Donny the Punk
02-19-2006, 01:15 PM
There are few things I value so much as good writing, both for the sake of creating moving literature and clearly communicating complex ideas without dumbing them down. I see little of it these days, which is odd considering that writing and the concomitant availability of things to read have never been so widespread as they are today. One would think - or at least hope - that both refinement and greatly improved expression would accompany so much practise, but this optimistic yet legitimate expectation is belied by two general trends in modern prose: first, that as it is increasingly made to conform to formulaic ideals about proper argumentative structure, it loses all elegance; second, that the explanation of complicated ideas is being confused and sometimes rendered incomprehensible by excess of technical cant. Much of this has to do with what's being written about in addition to how it's being written. All of it, though, has to do with the current state of North American education.
Antagonism between the arts and sciences can no longer be called a recent phenomenon, though I clearly see its intensity manifested in ways far more powerful than the excited polemics between Naturalists and Romantics two centuries ago. It's not so much the antagonism that remains as the divide. More than simply being streamed into one discipline or the other, students are finding that they can only excel at the one at the expense of its opposite since each is described by its teachers as having irreconcilable goals and methods. Science, the pursuit of empirical truths through experimentation; arts, the exploration of human truths through subjective experience. By the time they've reached the university level, the two groups have begun deriding one another for what they cannot themselves accomplish and both go home feeling smug. I cannot number the arts students I have met who joined the programme because they weren't capable of dealing with facts and figures, nor the budding engineers and scientists whose ideas are rendered completely obtuse by pitiful communication. It's not a paucity of intrinsic talent that's to blame; the inability to understand the endocrine system or the proper use of blank verse is greatly exacerbated by disassociation from and unfamiliarity with those concepts over extended periods of time. In other words, the schism is self-perpetuating thanks to the marshalling of students into increasingly specialised educational paths from an early age (as early as fourteen, now). Moreover, those who do not wish to put extra effort into disciplines which fall outside the entrance requirements of their desired university programmes (a tempting prospect when lower grades as a result of struggling with the material may affect post-secondary opportunities) may elect to take remedial equivalents and graduate with no ill effect on their futures.
This is not all, however, as specialisation within related fields has also extended itself and become more refined, further disconnecting students and intellectuals from one another. This is most obvious in the sciences, where evolutionary genetics and botanical conservation, though both falling under the rubric of biology, have little common ground save Darwin. Interestingly, the same phenomenon is occurring in the study of the arts under the heading of 'schools of theory' which seek to establish their independence and authority by increasing the divergence between one another. I raise this point largely to discuss the use of language within the meta-discipline. To take English as an example, contrast post-colonial 'discourse' with, say, structuralist interpretation of literature. Both can seemingly discuss an identical text (Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' to use a perennial example) and yet never raise a similar point, nor even seem to be referring to the same work. The former would speak of the 'irreconcilable Manichean dialectic between coloniser and colonised' along with the expected response of 'Négritude' as a form of cultural rebellion defining the principal action of the plot. The latter would discuss the Africans and Europeans only in terms of their 'synchronic' relationships with one another's societies and how those mould individuals within them according to 'Straussian archetypes', as well as the work as a whole in comparison to similarly 'scaffolded' works such as M.K. Gandhi's autobiography. In both cases, the theory is utterly disconnected from the work under consideration, which reflects the condition of the obscurantist and esoteric language being used by both sides. Without reference to concrete realities, language ceases to communicate anything meaningful to anyone but those whose only frame of reference is provided by immersion in the school which informs the vocabulary. This sums up the problem we face: that despite our increase in knowledge, we have no means to share it with one another.
Why has this occurred? Such often self-important cloistering is a consequence of the idea that specialisation within a very narrow category of research is always a superior form of knowledge to more general studies. This is implicitly reflected in the structure of university education, where masters degrees and doctorates are defined by their focus while bachelor degrees plod far below in the mélange of ecumenical studies. There is no such thing as a Renaissance man any more, not so much because of its unattainability as because it is no longer a valued quality. Those with the rare gift of being able to juggle two seemingly unrelated faculties with equal dexterity are given a fractured name – historian/chemist, mathematician/philosopher – which reflects the perceived divide between categories on either side of the intellectual chasm. Yet the fallacious implication of this assumption is that the acquisition of knowledge must come at the expense of other knowledge; that focus on what is not strictly contained within the discipline bereaves the individual from his work and somehow diminishes him in comparison to his more dedicated colleagues. Ironic that a broader perspective should be considered restrictive.
