I'm Trying Not To Buy Books But I Failed Tonight!

I just bought a copy of Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought. Should be incredibly relevant to my interests, duh.

Should put me in contact with yet another monster of twentieth-century philosophy, duh.

Not sure when I'll get to it, obvi.

But I imagine that it has a lot to offer me and I'm excited to have the option of looking at it whenever I want.

Not blogging much these days because I'm busy, son.

I have, however, written the first page or two of the final part of AZI.

I will begin by examining Collingwood's final books, trying to see if there is a consistent relationship between politics and aesthetics in his late work.

I will argue that Collingwood's thinking can only lead to an attempt to theorize individual decision making, and inevitably, a theory of the education of the individual capacity for decision making.

In other words, I believe that Collingwood's project must be brought to bear on the Clausewtizian project of revolutionizing the relationship between history and philosophy, history and theory.

Collingwood's work must culminate in a project of figuring out how to properly educate the political elites and the citizenry alike.

This means building a theory of decision making out of the fragments of aesthetic, political, historical, philosophical, and cultural analyses found in Collingwood's late work.

This man died before he was able to articulate such a thing. I want to take it on myself to carry his work to its logical end, to the theory of political education. For, as Collingwood insists, "The life of politics is the life of political education" (The New Leviathan, 260).

How does one carry out the political education of both the ruling elite and the citizenry, therefore, is the question that must be raised in response to Collingwood's final books. And it is the question I intend to answer with a little help from my friends, Clausewitz, Foucault, and Collingwood himself.

For I aim to be a Clausewitzian, a Foucaultian, and perhaps above all, a Collingwoodian.

Mental Simulation and Tacit Psychological Theory: Understanding Intuitive Mindreading and Identifying Its Unconscious Structures

In my post on the a priori imagination, of 6/13, I really grappled with simulation theory of mind, and how it interacts with other forms of thought. In particular, I think I did a good job of addressing the role that tacit mental theory may play in processes of simulational mindreading (or any mindreading process). In this essay I want to give a closer look at this notion of tacit theory as it relates to mindreading and the education of mindreading abilities. Not an extended look, more so just a nuanced look. First I want to talk about my first inklings of this idea of tacit theory, which I was calling innate, or intuitive theory (I love blending memoir/reflection into this blog so that is section 1). Then I'll talk about how Alvin Goldman was the first author to confirm for me that tacit theory may indeed be a real thing, but in any case that other people are talking as if it is a real thing. Then I'll discuss how Goldman believes tacit theory plays into mindreading, i.e. he believes it either initiates or aids in processes of simulation. Then I'm going to explore the possibility that tacit theory may simply be able to bypass simulation, therefore meaning that, at certain moments, theory-theory mindreading may actually exist. Lastly I'll discuss how tacit theory may be the level at which mindreading can be educated, or, at the very least, how it may play a role in the cultivation of mindreading abilities.

Should be an interesting post for me to write. Should be fruitful in some ways. At the very least I am starting to think I should get into the literature on theory-theory more.

Clausewitz and My Musings on Intuitive Theory
So when I learned about Carl von Clausewitz's work I was compelled to conceptualize the idea of an intuitive or innate mental theory. I later learned about the notion of tacit theory, and my speculations were thus confirmed. But the notion of a tacit theory was essentially a logical conclusion of the things that I had learned about Clausewitz, and what I suspected about the how of empathy.

Anyways, Clausewitz was the first time that I learned about simulational thinking. Clausewitz believed that historical case study should be used to reenact (ie simulate) the thoughts that people had in the past. In particular, Clausewitz believed that reenacting the thoughts of successful commanders-in-chief could be a way to educate the mind to handle the difficulties of high-command. Most importantly, Clausewitz believed that theory was an essential element in the successful reenactment of past decision making experiences. In other words, in order to properly simulate a person's thoughts you need a body of theory that can help you fill in gaps in evidence. Evidence of thought processes, and especially past thought processes, is never complete, and surmise is always necessary.

For Clausewitz, therefore, a set of propositions (ie normative theory) is essential to successful simulational mindreading. Again, I learned about Clausewitz before I learned about simulation theory of mind, mirror neurons, or theory-theory, so it was new to me. So Clausewitz was my first exposure to a simulation theory of mind, and he stressed that theory must be used in order to achieve a successful mindreading.

