This has just been a peeve of mine for a while, which is people discussing fiction and using undefined terms without any examples so what they are saying sounds comprehensive but really isn't saying anything.
Let me make an important distinction. There are three ways we as viewers relate communally to fiction; opinion, subjective statement, and fact statement.
Opinion: Opinion without any statement is a purely internal reaction without any expression of it to others. Obviously there's no way for this to be falsified since no one else but you is aware of it.
Subjective Statement: A Subjective Statement is a statement of one's personal "real" without any notion towards the theoretical objective world. These CAN be theoretically wrong, you could for instance hold one opinion and then lie and say you had a different opinion, but this is unfalsifiable, (and it would seem to me very highly rare) since no one but you can know your opinion in the first place to compare to the Subjective Statement. There are some people that would claim all statements are here, and in a very navel-gazing philosophical way they are right; in the same way I can't "prove" the room around me exists and is not an elaborate dream, I can't demonstrate any statement being entirely objectively true or false. However for the sake of practicality we generally assume that some things are in fact objective simply so that we can have any sort of discussion ever. I assume then when I say "red" what registers in the minds of those I'm speaking to is something similar to what I think of when I say "red".
Fact Statement: A fact statement is a statement that is meant to be seen as part of the theoretical "objective real" world as opposed to one's personal reality. In other words, it is something that is theoretically innate in the thing itself, rather then something that is projected into it by the viewer...to the degree of reasonable certainty that is necessary for ANY discussion on the nature of things. Again, you can clam EVERYTHING is meaning projecting onto meaningless reality, but on a pragmatic level no one thinks or speaks like that, nor is it registered as helpful to do so.
The distinction between the second and the third is very important. The second of these, you need not be trying to convince someone to believe, in fact by it's nature it is only existent to the individual. A statement relating to something not innate to the work but instead to a projection of the individual onto the work is a statement not about the work itself but about the individual viewing the work. The Third of these conversely, if you are making as a claim, then you are saying that others should think this, because if they aren't then they are unaware or in denial of something that is supposed to be existent in objective reality, reality as should be understandable to all observers.
The problem I am finding with a lot of discussion about fiction is that people will say things that are sort of half-fact statements and half-subjective statements, which in practice acts as a way of trying to universalize one's own projection, a wholly unpleasant experience when someone's opinions and resulting subjective statements are unaligned or entirely opposed to the statement.
Examples:
I'll see people state something like this work is:
"well-written/badly-written/light/dark/edgy/artsy/pretentious/clever/deep/subversive/magically delicious"
Literally any adjective. This is a statement about what the verse is in and of itself, a statement of it's nature in other words. Yet somethings I will disagree with them and ask to explain their viewpoint and they won't actually debate the point with me or give direct examples from the text of what they mean (not helped by the fact that a lot of these these terms are deliberately ambiguous to allow them to be used as a sort of blanket statement) they will retreat into the "it's just my opinion".
To me this seems like taking advantage of an ambiguity to cloak a viewpoint as being more objective then it actually is. It might seem I'm just pedantically asking everyone to say "it's well written in my opinion" every time instead of "it's well written" however that's not quite what I'm arguing.
To me the statement "it's well-written in my opinion" is a bit oxymoronic because you are making a subjective claim about something in objective reality . If you think that everything is subjective then obviously is nothing is well-written or poorly-written since that implies an objective standard. Otherwise if you are making a factual claim you are stating that you think that this is the truth, something that is theoretically viewable to all observers and therefore people who aren't seeing it are by necessity ignorant or in denial. If that is the case then there shouldn't be anything "in my opinion" about it. It should be as objective as 2+2=4
That's not say that it's as simple as 2+2=4. You could make a comparison to far more advanced mathematics where there is controversy and different people think different things. What's important to understand though is in that case it's still not subjective. There is still a "true" answer, it's just that the answer is contested.
When people use a few words to describe a work, words that are broad and general, people can have entirely opposite experiences and can draw entirely opposite viewpoints from those words. The more specific you are towards what you think a work IS, the closer you have to remain to the text and the more closely people can follow what you are attempting to communicate.
What all this boils down to is that using singular unclear words to describe your viewpoint on something masks the fact that you are conflating the subjective claim of your personal experience with what, if anything, you think is innate to the work and so if you are going to make claims about something that is outside the realm of your personal subjective realm and it's relation to the work, then be more clear and specific in what you think so that what you are saying can be better falsified and the exchange of information can be less muddled in vagueness.
No comments:
Post a Comment