It has been argued that due to the passage of time, it's not possible to learn everything about everything and that unlike the polymath prodigies of old, we in the 21st century have much more information to acquire before being able to get on with our work. After all, Newton's calculus is being taught to teenagers. This assumes that information and knowledge (specifically, the manipulation of that information in creative ways) are the same thing. Rarely is significant insight produced within a vacuum, and a couple examples may suffice to demonstrate. We have been helpfully disabused of the long-held notion that science is an ever progressing accretion of knowledge adding to a massive edifice of truth by writers Thomas Kuhn and (to a lesser extent) Stephen Jay Gould. These and others like them have argued that science, like any other activity, cannot be divorced either from the society or the human beings who create it. Progress is rather defined by 'paradigms' which shift violently, producing scientific revolution when they do. My favourite instance of scientific misapprehension is Lamarckian evolutionary theory, which argued that inherited traits could be developed and modified through use (i.e. that a father who spent his time building large arm muscles would pass on the large arm muscle trait to his offspring).
In the arts, the new religion is post-modernism, a sterile nihilism that denies the objective reality of anything and undermines itself by devaluing the study of that which makes the arts so precious: art itself. T.S. Eliot provides what I believe to be the best description of this sort of thought in an essay criticising Hamlet for being boring and predictable(!): “Qua work of art, the work of art cannot be interpreted; there is nothing to interpret; we can only criticize it according to standards, in comparison to other works of art; and for 'interpretation' the chief task is the presentation of relevant historical facts which the reader is not assumed to know.” Note the similarities to the abstruse use of self-referential language in literary theory above. To adapt this philosophy to the creative act of writing prose or poetry, for example, is to deny that language has any significance of its own and that the products of invention merely reflect a series of historical and cultural confluences over which the author has no control. It does not study literature or art for the sake of anything tangible within it, but only as a prism through which to view its historical context and a mirror for viewing other art in strict comparison. The art itself has become transparent and has practically ceased to exist.
Specialisation in both these cases I would define as a lack of reference to matters outside the strict constraints of the discipline. Counter-intuitively, rather than nurturing the pursuit of truth and excellence through expertise in one particular field, single-minded dedication has tended to divorce work from the content that may be most useful to it. In addition, it has made it impossible for experts and their students to find common ground upon which to discuss matters that are very relevant to one another. These are the best arguments we have for an increased emphasis upon interdisciplinary studies, not only as a bridge between two mutually incomprehensible fields, but as a worthwhile curriculum of its own. Philosophers of science have shown us that due to the principal importance placed on genetic explanations for diseases, research about significant external causes of conditions such as cancer have been sorely neglected and may be untapped mines of information. Historians who have embraced studies beyond the scope of the standard retelling of history, such as sociology and anthropology, have founded the Annales School, redefining the way we view our past. Chester Wilmont's assiduous investigation of politics allowed him to write a military history of the Second World War which would become the template for every future attempt.
Communication and the eradication of linguistic and philosophical barriers between separate fields of study is a mainstay of interdisciplinary work. Unsurprisingly, this relates back to the use of English, the catholic (small 'c') use of which can perhaps be considered the greatest of all interdisciplinary projects. The fact that it has not yet obtained this goal is principally a problem of education. An essay, as Montaigne inadvertently defined it, is the exploration of an idea. I have yet to meet the high school student, learning to write formal essays, who has ever heard of Montaigne, much less read his work. The essay as it is now practised has ceased to be a meandering investigation of the mind's ability to toy with a concept curiously and bemusedly in order to draw some conclusions from its observation and application. Today, the essay has become an exercise in demonstration, a written article of proof designed to uphold a definite assertion. Its cousin is the scientific paper from which is has drawn all its modern inspiration. The purpose of scientific publication, after it was formalised by the Royal Society, was to provide a standard format in which to present scientific findings, largely to reflect the objectivity of the endeavour. It began with a hypothesis, described experiments and the evidence drawn therefrom and made a conclusion. The modern-day essay begins with a hypothesis (or thesis), proceeds to recount evidence derived from observation to support it, and ends with a conclusion affirming the point. Even the objective tone is retained with the abolition of all personal pronouns to create the artificial weight of authority. Consequently, the essay is no longer an exploration or a creative invention of intellect; it has become a vehicle for proving a statement. This I ascribe to the rising popularity of science both as a means and a goal, and the desire of those in the non-scientific world to catch up using the same methods.
