Subjectivism: The Death of Literature | by Emory Cooper
Gaius and Titius in chapter 1 of The Abolition of Man are supposed to show pupils how to discern, duplicate, and build upon a good use of the English language in literature. Instead, the two disassociate one's emotional expression from the object that evoked the emotion. The pupils are left with this implicit assumption: one's emotions have nothing to do with any innate quality of the object that brought about the emotion. One's emotions are merely subjective. Moreover, it is unimportant–and even undesirable–to try to express one's subjective feelings in how one describes an object or narrates a scene.
Now, if this assumption was to be internalized by all the schoolboys, what would happen to literature? the next generation of men might would very well grow up in a world where the mode of writing is void of sentiment, and thus void of vitality. It would be the death of literature. For good literature readily conveys an intended emotion, or set of emotions, through its descriptions and narrative style. If an author does not express his feelings through his work, how can he convey them? In a world subjectivism, then, it may be expected that "[y]ou can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more...'creativity.' In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function" (Lewis, page 8).
I commented on Isabelle's and Haylee Lynd's posts.
You make a great point, Emory. It seems to me that some people have begun to recognize this in the present day. You may have noticed art is becoming repetitive due to a "dissociation" of emotion (I love the way you phrased that). Life has become about surviving the week instead of actually living the life. The older generations want to know what happened to the upcoming generations in terms of happiness and motivation. Simply put, we have been raised by Gaius and Titius, and we have lost the emotional connection to the world around us. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Isabelle, the way you phrased this idea is very eloquent. However, I would like to pose a bit of a counter to the rest of her comment. Our generation was raised by Giaus and Titius, we have been and continue to be taught that our emotions are subjective and irrelevant to the truth. The important thing to note is who our teachers are and the answer is— the previous generations. Growing up we were taught that our emotions were to come after productivity. We could watch a movie or hangout with a friend (or something else that would make you happy) only after we had finished our homework. Although this might seem a trivial example it is instances like this that have taught us to suppress or push aside emotions for the sake of convenience. Now our generation has started to recognize this behavior of suppressing our emotions as unhealthy. Unfortunately, the older generations view this idea of taking care of one’s emotional/mental as ridiculous. We are trying to unlearn what was engrained in us and start to view emotions as valid responses to our experiences.
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