So, once I learned about Clausewitz, I was trying to apply these notions of reenactment to everyday perception and mindreading. In particular, I was curious about if empathy was a process of reenactment or simulation. The mirror neuron system confirms that this is the case, but I was unaware of this at the time. Anyways, in my post of 4/30 I wrote about my concept of instantaneous emotional reenactment. This was a sloppy phrase that I threw together in order to understand how empathy could happen instantly, naturally, and could be a form of simulation. Ie, when I empathize with someone I feel what they feel for myself, but it happens lightning fast. How does that happen?

Since Clausewitz spawned this notion of instantaneous emotional reenactment, and Clausewitz's central concern is the role of theory in mental reenactment, I immediately had questions about what kind of theory could be allowing me to engage in these everyday reenactments. If my mind naturally reenacts/simulates other people's thoughts, then how does my mind do it without reference to a theory? How can my mind just do it? Does it possess something like a innate or intuitive theory?

In concluding this section, once Clausewitz claimed that mental simulation must be aided by a body of theory, and once I connected this notion of reenactment to my everyday perception, I was immediately compelled to ask what kind of theory my mind was using to engage in this everyday intuitive reenactments. In short, Clausewitz forced me to think of my everyday thoughts in terms of reenactment/simulation, and his emphasis on theory forced me to conceptualize a sloppy and inarticulate idea of an innate or intuitive theory.

Later, I learned about Alvin Goldman's work, and the existence of the theory-theory of mind. These philosophers very often refer to tacit or naive psychological theory. So my speculations about an innate or intuitive theory were essentially confirmed by the contemporary literature on philosophy of mind. This is where I want to go next. I'll discuss Goldman's assessment of the notion of tacit theory in general. First as it relates to theory-theory, and second how it relates to simulation theory. From their I'll discuss where my thoughts on tacit theory and simulation are these days, in that tacit theory can either structure or initiate a simulation process (this is awfully Goldman, but I forget what he says exactly). Then I'll discuss the possibility of mindreading that is accomplished solely by tacit theory. And finally, I'll talk about my ideas on how to modify tacit theory so as to educate our unconscious mindreading abilities.

Goldman on the Role of Tacit Theory in Theory-Theory
So Alvin Goldman's book Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading is undoubtedly one of the most important books I have read in the last six months. Goldman is arguing that people understand other people's mental states (i.e. mindread) by internally simulating other people's thoughts in their own mind. In other words, we understand other people by simulating their thoughts for ourselves, it is like an extended and more complex form of empathy. More importantly, Goldman believes that simulation theory can answer all the central questions of philosophy of mind, and can accommodate the arguments of theory-theorists and modularity theorists (theory-theory and modularity theory being the other two major schools of thought in philosophy of mind). So now I basically want to give a run down of theory-theory, and then I want to explain how the claims of theory-theory can be incorporated into a comprehensive simulation theory of mind. Ultimately, Goldman argues for a simulation-theory hybrid. So the notion of tacit theory is actually essential to Goldman's argument.

So, what precisely is theory-theory? Well, theory-theorists generally claim that mindreading is accomplished by the use of naive/tacit psychological theories. So that whenever an individual needs to determine the mental state of another, they can draw on these tacit psychological theories to ascribe mental states to others. This set of tacit psychological theories allows us to draw inferences about how others behave. In essence, theory-theorists maintain that every person is naturally a sort of 'folk psychologist'. They believe that we simply acquire these tacit theories over the course of our lives, and that we unconsciously rely on them to ascribe mental states to others. I am a skeptical that something like a folk psychological theory could account for all mindreading processes that people engage in.

In any case, whether or not it can account for all of mindreading, the notion of tacit theory is still worthwhile. It is useful when trying to talk about how it is that people make unconscious inferences about other people, or why we assume certain things about other people or other situations. Our experiences almost certainly provide us with a naive understanding of how the world functions and how other people think, and I think that the term tacit theory is useful when trying to talk about these unconscious, yet seemingly structured, thought processes. Whether the term 'theory' is really appropriate or not is something I will reserve for a later date. That isn't my purpose here, and frankly I don't have the intellectual chops to get beyond the language of theory-theory right now.