Given its radical transformation, it is hardly surprising that the essay's language has changed, as well. Vanished, along with the personal pronoun, is the florid description and evocatively scintillating prose that evinces subjectivity and a personal take on matters and which has so richened our literature. Dickens and Dumas may have been getting paid by the word, but they took advantage of such prodigality to turn phrases in beautiful and elegant fashion, exciting the senses and the imagination. Instead we see such dull and trite clichés as “is evidenced by” and “therefore, we can conclude” endlessly repeated, both numbing the reader and creating much of the boredom and “what's the point?” attitude within the students writing the things. We may fault Gibbon for his (rare) inaccuracies, but never for his style. One describes Shakespeare in terms of punning and metre, allusion and metaphor, but he is understood with feelings of love, of betrayal, of inspiration. To ask someone to appreciate great writing by noting its technical details of composition is putting the cart in front of the horse. Love of literature should engender the desire for deeper understanding. This is why cinematic productions of Shakespeare are so useful; they don't affect to dissect and analyse every nuance of the play, they endeavour to express it instead. Kenneth's Branagh's rousing at the name of Crispian and Al Pacino's chokingly angry and indignant 'hath a Jew not eyes?' speech are the essence of drama, not counting the number of foreshadowings in a scene. As a result of this mistaken methodology, we end up with staccato sentences which only exist to drive the thesis, offering nothing redeeming or interesting in and of themselves. English is debased and given the role of sumpter-mule.
A like poverty is reflected in modern fiction and poetry, where words and sentences have become strictly vehicles for plots, containing no meaning of their own. The DaVinci Code is a perfect example of this, but the instance can be seen in other, more dramatic ways as well. Consider translations of poetry into English across different times. Let's look at different versions of Petrarch's sonnet 189, since it is one of his better known and most popularly translated. An attempt by Thomas Bergin, in nineteenth century fashion, reads as follows:
Charged with oblivion my ship careers
Through stormy combers in the depth of night;
Left lies Charybdis, Scylla to the right;
My master – nay my foe sits aft and steers.
Wild fancies ply the oars, mad mutineers,
Reckless of journey's end or tempest's might;
The canvas splits 'gainst the relentless spite
Of blasts of hopes and sighs and anxious fears.
A rain of tears, a blinding mist of wrath
Drench and undo the cordage, long since worn
And fouled in knots of ignorance and error;
The two sweet lights are lost that showed my path,
Reason and art lie 'neath the waves forlon:
“What hope of harbour now?” I cry in terror.
Compare that to an avowedly modern translation by David Young:
My galley, loaded with forgetfulness,
rolls through rough seas, at midnight, during winter,
aiming between Charybdis and sharp Scylla;
my lord, ah no, my foe, sits at the tiller;
each oar is wielded by a quick, mad thought
that seems to scorn the storm and what it means;
an endless wind of moisture, of deep sighs,
of hopes and passions, rips the sail in half;
tears in a steady downpour, mists of hate,
are loosening and soaking all the ropes,
ropes made of ignorance, tangled up with error.
The two sweet stars I steer by are obscured;
reason and skill are dead amid the waves;
and I don't think I'll ever see the port.
It should be evident which is the superior prosody. The latter, Young, describes his as an attempt to capture the directness and energy of the original, not realising that whatever his concepts of those two things in English, they are necessarily anachronistic in relation to the Old Italian, and that they can only reflect his ability to use the language evocatively. He fails, not only because he abandons Petrarch's rhyme scheme (due to what he admits is excess complication) and his metre is inconsistent and jarring, but also because his diction reflects the penury of language in his soul. As he puts it, “it is a scholar's translation.”
