I must be doing something wrong.
Or: I must be doing something right.
The feeling’s the same on the edge.
To be doing something right
entails neglect if not the
doing-something-else-wrong
in some other parallax just as
in the same way paying
efficient attention generates
massive amounts of attention
deficit where attention might
rightly be paid. No no-doubt.
Doubt!
Attention Deficient?
But of course: how
else focus, efficient
for awhile?
I feel conflicted:
Is it because I am doing something
wrong or because I’m doing some
thing right? Feeling’s the same
either way. .
A phenomenologism of a former
student, artist & piano player again
and again recorded in class: I feel
conflicted she would observe, caught
in some double bind of on-the-one-
hand and on-the-other.
She wasn’t complaining: merely
acknowledging the agon (y): as a
fine arts major.
Righting/Wronging .
Writhing /Wrangling:
life along the edge:
what Melville
calls “wrestling with the angel Art.
I feel conflicted:
I must be doing it right/wrong—
where it was right, now wrong;
where wrong: now right, and
so it goes and goes. Right.
Wrong.
Any fine artist or athlete will find
this description candid and clear.
“I feel conflicted!”
Exactly.
To the Howard Cosells: a seeming
betrayal of levels, sacrificing rock
for the hard pace and who can say
if that’s right or if that’s wrong?
These distinctions aren’t transparent
and the feeling of conflict makes
perfectly good sense if the rush
to determine, blame-explain,
lay down reasons why,
scapegoat because &
affect is deferred—
suspended..
Put off as long as possible.
Is rightness and wrongness really so black and white? To feel if actions are right or wrong there needs to be an objective, aim or criteria on which to found that judgement. The objective can be consciously known or not by the judge.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you wish to accomplish? Doesn't satisfaction with yourself spring from your accomplishments?
As you yourself have spoken, conflict leads to progress. Feelings of inner-confliction, your scruples, arise, of course, from your uncertainty. I'm unsure whether that is the only source, though.
Possibly you are unsure Mr. Scoville how you desire events to unfold? I think it is important to think about why and to what end.
I think a fine artist is resolute... even though they may not feel so themselves! Do you want to escape a feeling of confliction? There will always be decisions. Many people feel conflicted in how they approach and deal with them. Is that right or wrong?
I agree with you.
ReplyDeleteIt takes some goal to generate
Right & Wrong with regard to it.
And so, as you say: "right/wrong"
is like a cruise control system,
operating to regulate the progress.
Often, the "conflicted" feeling does not necessarily indicate right or wrong--just some crux, crossroads of decision: an
indeterminacy and uncertainty
that begs to be resolved.
It hurts. Because I'm doing
the right thing? Because I'm
doing the wrong thing?
Living on the edge can be characterized as living in unresolvable conflict.
I'm just trying to describe here. Not judge.
We love IT when it's black and
white. Often we will black&white
IT for our own certainty.
Sometimes we will just live in it--defer resolution, explanation.
Living in conflictedness. A fine art?
Thanks for your good observations.
Sam
I'm understanding better now what you are describing.
ReplyDeleteYou are reasoning that 'fine art' involves a suspension of prejudice, aren't you?
Uncertainty being described as a crossroads begging for a decision is a good way to illustrate the feeling of confliction. When confronted with choices there will always be ambivalence if bias is not involved. Then, is it possible, or even desirable, to live totally free from prejudice? It's obvious that experience helps one pick a direction. Uncertainty presents a problem, not a question.
Conflictions often have benefits, yet it must be observed that there is also many desirable benefits in a resolute, determined and peaceful mind... even from the artistic perspective. Do you think inner-confliction and uncertainty is soley the realm of the finest living artists? I do believe a truly comprehensive philosophy shelters some uncertainty, but if it is the most worthy-- to that I hold my tongue (In uncertainty? Ha, ha).
Is the pain in which you describe endured because it imparts a finer happiness? It's hard to be dogmatic about the subject of acquiring happiness. People are, by their stories, different in many ways.
I'm a little confused about the nature of your progress. I don't believe progress, like happiness, to be a universal concept, and there are different varieties of progression (societal, physical, mental, creative, monetary, &tc...). Is there are more worthy brand of progress uncertainty provides over that in which the black&white endeavors to achieve?
Philosophy contains so many.. uncertainties.. that is a (the?) fine reason why not to play dogmatically, yes? For, there are so many shades.
A strong point that I would like to emphasize is bringing into question your notion 'living in conflictedness: a fine art'. Rather, my temperance (although I comprehend the angelic monster of Uncertitude) inclines me to posit intrinsic beauty in every design... even the B/W. Enjoy that each can reason, so long as he reasons without (testable) error & with the fine art of sincerity. What is held as most beautiful is for the philosopher to decide.
