Stories/fictions and music as covert devices for speaking of actualities/truths

Benj96

Some thoughts, ideas and facts are hard pills to swallow. Or are controversial.

Directly expressing them aloud, thus, tends to encourage us to directly, quickly and automatically judge the person - their character/personality - by what they expressed vocally. Not only that, but our previous beliefs and experiences toward the person also influence how we interpret them.

There is a certain beauty then about "fictional stories", analogies, metaphors, poetry and music that navigates this direct, reactive personal judging dynamic.

Writing is a third space outside of direct person-person conversation. It allows for dissolution of personal bias towards or against the "who" that wrote it. As the "who" is invisible, all there is is the work, the pages. Probably why many authors use a "pen-name/pseudonym" when they write, to distance themselves from personal attack when writing on contentious subject matters.

Not only is it a third space and an indirect conduit of communication, but coining the writing as a "fiction", analogy, metaphor or artistic work, allows the person who expressed it to merely shrug, and say well its just a story, song, poem isn't t it? Think what you wish about it, dont take it literally (dont attack me), as its merely a hypothetical.

But I suspect that often a "fiction" or artwork is a convenient way to reflect what the author/artist truly believes about the world. That for them it isnt hypothetical or fictional at all. It is their understanding of truth/reality in disguise as a "take-it-or-leave-it fiction".

This has some advantages as it is a way to have freedom of speech without actually "speaking" (defining oneself as source). A way to propagate free association of ideas, challenge convention/custom etc. Academics, thinkers, activists and philosophers love anonymity as they can focus on ideas without their age, ethnicity, gender, orientation, social status, nationality or religion and all the prejudice that comes with that from detracting from the idea.

Sadly though, it is also a way to be malicious and get away with it. As we often see in the comments section of youtube, instagram etc. Cowards, catfish, trolls and people who know what theyre doing is wrong also love anonymity.

Vera Mont

I don't think it's 'covert'; just more palatable than preaching.
In authoritarian regimes, any expression counter to the administration's narrative poses a danger to the speaker, which makes anonymity advisable (if hard to maintain); in societies with relatively free legal speech, protest songs, rebellious poetry, provocative paintings and anti-establishment novels are published openly.
Moreover, something fiction does that direct communication can't, is allow the reader a glimpse into the experience of a characters who live, think and feel differently from himself, and thus expand the reader's understanding of other people and explore new ideas and attitudes - in an entertaining way.

Benj96

I don't think it's 'covert'; just more palatable than preaching. — Vera Mont

Yes i see what you mean. Agreed, it is more palatable for sure. I for one often utilise analogy and metaphor (supposed fiction grey area) to convey associations between topics and specialties that are not typically considered to be associated. As i find this the frontier of novel insight.

Thankfully language is dynamic and can be used both figuratively (poetically) and literally (mathematically). The issues come at that moving target boundary between the two.

I often wonder - the Internet being relatively more anonymous than real life discussions - if favouring this mode is a reflection of our majority view on the tolerability of speaking openly/freely in the actual public sphere.

I find voicing my ideas online seemingly much more tolerable than if i were to say the same things as a public speaker or politician. Which is why i never pursued a career in that. The pen is often mightier.

What do you think Vera? What are your reflection on such things?

Vera Mont

Culture changes.
We have become so many and so technological that distance communication is more common now than face-to-face. I wouldn't be surprised if family members texted one another in the same house. "Jason, dinner's ready." "Busy. BTS" Everyone is always too busy. And in a hurry "GYADH. Now!"

Social mores also change. For adults, the pace of change can be disorienting, even embarrassing, for example when we're not sure what's the correct form of address for a young person who appears female, or the socially accepted description of a person's ethnicity. It gets even more complicated, when you're not sure a new person you've met is in a sympathetic or hostile political camp, or a similar or antithetical world-view. If I say something that seems to me obvious about evolution or the prime minister, will they be offended or provoked into an argument? Standards of courtesy and vocabulary can't even be taken for granted - for example, my own idiom has coarsened over the past decade or so, routinely using words that were shocking in polite company when I was younger, but I'm still aware enough to avoid them among my contemporaries. It's just so much easier to practice our new-found laxity of expression on a keyboard, and in the confines of a known medium, than risk confrontations in person.
Convenient, too.

OTOH, when I write fiction, which is farther removed from the person who reads it, I clean up my language and syntax, because my name is on it, and I still care what people think of me.
That's probably what it boils down to: we care whether people think well or badly of us.
Curse and redemption of the social animal.

L'éléphant

Academics, thinkers, activists and philosophers love anonymity as they can focus on ideas... — Benj96

Sadly though, it is also a way to be malicious and get away with it. As we often see in the comments section of youtube, instagram etc. Cowards, catfish, trolls and people who know what theyre doing is wrong also love anonymity. — Benj96

And I say to that, have faith in the rationality of your audience. The test of time will reveal that the victors are the former. If someone is throwing you under the bus, your virtue will do the work for you to prove that the under-the-bus thrower is being malicious, and it should prove that you're not the first of their victims.