All of these concepts, like the composition of this largely abstract piece, are related in subtle ways the mind delights in discovering. It is the interplay between complex ideas that so fascinates us about life, and our ability to express them stirringly that fascinates us about each other. They're not the same thing, but they reflect the same ideal, which is understanding combined with elegance. These are just some personal reflexions based on my own experience, but hopefully they elicit the spirit of the personal essay's original form and purpose, an art that is sadly withering along with its few practitioners. It is encouraging to note, however, that thoughts still carry on in this philosophically related manner, bumping into one another and forming connexions without concerning themselves with the ultimate purpose, no matter how many constraints we place on our words and letters.
Antagonism between the arts and sciences can no longer be called a recent phenomenon, though I clearly see its intensity manifested in ways far more powerful than the excited polemics between Naturalists and Romantics two centuries ago. It's not so much the antagonism that remains as the divide. More than simply being streamed into one discipline or the other, students are finding that they can only excel at the one at the expense of its opposite since each is described by its teachers as having irreconcilable goals and methods. Science, the pursuit of empirical truths through experimentation; arts, the exploration of human truths through subjective experience. By the time they've reached the university level, the two groups have begun deriding one another for what they cannot themselves accomplish and both go home feeling smug. I cannot number the arts students I have met who joined the programme because they weren't capable of dealing with facts and figures, nor the budding engineers and scientists whose ideas are rendered completely obtuse by pitiful communication. It's not a paucity of intrinsic talent that's to blame; the inability to understand the endocrine system or the proper use of blank verse is greatly exacerbated by disassociation from and unfamiliarity with those concepts over extended periods of time. In other words, the schism is self-perpetuating thanks to the marshalling of students into increasingly specialised educational paths from an early age (as early as fourteen, now). Moreover, those who do not wish to put extra effort into disciplines which fall outside the entrance requirements of their desired university programmes (a tempting prospect when lower grades as a result of struggling with the material may affect post-secondary opportunities) may elect to take remedial equivalents and graduate with no ill effect on their futures.
This is not all, however, as specialisation within related fields has also extended itself and become more refined, further disconnecting students and intellectuals from one another. This is most obvious in the sciences, where evolutionary genetics and botanical conservation, though both falling under the rubric of biology, have little common ground save Darwin. Interestingly, the same phenomenon is occurring in the study of the arts under the heading of 'schools of theory' which seek to establish their independence and authority by increasing the divergence between one another. I raise this point largely to discuss the use of language within the meta-discipline. To take English as an example, contrast post-colonial 'discourse' with, say, structuralist interpretation of literature. Both can seemingly discuss an identical text (Chinua Achebe's 'Things Fall Apart' to use a perennial example) and yet never raise a similar point, nor even seem to be referring to the same work. The former would speak of the 'irreconcilable Manichean dialectic between coloniser and colonised' along with the expected response of 'Négritude' as a form of cultural rebellion defining the principal action of the plot. The latter would discuss the Africans and Europeans only in terms of their 'synchronic' relationships with one another's societies and how those mould individuals within them according to 'Straussian archetypes', as well as the work as a whole in comparison to similarly 'scaffolded' works such as M.K. Gandhi's autobiography. In both cases, the theory is utterly disconnected from the work under consideration, which reflects the condition of the obscurantist and esoteric language being used by both sides. Without reference to concrete realities, language ceases to communicate anything meaningful to anyone but those whose only frame of reference is provided by immersion in the school which informs the vocabulary. This sums up the problem we face: that despite our increase in knowledge, we have no means to share it with one another.
Why has this occurred? Such often self-important cloistering is a consequence of the idea that specialisation within a very narrow category of research is always a superior form of knowledge to more general studies. This is implicitly reflected in the structure of university education, where masters degrees and doctorates are defined by their focus while bachelor degrees plod far below in the mélange of ecumenical studies. There is no such thing as a Renaissance man any more, not so much because of its unattainability as because it is no longer a valued quality. Those with the rare gift of being able to juggle two seemingly unrelated faculties with equal dexterity are given a fractured name – historian/chemist, mathematician/philosopher – which reflects the perceived divide between categories on either side of the intellectual chasm. Yet the fallacious implication of this assumption is that the acquisition of knowledge must come at the expense of other knowledge; that focus on what is not strictly contained within the discipline bereaves the individual from his work and somehow diminishes him in comparison to his more dedicated colleagues. Ironic that a broader perspective should be considered restrictive.
