From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #130 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Thursday, June 8 2000 Volume 02 : Number 130 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Theory_vs._experience ["Jennifer Stevenson" ] demonic possession [Kathleen Woodbury ] m/For the postmodernist [klh@technologist.com] Re: m/For the postmodernist ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: m/For the postmodernist [meredith ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 09:13:24 -0500 From: "Jennifer Stevenson" Subject: Theory_vs._experience Don, you write, > One last time. If you observe a human being behaving a certain way > in a certain context, and extrapolate her behavior in a different > context (say, by portraying it in a work of fiction), to me that > means you operate according to an implicit, maybe even unconscious, > "psychological theory." But if you refuse to call it a theory, I > can't make you. I can't agree about the psychological theory. I've =been= a psychologist, in a half-assed kind of way, and I know the limitations of theory. We learned a dozen of 'em in school. My point is: Theory is not a substructure supporting or interpenetrating experience; it is a thin layer of order imposed =after the fact= over experience that functions as a tool for manipulating its aftershocks. This is where you guys who spend more time theorizing than experiencing, pardon my gratuitous insult, go wrong. The smartest shrink I know says that when you come up against experience of a profound or boat-rocking nature, it is important to FEEL IT. Don't rush to name it, compartmentalize it, limit it, or even to decide if it's bad or good. Her watchword is, "Tolerate the ambiguity." This is something I've said before in the context of magic. Dion Fortune says that the magician can hold two different and even contradictory images/ideas in her head and "recognize the distinction without making it." When you can do this, either "tolerating the ambituity" or "recognizing distinction without making it", then, on a level that is far, far away from intellect and logic and theory, you =experience= a =blending=. The things that seem dissonant or difficult or even painful swirl around down there in the dark underbelly of the brain and they do something interesting, something that isn't possible when too much thinking is going on. So much for experience. Later you write, > For the audience/critic--to me the same thing! I don't think so! How many times have you reported a concert in your topic, saying, "I didn't think about the music, I just experienced it as this [physical and emotional rush]"? Sorry if I'm taking that out of context, but I don't think it loses in this case. As for art, it is composed largely on that same layer of the self, not in the theory part of the brain. And art-as-presented is =experienced= all over again by lots of people who don't theorize about it at all; they experience it--read it, watch it, listen to it. You may be looking for the psychological theory that matches (if any theory can match) the artist's mindset, but that is a =critic= thing to do. Not an audience thing to do. Not an artist thing to do. Nor is it experience, qua experience. Example of "recognizing the distinction without making it"-- Psychological theory is an attempt to impose order after-the-fact on experience. Art is also an attempt to impose order on experience, which includes attempting to recreate the experience in an orderly context. Art however is not theory. Nor does the artist have theory in mind when she makes the art. Theory is too thin and too rigid to contain experience. Art is often barely big enough to evoke experience. Here's your paragraph again: > One last time. If you observe a human being behaving a certain way > in a certain context, and extrapolate her behavior in a different > context (say, by portraying it in a work of fiction), to me that > means you operate according to an implicit, maybe even unconscious, > "psychological theory." But if you refuse to call it a theory, I > can't make you. Talking about these things as you have been doing, Don, is pretty much exactly what I'm talking about--"recognizing the distinction"--but I don't think you're acknowledging that you're not making the distinction. You can recognize the applicability of the theory; good; grand. That doesn't mean that the artist is putting it in there, nor that the artist is operating according to the theory. Theories coalesce; they happen out of lots of people's thinking along the same lines at the same time; one or two guys verbalize the theory and the rest say "yeah that's right." If it weren't for all those other people thinking along the same lines, then the theory-as-verbalized-by-those-two-guys would fall flat on its face and nobody would even know it had been theorized. BUT. When two guys speak for a multitude, the lines-thought-along get reduced. They get, pardon me, dumbed down. It's like when a sitcom distills