But in any case, I can say right now that the term 'theory' is inadequate because what we are trying to conceptualize is not discursive, it is not language, it doesn't consist of a set of propositions, and is therefore not a theory as we know it. It is rather an unconscious understanding that guides our thoughts and actions. The term theory is useful because our unconscious understandings seem to comprise certain things, and seem to consist of definite preferences, tendencies, and inclinations. I suppose, then, that the term theory is simply meant to describe the structured nature of unconscious thought. It seems to happen consistent to certain rules, as a theory does, or as theory specifies. So the word theory in tacit 'theory' is just meant to describe the unconscious structure that underlies our intuitive mindreading.

Now that I have sloppily handled Goldman's description of theory-theory in general, I would like to discuss how theory-theory may play a role in simulational mindreading. In particular, I will discuss how tacit theory may 1. provide a structure of framework for simulation, and 2. initiate simulation processes.

Tacit Theory as Structuring or Initiating Simulation
Now, as I said above, I can think of two ways that tacit theory would enter the process of simulational mindreading. I believe that Goldman also frames the relationship between tacit theory and simulation in a similar light, but I need to reread it to be sure. So anyways, I'll handle this without much explicit reference to Goldman. First I'm going to talk about how tacit theory may provide a structure by which simulations would happen. Second I'm going to talk about how tacit theory may be involved in initiating simulation processes. The former point I am more comfortable with, so I regard it as more important. The latter is something I know Goldman talks about, but that I don't have a grasp on at this point.

So, how would tacit theory provide a structure for simulations? Well, I think that tacit theory would let us delimit the possible factors involved in a simulation. In order to properly simulate another person's thoughts we would need to decide what criteria would be relevant in that particular simulation. Simulating the thoughts of a child, for example, would require us to take only a limited number of things into consideration. We would have to shrink our world view to properly simulate their thoughts. If these simulations happen on an unconscious level, however, we would need to be able to intuitively delimit our views. I bet that tacit theory is the way that we would be able to automatically and intuitively consider only a few things in a given simulation. Our experience with children (and remember experience is what builds tacit theory) tells us that children only care about certain things. So simulation would thus structure the boundaries of any given simulation.

Lets take the example of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Each of these social categories are so firmly ingrained in our minds that we automatically assume that certain people from these groups think in certain ways and not others. So when we see someone from a specific category our mind is already set with a certain universe of thought in which the simulation can take place. Tacit theory would set the space, set the possible simulations, that could apply to someone of one of these perceived groups. When we see a person who is female, but they are dressed in a way that purposefully defies gender norms, we would automatically have a base set of assumptions about how they thought about themselves, others, and the world. That set of assumptions is a tacit theory that gives a structure to our possible simulations. This applies with race, class, and sexuality, like I said.

I think this makes sense, but I don't think I am articulating it as clearly as I would like to. It is a challenge for me right now to explain how tacit theory structures simulation. But I think it is the case. We have naive/tacit understandings of all kinds of groups of people, and then we would apply those tacit generalizations to help us delimit the number of circumstances that we would have to consider in any given simulation. Booya, this definitely makes sense. I'll have to do some ruminating on the language though.

Now, how would tacit theory also initiate simulational mindreading? Well, I suppose the answer is somewhat similar to what I proposed for how it structures: tacit theory would allow us to unconsciously understand in which instances we need to initiate a given simulation process. Frankly, I don't really want to write this section on the initiation. But I know Goldman claims that this is one of the functions of tacit theory. I will revisit his work at sometime. So, whatever. For now I am essentially just restating what I said above. That tacit theory may be involved in initiating simulation processes by letting us understand when and what type of simulation is required.

Next I want to explore the possibility that tacit theory may override simulation, and would thus become a form of mindreading in its own right.

Tacit Theory Without Simulation: Pure Theory-Theory Mindreading?
So, theory-theorists claim that tact psychological theories may actually constitute its own form of mindreading. I still believe that simulation is the most fundamental, the most basic form of mindreading that humans possess. But what if there were instances in which no simulation were to take place, and theory would be the only means of mindreading?