It has been argued that due to the passage of time, it's not possible to learn everything about everything and that unlike the polymath prodigies of old, we in the 21st century have much more information to acquire before being able to get on with our work. After all, Newton's calculus is being taught to teenagers. This assumes that information and knowledge (specifically, the manipulation of that information in creative ways) are the same thing. Rarely is significant insight produced within a vacuum, and a couple examples may suffice to demonstrate. We have been helpfully disabused of the long-held notion that science is an ever progressing accretion of knowledge adding to a massive edifice of truth by writers Thomas Kuhn and (to a lesser extent) Stephen Jay Gould. These and others like them have argued that science, like any other activity, cannot be divorced either from the society or the human beings who create it. Progress is rather defined by 'paradigms' which shift violently, producing scientific revolution when they do. My favourite instance of scientific misapprehension is Lamarckian evolutionary theory, which argued that inherited traits could be developed and modified through use (i.e. that a father who spent his time building large arm muscles would pass on the large arm muscle trait to his offspring).
In the arts, the new religion is post-modernism, a sterile nihilism that denies the objective reality of anything and undermines itself by devaluing the study of that which makes the arts so precious: art itself. T.S. Eliot provides what I believe to be the best description of this sort of thought in an essay criticising Hamlet for being boring and predictable(!): “Qua work of art, the work of art cannot be interpreted; there is nothing to interpret; we can only criticize it according to standards, in comparison to other works of art; and for 'interpretation' the chief task is the presentation of relevant historical facts which the reader is not assumed to know.” Note the similarities to the abstruse use of self-referential language in literary theory above. To adapt this philosophy to the creative act of writing prose or poetry, for example, is to deny that language has any significance of its own and that the products of invention merely reflect a series of historical and cultural confluences over which the author has no control. It does not study literature or art for the sake of anything tangible within it, but only as a prism through which to view its historical context and a mirror for viewing other art in strict comparison. The art itself has become transparent and has practically ceased to exist.
Specialisation in both these cases I would define as a lack of reference to matters outside the strict constraints of the discipline. Counter-intuitively, rather than nurturing the pursuit of truth and excellence through expertise in one particular field, single-minded dedication has tended to divorce work from the content that may be most useful to it. In addition, it has made it impossible for experts and their students to find common ground upon which to discuss matters that are very relevant to one another. These are the best arguments we have for an increased emphasis upon interdisciplinary studies, not only as a bridge between two mutually incomprehensible fields, but as a worthwhile curriculum of its own. Philosophers of science have shown us that due to the principal importance placed on genetic explanations for diseases, research about significant external causes of conditions such as cancer have been sorely neglected and may be untapped mines of information. Historians who have embraced studies beyond the scope of the standard retelling of history, such as sociology and anthropology, have founded the Annales School, redefining the way we view our past. Chester Wilmont's assiduous investigation of politics allowed him to write a military history of the Second World War which would become the template for every future attempt.
Communication and the eradication of linguistic and philosophical barriers between separate fields of study is a mainstay of interdisciplinary work. Unsurprisingly, this relates back to the use of English, the catholic (small 'c') use of which can perhaps be considered the greatest of all interdisciplinary projects. The fact that it has not yet obtained this goal is principally a problem of education. An essay, as Montaigne inadvertently defined it, is the exploration of an idea. I have yet to meet the high school student, learning to write formal essays, who has ever heard of Montaigne, much less read his work. The essay as it is now practised has ceased to be a meandering investigation of the mind's ability to toy with a concept curiously and bemusedly in order to draw some conclusions from its observation and application. Today, the essay has become an exercise in demonstration, a written article of proof designed to uphold a definite assertion. Its cousin is the scientific paper from which is has drawn all its modern inspiration. The purpose of scientific publication, after it was formalised by the Royal Society, was to provide a standard format in which to present scientific findings, largely to reflect the objectivity of the endeavour. It began with a hypothesis, described experiments and the evidence drawn therefrom and made a conclusion. The modern-day essay begins with a hypothesis (or thesis), proceeds to recount evidence derived from observation to support it, and ends with a conclusion affirming the point. Even the objective tone is retained with the abolition of all personal pronouns to create the artificial weight of authority. Consequently, the essay is no longer an exploration or a creative invention of intellect; it has become a vehicle for proving a statement. This I ascribe to the rising popularity of science both as a means and a goal, and the desire of those in the non-scientific world to catch up using the same methods.
