Wednesday, 9:45am
Reading Sontag on Roland Barthes, and collection about the work of Daniel Dennett it occurs to me to describe such writing as very dense. In Sontag the density is of adjectives adverbs; on Dennett the density is of nouns and verbs. One matter addresses writing, the other the philosophical theory of mind. The image that came to me as I paused to reflect on some point or another was that of a balloon. First I thought of a word balloon such as in a cartoon strip, and how those balloons fill with words. In this day and age if computer software I suppose that those balloons even “expand” to accommodate whatever amount of words are being used to convey an idea. As I sat staring out the window the balloon idea morphed into a hot-air balloon. This seemed even more apt when thinking about writers describing because there seems to be a point, a word or phrase, at which the writer is compelled to elaborate on that point, word or phrase. With a hot-air balloon there is a specific point at which some specific element –heat- enters the balloon, and then inside the elaboration of that heat is expansion. An initial cynicism is that, yes, the writer’s piece is full of hot air. Hmm. Yes, well, that may seem so, and to some extent, is so. But without expanding hot air the balloon would not fly; without elaboration an idea does not get off the ground, so to speak. And floating ideas is why people write.
The connection here with my avowed purpose of writing on personality goes like this: Browsing library and bookstore I come upon two books, each focused on a particular interest of mine. I’d never read Sontag though she’s the sort of person I’ve just known about by virtue of related conversations and readings. As it turns out, the 1982 reader I selected is a collection of her essays about the arts with a focus on writing in particular. The other book (2002) is a compilation of essays by various philosophers analyzing Dennett’s work which attempts to explain “the mind”.
Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) has been considered as one of the fathers of “scientific” psychology. His voluminous works led to Elements of Folk Psychology (1916). This was a time when Carl Jung was cutting his teeth becoming a psychologist. He liked to tout psychology as scientific, though he himself was more anthropologist and philosopher. It was Jung though who gave us the best perspective and account of personality. In the notion of personality that I am trying to build, the work of Richard Dawkins, Nicholas Humphrey, Antonio Damazio and Daniel Dennett all contribute support for my proposition. Dennett’s is one of the more confounding. However, Daniel Dennett edited by Brook & Ross has other writers recasting some of Dennett’s crucial ideas. And with the lift of these additional words those ideas float more clearly.
For me, the value of A Susan Sontag Reader is the support for the writing effort, in a style that suits me. Sontag’s mission is to edify and that she does. In both focus and practice she edifies on style. This particular collection is a bit presumptive of the reader, and I find myself exercising the dictionary quite a lot. Still, to edify is her mission. P.J. O’Rourke she is not. There is little in overt humor in her work. She is formalistic –as she writes of others- but it is clear that she has a confident command of her style, and uses this style to her purposes. And while humor is not her emotion, passion is, and its well expressed in the style that suits her. We should all do nearly so well.
So it is that in these two filled balloons I once again find more enlightenment and support for my own chosen tasks of interest.