Living is an art, but verily does perpetual conflict make it finer?
Dear Steven,
ReplyDeleteFor the sake of argument (always: in academic mode, at least):
let’s say fine art is a suspension of prejudice, bias, belief, conviction.
Coleridge describe “genius” in these terms: willful suspension
of disbelief (and belief!).
At the same time: let’s also say: it’s impossible to suspend
prejudice, bias, belief, conviction.
Now we have a problem. A confliction.
Can we do justice (maintain the truth) of BOTH of those assertions?
Necessity.
Impossibility.
And would one—anyone—achieve a certain kind of “progress” in
incorporating both of those truths, without sacrificing or slighting
one or the other?
Would that be a finer art than merely fine art?
Certainty on the one hand.
Uncertainty on the other hand
& let both hands clap,
otherwise it’s just
the sound of
one.
Thanks for your excellent
& provocative comment
Best, Sam
I think Samuel Coleridge's statement, although it is well founded, is not a consummate definition of what characterizes genius. The definition provided by Mr. Coleridge sketches genius to be something easily acquired or discarded-- as a hat. Is that really all that is requisite for something as renown as genius? Indeed, if every man, woman as well as child (!) suspended their beliefs & disbeliefs... would humanity be diefied? Would all become ingenious if they only solemnly forced themselves to discard their inherent feelings? ...To me, that sounds terrible! I would pity the children of that diefied world whom were brought-up without hope or fear... yet there would of course be positives as well, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteI believe the impossibility of total belief suspension overrules Coleridge: they are not equally valid assertions. I question that Coleridge is completely comprehensive; therefore I think finer progress upon incorporation of these abstract concepts, a clap, violates it's own wishes by ultimately and enevitably dishonoring Coleridge. To assert that the progress is 'finer' would be biased. Doesn't bias hide in every appraisal or appreciation?
Suppose one succeeded in suspending their prejudices 100% (as Coleridge would like), then all art would have the same value (equivalent to at all)--so long fine art! It's impossible to define fine art as "a suspension of prejudice, bias, belief, conviction", for such a statement cruely ignores emotion, as well as passion, which is art's domain.
Sympathy & inspirational effect influence most highly a person's evaluation of art... this point of view (while it is most likely imperfect, though not without insight) suggests judgement of an art's worth is mostly sympathetic (i.e. biased). I think Coleridge forgets about creativity in his definition of genius. In all varieties of genius (a person can have qualities of genius in certain areas without being 'a genius') significant creativity is exercised.
I don't think the conflict you are speaking of here can exist.
To circuit back... Do you still think perpetual conflict makes for a finer living? Your ideas on conflict (inner and outer?) are intriguing. Does conflict always bring progress (I'm flooded with examples, but I'm not sure(a conflict))?
I think we are being somewhat slovenly in our large generalizations of the abstracted notion 'art' as well as 'progress'--obscuring the clarity of the discussion. We each may harbor a different idea and may not be speaking of the same things.... Yet, I feel overall the weather of understanding is progressing into a clearer and brighter state. It's better when there are two.
Another popular literary definition of genius is
ReplyDeleteF. Scott Fitzgerald’s:
the ability to hold two
radically different
(oppositional) ideas
in mind at the same time.
Imagine the feeling of conflicted-ness.
Neils Bohr, the Nobel
Prize winning physicist,
observes: the opposite
of a profound truth is
another profound truth.
the opposite of a
trivial truth is a
contradiction.
What would be a consummate characterization of genius?
The word didn’t carry so much “renown” prior to the 20th c.
For Emerson and preceding
folk: genius meant one’s
individual spirit, identity, tutelary guide, muse.
Plato called it his
“idios daemon.” That
which is unique, individual, personal, private (“idios”)
for each one—realized:
that’s “genius.”
Bias, Belief, Prejudice, Conviction: 4 different
terms for the same thing:
a filter that filters
experience and
attention-efficiency/
deficiency.
KNOWING one’s filters
(as opposed to not) might contribute to one’s “genius.”
Not to annihilate, or deny,
or cover-up: but to turn up
& put it on the table of perception—my bias &
beliefs, suspending
their unconscious
impact & influence.
But it hurts.
It’s an act of
cerebral/affective
Gold’s Gym, say.An
exercise, practice.
Conflict.
Let us acknowledge
our slovenly- ness,
our generalizations,
our inadequacies, the
awkwardness and
imprecision—keeping
our limits in mind—-
above board.
And then proceed best
we can to represent and characterize these “ideas.”
See what we can see—but
always knowing it’s shadows
on our cave wall.
Best, Sam
That is a wonderfully written and clear reply, Sam. I appreciate your discussion. Sincerely do I anticipate working with you directly in the future while sharing the predominatly pleasant fun of times. . . .
ReplyDeleteCheers, Steven