Given its radical transformation, it is hardly surprising that the essay's language has changed, as well. Vanished, along with the personal pronoun, is the florid description and evocatively scintillating prose that evinces subjectivity and a personal take on matters and which has so richened our literature. Dickens and Dumas may have been getting paid by the word, but they took advantage of such prodigality to turn phrases in beautiful and elegant fashion, exciting the senses and the imagination. Instead we see such dull and trite clichés as “is evidenced by” and “therefore, we can conclude” endlessly repeated, both numbing the reader and creating much of the boredom and “what's the point?” attitude within the students writing the things. We may fault Gibbon for his (rare) inaccuracies, but never for his style. One describes Shakespeare in terms of punning and metre, allusion and metaphor, but he is understood with feelings of love, of betrayal, of inspiration. To ask someone to appreciate great writing by noting its technical details of composition is putting the cart in front of the horse. Love of literature should engender the desire for deeper understanding. This is why cinematic productions of Shakespeare are so useful; they don't affect to dissect and analyse every nuance of the play, they endeavour to express it instead. Kenneth's Branagh's rousing at the name of Crispian and Al Pacino's chokingly angry and indignant 'hath a Jew not eyes?' speech are the essence of drama, not counting the number of foreshadowings in a scene. As a result of this mistaken methodology, we end up with staccato sentences which only exist to drive the thesis, offering nothing redeeming or interesting in and of themselves. English is debased and given the role of sumpter-mule.
A like poverty is reflected in modern fiction and poetry, where words and sentences have become strictly vehicles for plots, containing no meaning of their own. The DaVinci Code is a perfect example of this, but the instance can be seen in other, more dramatic ways as well. Consider translations of poetry into English across different times. Let's look at different versions of Petrarch's sonnet 189, since it is one of his better known and most popularly translated. An attempt by Thomas Bergin, in nineteenth century fashion, reads as follows:
Charged with oblivion my ship careers
Through stormy combers in the depth of night;
Left lies Charybdis, Scylla to the right;
My master – nay my foe sits aft and steers.
Wild fancies ply the oars, mad mutineers,
Reckless of journey's end or tempest's might;
The canvas splits 'gainst the relentless spite
Of blasts of hopes and sighs and anxious fears.
A rain of tears, a blinding mist of wrath
Drench and undo the cordage, long since worn
And fouled in knots of ignorance and error;
The two sweet lights are lost that showed my path,
Reason and art lie 'neath the waves forlon:
“What hope of harbour now?” I cry in terror.
Compare that to an avowedly modern translation by David Young:
My galley, loaded with forgetfulness,
rolls through rough seas, at midnight, during winter,
aiming between Charybdis and sharp Scylla;
my lord, ah no, my foe, sits at the tiller;
each oar is wielded by a quick, mad thought
that seems to scorn the storm and what it means;
an endless wind of moisture, of deep sighs,
of hopes and passions, rips the sail in half;
tears in a steady downpour, mists of hate,
are loosening and soaking all the ropes,
ropes made of ignorance, tangled up with error.
The two sweet stars I steer by are obscured;
reason and skill are dead amid the waves;
and I don't think I'll ever see the port.
It should be evident which is the superior prosody. The latter, Young, describes his as an attempt to capture the directness and energy of the original, not realising that whatever his concepts of those two things in English, they are necessarily anachronistic in relation to the Old Italian, and that they can only reflect his ability to use the language evocatively. He fails, not only because he abandons Petrarch's rhyme scheme (due to what he admits is excess complication) and his metre is inconsistent and jarring, but also because his diction reflects the penury of language in his soul. As he puts it, “it is a scholar's translation.”
All of these concepts, like the composition of this largely abstract piece, are related in subtle ways the mind delights in discovering. It is the interplay between complex ideas that so fascinates us about life, and our ability to express them stirringly that fascinates us about each other. They're not the same thing, but they reflect the same ideal, which is understanding combined with elegance. These are just some personal reflexions based on my own experience, but hopefully they elicit the spirit of the personal essay's original form and purpose, an art that is sadly withering along with its few practitioners. It is encouraging to note, however, that thoughts still carry on in this philosophically related manner, bumping into one another and forming connexions without concerning themselves with the ultimate purpose, no matter how many constraints we place on our words and letters.