Baden

↪Benj96

You raise a valid point about the “distancing” nature of writing vs speech but I don’t think the most important distinction is between modes of discourse (e.g. spoken vs written) but categories (e.g. political vs philosophical etc.). In conveying meaning, we’re always navigating discourses that have their own meanings “built in” and which form part of our overall contextualization and judgement of the message we receive. Discourses can bully meaning into corners from which it's hard to escape. Fiction then, I agree, can be a useful way to allow meaning “space to breathe”, especially when done so that the message is presented organically; i.e., it imposes itself naturally out of its context rather than directly exposing itself to the filter of a discourse that protects against it within a subject.

For example, if the message is political and you choose political discourse to convey it, you're in an arena where contentiousness is built in because group identity is at stake by default (political discourse taps into sociality in a fairly primal way with the rule tending to be “fight your corner” rather than “listen”). Fiction gives you a route out of this problem at the expense of making it more difficult to express your message.

The more general upshot of this is that our ideas are products of a symbolic order that can be understood as a complex of discourses that we can use as tools to convey meaning in more or less effective ways. “Truth” is a tricky concept to apply to such a situation but certainly an artist through fiction can compellingly convey an authentic experience of reality without being overly circumscribed by the predisposed notions of “factual” discourses.

Gnomon

Not only is it a third space and an indirect conduit of communication, but coining the writing as a "fiction", analogy, metaphor or artistic work, allows the person who expressed it to merely shrug, and say well its just a story, song, poem isn't t it? Think what you wish about it, dont take it literally (dont attack me), as its merely a hypothetical.

But I suspect that often a "fiction" or artwork is a convenient way to reflect what the author/artist truly believes about the world. That for them it isnt hypothetical or fictional at all. It is their understanding of truth/reality in disguise as a "take-it-or-leave-it fiction". — Benj96

Yes. Metaphors are vehicles for expressing meta-physical conceptions, as opposed to physical descriptions. Ironically, some posters associate "metaphysical"*1 with religion, not philosophy. And since modern philosophy long ago capitulated the study of Physical Nature to pragmatic scientists, all we have left of Aristotle's definition of Philosophy is the, religion tainted, mushy Metaphysics : ideas about ideas, not things ; preter-natural*2, not natural ; mental, not material.

Unfortunately, some on this forum, do take metaphysical Metaphors literally, as-if they are presented as scientific Facts. Hence, they don't argue the logic, but ridicule the image. However, as you noted, those who use metaphors on philosophy forums are not just blowing smoke. Although, not really real, their metaphors do express their beliefs & feelings as accurately as possible for non-physical non-things. So, it's the implicit underlying Belief that is attacked, not the reasoning behind it. Thus, high-minded Philosophy is reduced to down & dirty Politics & Religion :smile:

*1. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, including the first principles of: being or existence, identity and change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, and possibility. ____Wikipedia
Note -- Fundamental Reality is a broad general concept ; not a reference to particular things, but what things have in common. Those universal commonalities cannot be seen with the eye, but imagined with the mind. And they can only be expressed in words metaphorically, often as-if they are like tangible objects in certain ways.

*2. The Preternatural (or praeternatural) is that which appears outside or beside (Latin: præter) the natural. It is "suspended between the mundane and the miraculous". ___Wiki
The "Third Space"?

Benj96

Unfortunately, some on this forum, do take metaphysical Metaphors literally, as-if they are presented as scientific Facts. Hence, they don't argue the logic, but ridicule the image. — Gnomon

Absolutely. Bravo. I agree 100%.

Although, not really real, their metaphors do express their beliefs & feelings as accurately as possible for non-physical non-things. So, it's the implicit underlying Belief that is attacked, not the reasoning behind it. Thus, high-minded Philosophy is reduced to down & dirty Politics & Religion — Gnomon

Again. I agree. Gnomon I feel you and I are kindred spirits in that we share these very particular relationship and ideas towards the general status quo.

Metaphor for me is taking a principle (concept) and re-framing it in the context of actually tangible things (material interactions) . To take literally the things used in a metaphor will naturally lose the sentiment behind it.

The principle is imbedded not in the choice of application (some other reference material) but in the demonstration (the relationship highlighted).

Too many people think literally rather than conceptually. And that leads to myriad misinterpretation.

But education is built fundamentally on metaphor or analogy. Using what one knows (a priori knowledge) to apply to new concepts. You cannot teach with information one does not already understand. You can only go from known to unknown. Not from unknown to unknown (as this is inaccesible).

Stories/fictions and music as covert devices for speaking of actualities/truths

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