem (the one that ends with a period). What I KNOW is not that this Inspiration is SUPERIOR to any form of Inspiration that might ensue, but that it is NOVEL. Though my opponent may argue that to resist the temptation to experiment is to resist the novel and that of finding something new, what I argue is that even if what I were to find WERE new, I should have no way of knowing that it is better or worse than the prior experience, and yet I have every reason to suspect that it would not be new at all but would merely APPEAR new by virtue of egoic inflation.
dm.A.A.
Yet there are situations wherein the freedom to choose is constructive. The artist may render a poem or other work in one fashion and then return to it and change it without any ghost of recrimination or frustration. This is because what is at work is not the will towards Natural Happiness but that which is the source of Synthesised Happiness: The Unconscious.
Jung's dichotomy of Directed Thinking and Non-directed thinking becomes important at this point. He attributes Directed Thinking to Consciousness and the ego, and he attributes Non-directed thinking to the Unconscious. One might say that Daniel Gilbert's Natural Happiness is analogous to Directed Thinking, to Consciousness, and to the ego. On the other hand, Non-directed thinking would correlate more accurately to the process of Intuition which is at work in the Synthesis of Happiness.
One is reminded of a quote oft attributed to Albert Einstein: "The intuitive mind is a rare gift. The rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a culture that honors the servant and forgets the gift." A further algebraic parallel could be drawn to the dichotomy of Neville and Malfoy. Neville Longbottom, judging by his name, is the modern personification of the Intuitive hind-brain as it had been understood by the medieval alchemists. He is representative of the Medulla Oblongata. Draco Malfoy, on the opposite hand, is representative of the Rational fore-brain. This is why his surname mmeans "Bad Faith". Neville is obviously analogous to the capacity for Synthesised Happiness. He is clumsy and does not strive for his own end. Yet Malfoy is representative of the very Bad Faith that Daniel Gilbert warns us against. It is also because of the symbolism of Malfoy's character that he is depicted in the films as having a large forehead.
Here I will extend this dichotomy of Rational and Intuitive to the realm of Artistic creation. Where the superior form of my poem (the one that ended with a period) was the product of the Unconscious, of the Intuitive mind, and Non-directed Thinking, I might say that what was in effect was the process of INSPIRATION. On the other hand, when I saw tempted to preserve a style which was more generic or orthodox, what was at work was the ego, the Rational mind, Directed thinking, and therefore what I will define as CONTRIVANCE.
A CONTRIVED emotion is always of an inferior quality to an INSPIRED one. This can be seen simply because both Non-directed thinking and Directed thinking can be experienced at the same moment. This allows, in one singular point in time, for one to make a comparison between the two functions and to discern that the former is inferior to the latter -- what wells up from the Unconscious is always Superior to what is created by the process of MANIPULATION.
In comes the Empiricist. The Sciencist taps out, and the Empiricist takes up the Sciencist's mantle. The Empiricist asserts that, even if I am totally convinced that the Inspired form is collosally, if not astronomically Superior to the Contrived, I must give each an equal audience. If I had settled upon the former and allowed it several days to take root in my psyche and to "sit on my desk", as it were, I should also forsake it for its "brother" and now seek, to the best of my ability and device, to apportion the same degree of time and impartial objectivity to the Contrived form. Only then, when I have approached it with as little bias as possible, could I make the assertion that one is superior or inferior to the other. I may, he also would say, find that the Contrived is the Superior.
Yet again there is a fallacy in this, which is more subtle. One problem is that what the empricist is tempting me towards is egoic inflation. He is, as it were, tempting me to paint the tree red to prove that it is red. Yet I will assert that his greatest fallacy is in presuming that I should find "something better" by this method. I will now coin the term "The Fallacy of the Unprecedented Joy". This fallacy we commit when we make statement "I am happier now than I had ever been before in my entire Life". Although it is a moving pathos, it is fundamentally illogical, and not only illogical but misleading, a probable outcome of our own inflation. The truth is that, no matter how moving a present passion is, one can never fairly say that it is of a superior or inferior quality to one that has all ready run its course. Since passions arise from the Unconscious, they are a product of Non-directed Thinking. This means that they cannot be controlled, cannot be repeated (although we may entertain the illusion that we are in control of them, such as in the temptation of romantic infatuation), and therefore pass the capacity for analysis. Even if another, a second, passion should well up in the process of experimentation, which is what the Empiricist insists upon, and even if the ego were possessed, by virtue of this passion and in response to its seduction, of the illusion that this passion is "greater" than the one that appeared at the conception of the poem and which came to fruition and acceptance with time, this would be a fallacy because there IS NO WAY TO PROVE IT. Since we cannot control the passions that well up from the Unconscious, we have no rightful authority in saying that one is Superior or Inferior to another.
And here enters the voice of Common Sense in its attempts to assuage me. It argues that, if what I had just asserted were true, then I should have no way of knowing that the second passion is INFERIOR to the first, and there rests no reason for me not to test it. Yet the reason that I would not perform the Empiricist's experiment would be that I would, from the moment I consented to that temptation, be guilty to affirming a value which was Old and effacing a value that was New. There may very well BE a moving passion to do this, and with it would come inflation, yet I would be sacrificing the capacity to love this Inspired form of the poem (the one that ends with a period). What I KNOW is not that this Inspiration is SUPERIOR to any form of Inspiration that might ensue, but that it is NOVEL. Though my opponent may argue that to resist the temptation to experiment is to resist the novel and that of finding something new, what I argue is that even if what I were to find WERE new, I should have no way of knowing that it is better or worse than the prior experience, and yet I have every reason to suspect that it would not be new at all but would merely APPEAR new by virtue of egoic inflation.
dm.A.A.
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