D.
wrote: The question was not about art, or the role of art, but the
descriptive efficacy of ordinary language/folk psychology.
Fair
enough. The best way I can answer this accurate rebuttle is to try
and address the exact terms you have used in my own way. I hope this
eases things along and that our interactions can improve.
First:
I would have to say that "folk psychology", at face value,
is an oxymoron. Psychology is a science, and "folk",
generally speaking, does not refer to scientists and what they do. So
I have never cared for that phrase, which is why you won't catch me
saying, "we need more folk psychology, people!", while it
may appear that I actually am endorsing such a thing.
Now
here is the important part: while "folk psychology" doesn't
really make much sense with respect to the medical, and/or scientific
disciplines (at least so I believe), that does not therefore mean
that "folk", meaning people who are not scientists or
psychologists, are without relevant insights into the things
which professional people conduct research about, or without
intelligence, scrutiny, the capacity to reason, or the ability to
understand the way the world is. See? That's all I'm actually saying,
in a nutshell. I am not dissing science—that would be ludicrous! I
am defending us regular "folk" in a world where regular
"folk" desperately need defending against increasing
whackiness in government and academia.
My
apologies to those in and from places of higher learning. I am not
judging individuals when I make these comments, but things in
general, from the standpoint of an avid reader and observer who is
basically self-educated and has been since I got out of High School
knowing absolutely nothing. You don't have to attend universities or
colleges nowadays to get a fair handle on what is being taught to
people. The major institutions of higher learning have vast websites,
libraries, and data-bases which can be accessed by people who aren't
students, and YouTube and many other sites are choked with
videorecorded classes, lectures, debates, pdf documents of papers,
etc. Not that this is equal (of course not!) to being a student, or
anywhere near it, but an intelligent person can get an idea. And to
be honest, I've read some things being taught by professors to
impressionable young people that I find embarrassing, shameful, and
utterly absurd as an intelligent human being. I hope I don't have to
go into detail, but if I absolutely must, I suppose I can dredge up
some examples of what I'm talking about.
An
easy example off the top of my head would be courses given with a
patently militant-feminist bent that suggest that Beethoven's music
was about rape. That isn't to say that one shouldn't be able to have
a theory that Beethoven's music contains aggressive elements that
could potentially correlate to masculine aggression against women,
etc, but to actually teach it to students and grade them on their
response to such a theory, from a decidedly biased and totally
subjective proffessorial perspective, is not good education, but
something entirely different.
Next:
let me address the phrases "descriptive efficacy" and
"ordinary language", and what "Art", my one-word
answer to the post I quoted from you, could possibly mean in relation
to those terms:
I'll
grant, straight off the bat, that a novel, or a poem, does not have
"descriptive efficacy", at least not in the way you, J.
or f. might understand the term (I say "might"
because I don't want to come off as a mind-reader or what have you.
I'm only guessing at your respective viewpoints and perspectives
based on our interactions here); but, if you really want my honest
opinion, I would venture to suggest that a novel like Adam Bede, by
George Eliot, or The Hero, by Somerset Maugham, or any number of
great novels one would care to mention, have truckloads of
"descriptive efficacy" with respect to the human experience
from my personal perspective: meaning, necessarily, what it means to
be a conscious, intelligent being in society co-existing with other
similar beings. A great film can work even better on the average
person, on people who either don't like to read or need things
delineated in a more immediate, sensual, and relatively brief
fashion. Millions of people across the planet exit movie theatres
with their brains in overdrive, pondering ideas and concepts, having
been oftentimes deeply moved, even changed, by the simple experience
of watching a great flick. This is nothing new or controversial.
Smart, and highly educated people around the globe, including
academic philosophers (like Deleuze, just as one example) have
recognized the important psychological impact of film on the social
animal.
To
go out on a limb here, I'll say something that is controversial, and
which I realize is just my personal opinion, which you can take or
leave at will: I think classic and contemporary film-makers,
particularly the Chinese masters (and yes, many in the mainstream
blockbuster camp as well), have just as much—and very often far
more— useful and important things to say about the human experience
than the average college or university course. <<< there,
that's just one of my wholly subjective, emotional, and hopelessly
passionate, romantic opinion on things. Y'all may tear it apart like
hyenas if you like, but I'm stickin' to it until convinced otherwise!
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