The Time Machine Did It

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NapLajoieonSteroids
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The Time Machine Did It

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

brought to you by John Swartzwelder is one thing....I'm here to discuss another thing raised by Ibrahim a while back.

How important is literature? How seriously do you take talk of a literary canon?

Here's the scenario: The last library on Earth, with the only books left on the planet, is burning and it's burning fast! You, for some reason [maybe we are all homeless living in this one-library sort of economy], are living in the library when the blaze starts but are safe, sound and easily have a way out to safety. You also have a few minutes to grab several volumes off the shelf in an effort to preserve something of the written word. Amazingly, you have big enough arms to run out of the place with no more than 5 books, so the question is: what are you taking and why?
Simple Minded

Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:brought to you by John Swartzwelder is one thing....I'm here to discuss another thing raised by Ibrahim a while back.

How important is literature? How seriously do you take talk of a literary canon?

Here's the scenario: The last library on Earth, with the only books left on the planet, is burning and it's burning fast! You, for some reason [maybe we are all homeless living in this one-library sort of economy], are living in the library when the blaze starts but are safe, sound and easily have a way out to safety. You also have a few minutes to grab several volumes off the shelf in an effort to preserve something of the written word. Amazingly, you have big enough arms to run out of the place with no more than 5 books, so the question is: what are you taking and why?
Excellent post Napster.

I would also add for whom are you taking the books you are taking... yourself.... your family.... posterity?

After very little thought (after all, time is short....right), the first choice for me is easy.

What - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Why - simply because it promotes the idea you alone are responsible for what you choose to focus upon, and your interpretation of that foci. Blaming the gods or other people for either is simply an evasion of your personal responsibility.
Whom - Me (cause I'm selfish) & everybody else (cause they're selfish).

Additional choice might be The Imitation of Christ, or some Buddhist texts (titles escape me for the moment) for the same reason.
Also
What - some books containing collections of quotes (so many titles)
Why - they are condensed wisdom, ie: the result with out the explanation of the journey/process of attainment. They stimulate the effort without micro managing the process.
Whom - same, me & everybody else
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Typhoon
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Typhoon »

As Simple Minded has saved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of my first choices, I can focus mostly on the books that represent the basis of industrial civilization
so that it can be rebuilt:

1/ Statistical Mechanics, Third Edition | R K Pathria, Paul D. Beale

Why? The basis of operation of heat engines: internal combustion, turbine, etc.

2/ Classical Electrodynamic |John David Jackson

Why? The basis of electric power generation and transmission. Also radio, TV, and internet transmission.

3/ Quantum Mechanics | Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Bernard Diu, Frank Laloe

Why? The basis of the semiconductor industry and lasers.

4/ Molecular Biology of the Cell | Keith Roberts, Dennis Bray, Martin Raff, Alexander Johnson, Julian Lewis, Bruce Alberts

Why? The basis of the biotech and pharma industries.

5/ Cyrano de Bergerac | Edmond Rostand

Why? Representative of all the great literature we've lost.

Hopefully, someone else will save a text on advanced calculus and Classical Mechanics by Goldstein.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by noddy »

id stick to technical reference books.
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Simple Minded

Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

noddy wrote:id stick to technical reference books.
You wouldn't save your manuscript on Indifference?

That's why you are my hero!!!

in La Societe' Nouveau, people who are consistent will be a much appreciated improvement
Simple Minded

Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:As Simple Minded has saved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of my first choices.....
If you let me look at your collection of girly pictures...... you can borrow my copy!
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Nonc Hilaire
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

Bible, dictionary, history of the world (input on which one would be useful), Great Expectations, survival manual
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

Teresa of Ávila
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by noddy »

Simple Minded wrote:
noddy wrote:id stick to technical reference books.
You wouldn't save your manuscript on Indifference?
why bother my bad rewrite of marcus aurelius when both you and typhoon are carrying the source material :)
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

Simple Minded wrote:
NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:brought to you by John Swartzwelder is one thing....I'm here to discuss another thing raised by Ibrahim a while back.

How important is literature? How seriously do you take talk of a literary canon?

Here's the scenario: The last library on Earth, with the only books left on the planet, is burning and it's burning fast! You, for some reason [maybe we are all homeless living in this one-library sort of economy], are living in the library when the blaze starts but are safe, sound and easily have a way out to safety. You also have a few minutes to grab several volumes off the shelf in an effort to preserve something of the written word. Amazingly, you have big enough arms to run out of the place with no more than 5 books, so the question is: what are you taking and why?
Excellent post Napster.

I would also add for whom are you taking the books you are taking... yourself.... your family.... posterity?

After very little thought (after all, time is short....right), the first choice for me is easy.

What - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Why - simply because it promotes the idea you alone are responsible for what you choose to focus upon, and your interpretation of that foci. Blaming the gods or other people for either is simply an evasion of your personal responsibility.
Whom - Me (cause I'm selfish) & everybody else (cause they're selfish).

Additional choice might be The Imitation of Christ, or some Buddhist texts (titles escape me for the moment) for the same reason.
Also
What - some books containing collections of quotes (so many titles)
Why - they are condensed wisdom, ie: the result with out the explanation of the journey/process of attainment. They stimulate the effort without micro managing the process.
Whom - same, me & everybody else

Well, the library is a'burnin', there isn't much time to deliberate on what to save or not. It's gut-check time. Whether it be for yourself, your family, or posterity; it'd have to be choices you can live with.

It seems like you guys have already made a bunch of interesting choices and sorta confirmed my argument to Ibrahim [wherever he's disappeared to] that when push comes to shove, people would sooner preserve religious, philosophical, scientific, historical works before they'd rescue Oscar Wilde and James Joyce. I don't know exactly what I'd save, but my choices would be similar to what has already been posted [though Marcus Aurelius would probably not make my cut.]

Perhaps its just the nature of this clique though. I know more than enough people who'd lament the loss of the poets. At the same time, I'm not sure if it's in anyone's best interest to save Blake over advanced calculus.

One of the best things to come out of the loss of most classical Greek writing is that you are able to digest what has survived in a short span- and that's including the Greek Church Fathers. There's always chatter about a Western canon or "1001 greatest literary works" you "must" read before you die and all that jazz. But it's a whole bunch of blue notes written (and thought by) people whose identity is too attached with being well versed in Marlowe. For me, they are really saying, "Don't let me disappear!" But none of us can stop that kind of death, can we? As much as I love literature and poetry, I don't expect it to have the lasting power of a manual on engineering and loss of sophisticated story telling and communication seems to me more easily 'rebuild-able' than, say, classical physics.
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by YMix »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:Well, the library is a'burnin', there isn't much time to deliberate on what to save or not. It's gut-check time. Whether it be for yourself, your family, or posterity; it'd have to be choices you can live with.
I pick the ebook reader full of books. ;)
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:
.... There's always chatter about a Western canon or "1001 greatest literary works" you "must" read before you die and all that jazz. But it's a whole bunch of blue notes written (and thought (and taught?) -SM by) people whose identity is too attached with being well versed in Marlowe. For me, they are really saying, "Don't let me disappear!" But none of us can stop that kind of death, can we? .....
Interesting perspective. I have often noticed the egos you describe above seem to be engaging in "intellectual or well read pecker measuring." Seems a sign of insecurity.

Where people find inspiration or joy is infinitely variable. The fact that A found 50 sentences/paragraphs/pages of the author's written pages to be inspirational and uplifting, while B found 50 sentences/paragraphs/pages to be substandard, and both spend hours/days/weeks arguing theirs is the superior perspective, speaks volumes (pun intended) about A & B and little about the author. But then again, maybe that was their point. Vanity requires both mirrors and an audience.

As they say, a wise man can learn more from a fool, than a fool can learn from a wise man.

Sharing what one likes in order to bring joy to others is a selfish act. Maybe it is also an act to escape death. Much like a funeral service brings both closure and a sense of continuity.

Thankfully, people are selfish in their need for recognition and interaction with others. Unfortunately, they often put only a negative connotation on the word.

Since the fire in the library does not seem to be growing very quickly, I'm going back inside to find a copy of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth...... just for balance. ;)
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

yay I did finally get it.....XD.......
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

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Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:As Simple Minded has saved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of my first choices.....
If you let me look at your collection of girly pictures...... you can borrow my copy!
Sorry to disappoint, but I make a point of not storing any girly pics locally . . .

Would you settle for a copy of The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Dirac instead?
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Apollonius »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote:How important is literature? How seriously do you take talk of a literary canon?

Very.



The humanities and us - Heather MacDonald, City Journal, Winter 2014
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_1_u ... ities.html

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.” ...
Simple Minded

Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:As Simple Minded has saved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of my first choices.....
If you let me look at your collection of girly pictures...... you can borrow my copy!
Sorry to disappoint, but I make a point of not storing any girly pics locally . . .

Would you settle for a copy of The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Dirac instead?
:) Sure, why not? After all mental stimulation is mental stimulation..... right? ;)
Simple Minded

Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

Apollonius wrote:[

The humanities and us - Heather MacDonald, City Journal, Winter 2014
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_1_u ... ities.html

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.” ...
Anyone else hear fiddle music and smell smoke?
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Typhoon »

Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:
Simple Minded wrote:
Typhoon wrote:As Simple Minded has saved Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, one of my first choices.....
If you let me look at your collection of girly pictures...... you can borrow my copy!
Sorry to disappoint, but I make a point of not storing any girly pics locally . . .

