Submitted by Anne Dalke on Thu, 12/20/2007 - 11:27am.
I've heard quite a few versions of this talk over the past five years or so, and always enjoy seeing what new angles of vision (inevitably) arise in the ever-more nuanced re-tellings. What I noticed yesterday morning was two new (to me) things:
First: I heard a clear answer to Mark's question about the relationship between the concepts of "getting it less wrong" and being generative." Seems to me now that the relationship is a causal one. If you start (as Paul does) with the presumption that generativity is the aim, then getting it less wrong gets you there "better" than Getting It Right, Which Stops The Process.
Second: I saw more clearly than I ever had before how strongly resistance operates throughout the process, a resistance Paul hasn't (heretofore) given enough credence to (and which he now traces, above to a particular historical reaction). I think it's way bigger/deeper/wider than that, and has more generally to do with the deep-seated need, of humans in an uncertain world, for security. There was a review in y'day's NYTimes of a new play about "science, faith and publication," called "Trumpery." At the end of the play, Darwin tells his dying daughter Annie that "if you question everything, you have to expect to be scared.” This is far away from Paul's exhortation to us all to "enjoy the certainty of the unknown." How to get from fear to joy...well, that's a long trip.
It is a trip, though, to try and share this enjoyment with students. In the College Seminar on Storytelling as Inquiry, which Paul and I co-teach @ Bryn Mawr most fall semesters, we read (among other things) a couple of chapters of Daniel Dennett's book on Darwin's Dangerous Idea. During the class finale last weekend, three of my students did a wonderful spoof on Dennett: both his "falling in love" with Charlie Darwin, and his own presumption of a role as "prophet of Truth." They were saying, in other words, that Dennett's dogmatic embrace of Darwinism had "stopped the looping," and they were calling him on it.
Dennett begging Darwin for an autograph....
»
Reply
Search Serendip
Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate
but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)
On expecting to be scared
I've heard quite a few versions of this talk over the past five years or so, and always enjoy seeing what new angles of vision (inevitably) arise in the ever-more nuanced re-tellings. What I noticed yesterday morning was two new (to me) things:
First: I heard a clear answer to Mark's question about the relationship between the concepts of "getting it less wrong" and being generative." Seems to me now that the relationship is a causal one. If you start (as Paul does) with the presumption that generativity is the aim, then getting it less wrong gets you there "better" than Getting It Right, Which Stops The Process.
Second: I saw more clearly than I ever had before how strongly resistance operates throughout the process, a resistance Paul hasn't (heretofore) given enough credence to (and which he now traces, above to a particular historical reaction). I think it's way bigger/deeper/wider than that, and has more generally to do with the deep-seated need, of humans in an uncertain world, for security. There was a review in y'day's NYTimes of a new play about "science, faith and publication," called "Trumpery." At the end of the play, Darwin tells his dying daughter Annie that "if you question everything, you have to expect to be scared.” This is far away from Paul's exhortation to us all to "enjoy the certainty of the unknown." How to get from fear to joy...well, that's a long trip.
It is a trip, though, to try and share this enjoyment with students. In the College Seminar on Storytelling as Inquiry, which Paul and I co-teach @ Bryn Mawr most fall semesters, we read (among other things) a couple of chapters of Daniel Dennett's book on Darwin's Dangerous Idea. During the class finale last weekend, three of my students did a wonderful spoof on Dennett: both his "falling in love" with Charlie Darwin, and his own presumption of a role as "prophet of Truth." They were saying, in other words, that Dennett's dogmatic embrace of Darwinism had "stopped the looping," and they were calling him on it.
Dennett begging Darwin for an autograph....