an entire decade's worth of response to a particular type of complex experience into "fuggedaboudit." We all laugh. And it's true, as far as it goes. The experience, even the sitcom, is not "operating on" the theory. The theory may be successful at imposing order on the experience, but not everybody likes that kind of order, and everybody has parts of their experience that are somehow shaved off and dumbed down by reducing it to fit inside the theory. As a joke it's successful. As a structure or even an explanation for life it lacks something. Personally I think that you, Don, are more willing to apply theory in a broad, inclusive way, rather than a reductive way. I think you actually DO do this "recognizing the distinction without making it" thing. But you don't always say it as precisely as that. It's like using the = sign instead of oh I dunno the ~ to say "corresponds." Look at me, I'm splitting hairs as bad as you guys now. When I'm supposed to be writing! I had marked a lot more of your post & David's to respond to, but I have to turn a story in on the tenth and I haven't even got the whole idea down yet. Thanks for giving me something fun to do instead anyway. - -Jennifer ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 13:31:44 -0600 From: Kathleen Woodbury Subject: demonic possession Donald G. Keller: >The Slayer's power coming from demon possession is a weird and rather icky >idea, but it has a certain compelling resonance; it would make sense as a >parallel with a vampire's possessing demon. It also reverberates with the >old mythological idea that the warrior has as much in common with the >demons he fights as he does with those he protects; and with Indra, the >warrior-god in Hindu mythology, becoming a demon in Iranian mythology. And >there are all the debates with Faith and others about the Slayer's proper >behavior; and it certainly would follow up on the hint in that exchange >with Adam. I have a question that has been bugging me for a while. It has to do, sort of, with vampires being corpses possessed by demons. (I'd like to get it cleared up before we begin considering the idea of slayers being possessed by demons, too.) Question: what are zombies possessed by? (I'm thinking particularly of the guys in Zeppo.) Another kind of demon? Or the original body's soul turned evil, or what? (Those guys seemed to have been pretty bad before they died. Were they just themselves, only dead, or had they gotten worse?) Phaedre/Kathleen workshop@burgoyne.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 19:29:49 -0400 (EDT) From: klh@technologist.com Subject: m/For the postmodernist Was getting enthusiastic about this until I realised it probably starts in about three hours... SF area listers are reminding that tonight (7 June) is the opening of the "American Mavericks" series of SF Symphony. Tonight features works by All the Usual Suspects (Ives, Cage, Feldman, an actually listenable piee by Babbitt ("Philomel"), and Riley. The highlight for Kellerites should be that the Riley piece ("In C") adds the following note: "Audience members are invited to bring their own instruments and participate." Locals, if any, are referred to www.americanmavericks.com for more details on the series; reports would be appreciated. - --------------------------------------------------- Get free personalized email at http://iaf.iname.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2000 19:36:22 -0400 (EDT) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: m/For the postmodernist I have a ticket to this in my pocket. Will report tomorrow, you may be sure. On Wed, 7 Jun 2000 klh@technologist.com wrote: > Was getting enthusiastic about this until I realised it probably starts in about three hours... > SF area listers are reminding that tonight (7 June) is the opening of the "American Mavericks" series of SF Symphony. Tonight features works by All the Usual Suspects (Ives, Cage, Feldman, an actually listenable piee by Babbitt ("Philomel"), and Riley. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 20:00:41 -0400 From: meredith Subject: Re: m/For the postmodernist Hi! >The highlight for Kellerites should be that the Riley piece ("In C") adds the following note: "Audience members are invited to bring their own instruments and participate." It is a lot of fun. I had the privilege of being led in a performance of "In C" by Mr. Riley himself, back when I was in college. Music 109 (Introduction to Experimental Music) at Wesleyan was (and probably still is) taught by Alvin Lucier, who is somewhat of an experimental music luminary in his own right, and he would have his friends stop by from time to time. Riley was on campus to world-premiere a new piece, the title of which escapes me now, and after he did a dress rehearsal of it in our class we got to do "In C". IIRC, my instrument was my keychain, complete with panic whistle. :) Enjoy, David! +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #130 *****************************