Would you settle for a copy of The Principles of Quantum Mechanics by Dirac instead?
:) Sure, why not? After all mental stimulation is mental stimulation..... right? ;)
Indeed.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by noddy »

NapLajoieonSteroids wrote: loss of sophisticated story telling and communication seems to me more easily 'rebuild-able' than, say, classical physics.
this is the crux of it for me when i do the value judgement metrics.

which isnt to say their arent special versions of the usual human condition stories which are far superior to the average versions but replicating the last few centuries of medicine,chemistry,metallurgy,engineering,physics etc from scratch would truly be a madmax scenario.

personally, my king of western literature is john steinbeck - its not the subject matter or the morality, its the clarity of language.

i cant think of another author who created such incredibly detailed descriptions of a context and its characters with as few words, one of his sentences is worth 10 pages of tolkien :)
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Typhoon »

Simple Minded wrote:
Apollonius wrote:[

The humanities and us - Heather MacDonald, City Journal, Winter 2014
http://www.city-journal.org/2014/24_1_u ... ities.html

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.” ...
Anyone else hear fiddle music and smell smoke?
My pet theory, which I have, and which is mine:

Photography, and later, film created a crisis in painting and sculpture. Both were no longer needed for representation. The first response was quite imaginative: Impressionism.
However, what is an ambitious young artist to do after that to make a name for himself?
Well, we had Surrealism, Dadaism, Cubism, Abstractionism, Etc., until modern art finally jumped the shark:

Image

I think that something similar has happened with literature esp first French and then English Lit.

Good literature transcends time and culture whereas the post-modernists have reduced it to the lowest common denominators: gender, race, and ethnicity.

The Eng Lit types have tried to be amateur sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and even physicists without bothering to even understand the basics of any of these fields.

The last one received a proper mocking via the Sokal Affair:

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Typhoon »

noddy wrote:id stick to technical reference books.
I would argue that trying to understand a schematic of an electronic circuit without any knowledge of the underlying Maxwell's equations would be like trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone.
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by noddy »

Typhoon wrote:
noddy wrote:id stick to technical reference books.
I would argue that trying to understand a schematic of an electronic circuit without any knowledge of the underlying Maxwell's equations would be like trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics without the Rosetta Stone.
i would argue the same.
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by Simple Minded »

Typhoon wrote:
My pet theory, which I have, and which is mine:


.......Good literature transcends time and culture whereas the post-modernists have reduced it to the lowest common denominators: gender, race, and ethnicity.

The Eng Lit types have tried to be amateur sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and even physicists without bothering to even understand the basics of any of these fields.

The last one received a proper mocking via the Sokal Affair:

Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity
Nice. This agrees with my non-intellectual observations. "What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly." Thomas Jefferson

As technology made multiple, continual, editing and communication easier than ACTUALLY thinking before speaking/emailing/telephoning/texting..... the path of least resistance was chosen more often!

two quotes come to mind. "Speech conveniently lies midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both."

"Given the choice between publishing and perishing, most intellectuals make the wrong choice!"
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NapLajoieonSteroids
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Re: The Time Machine Did It

Post by NapLajoieonSteroids »

"In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality, as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality", while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness", the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way."

-George Orwell

It's trite to quote Orwell I guess but I cannot find an excellent essay*, not by Orwell incidentally, that deals exactly with what Typhoon is suggesting and the ramifications of it.

I am very tempted to butcher it through my understanding, but I don't know....

What happens for human seeking art forms that are more representational is three fold.

-The most talented are attracted to the newer, more representational forms. Eg: Your best writers aren't working on a play or on a novel, but somewhere on the television set or for a movie studio. Your men and women with a great visual talent are foregoing the paintbrush for cinematography and set design.

-These forms are infinitely more complicated to execute and cannot be done alone. None of these forms are possible alone; without industrialization or mass production.

-Mass production and industrialization have destroyed the value of anything from the older forms, and have left them meaningless. Not only are they poorly representaional (often being the vision of one person or his or her patron) but they now can be reproduced instantaneously. The line between kitsch, pulp, camp (what-have-you) and "fine" art and literature is an arbitrary imposition placed upon works by the old guard who do not wish to comprehend their obsolescence.

The implication of representational mass art is that it exposes the pretensions of the old to have been empty and valueless all along. There isn't, and can never be, a solitary genius working away on a piece that transcendence space and time or speaks to the human condition. There are only craftsmen, working together to form a work that is pleasing to its consumers who deem it valuable.

That value of course is purely political, and the only works of art and literature with any use in an industrialized world will be self-consciously political from here on out.

Literature makes poorer agitprop than you would think.


*when I say it's an excellent essay, I do not mean it is wholly agreeable; what I mean is that is clear and concise in a manner that similar essayists on the same topic often aren't.
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