Well, in my post of 6/13 I actually made what I thought was an interesting argument about the role of the imagination and simulation in our depersonalized culture. I claimed that our culture was depersonalized by technology and an over-abundance of knowledge, and that this led us to make egocentric and simplified simulations of other people. In particular, I used the examples of meeting new people, driving, and online so cial network, a brief quotation from that essay: 'To demonstrate the depersonalized nature of our experiences I used the example of fresh social interaction (with its over reliance on preformed concepts about people), the example of driving (with its tendency to attribute complex mental states with extremely limited evidence), and the example of facebook and text messaging (with their reliance on self-presentation and text based understanding)'. So, in short, our culture forces us to take certain perspectives on other people. In particular, I think that we have very complex and overbearing tacit theories that give us rigid ways of thinking of other people.

In that post I was thinking mainly in terms of how imagination and simulation were effected by the depersonalized nature of our culture and what that means for our tacit theories. Right now, however, I am inclined to think that our exposure to depersonalization, and the resulting tacit theories, may cause us to completely bypass simulational processes. I don't know if this is really the case, but it seems like it might be. When we make a snap judgment about a person while driving, or based on their race or gender, or on their class, does that really require a simulation? Or could tacit theory simply override a simulation process and provide us with a conclusion about the mental state of another person.

It certainly seems like this might be the case. It seems like tacit theory may indeed allow us to bypass simulation entirely. I think this is bad. I think simulation inclines us towards empathy, towards creative compassion. Simulation is how we should think of other minds. But I fear that our depersonalized cultural situation forces us to rely heavily on tacit theories, and thus makes us less empathic.

So in the last section I simply want to state some of my ideas on how we may battle this cultural tendency. How we may take control of our tacit mental theories and start to manipulate the way our minds engage in mindreading, and most importantly, how tacit theory effects how we simulate other minds.

Identifying, Refining, and Constructing Tacit Theories: Educating Unconscious Mindreading
So in this section I want to lay out some very tentative practical suggestions about how tacit theory's role in educating our unconscious mindreading processes. My goal, in this post, and in the bulk of my writing is pedagogical. I want to know how we can teach people to be more sensitive, more empathic, how to mindread better. I want to know how we can teach people to simulate other people's thoughts more sensitively.

At this time I am exploring how tacit theory needs to be dealt with in order to achieve a pedagogy of simulation. Right now I have three things in mind, identifying the nature of our tacit theories, refining our already acquired tacit theories that we have identified, and constructing new tacit theories that we may not have access to at this moment.

So, why do tacit theories need to be 'identified'? Well, seeing as how tacit theories are acquired over the course of our lives by experience, we initially have very little control over them. They simply work their way into our unconscious without our consent or control. The first step, therefore, would be to identify the tacit theories that we have been unconsciously endowed with. I am inclined to use the phrase 'personal archeology' to describe this process. I am invoking Foucault's use of the term archeology, which he uses to communicate the process of explicating the historical construction of society's most deeply held values. Personal archeology is a similar thing: it is identifying the personal history that has given us the set of tacit theories that we have. Plus, I want to pick up in Foucault's foot steps.

Once we have roughly identified our tacit theories we need to begin refining them. We need to whittle them down, figure out what parts of them we do and don't like, and start trying to refine them. We need to start thinking about why we do what we do unconsciously with the hopes of changing what we do. We need to pay attention to our behavior so we can refine the tacit theories that govern it.

Lastly, we need to creatively try to come up with new types of tacit theories. We need to start exploring new ways of thinking with the hopes of turning those ways of thinking into tacit theory. This is the real business here, is changing the unconscious. Modifying the way we think on an unconscious level. This must be creative. And once we come up with something new we have to really reflect on it to ensure that it can make it to that deep deep level of tacit theory.

Concluding
Well, I think this has been a pretty interesting post. I am happy to have handled the issue of tacit theory as its own beast. I have lots more thinking to do about it, but it is a good step, this essay. I think it all echos Foucault in interesting ways. And I also think that it echos with neuroplasticity in ways that I am choosing not to articulate now. I think this is a potent line of thought that will take me places in the future. So much for this for now. Good attempt. Good exploration.

Original notes of 6/20 -
I now have a much clearer understanding of the relationship between simulation and tacit theory. Simulation is the process by which understanding of other mind's is achieved. Tacit theory is the level at which our simulative processes are 1. enacted, and 2. structured. Tacit theory, therefore, is the level we have to aim for if we want to modify our unconscious simulations.

(Goldman's) Low-Level and High-Level Simulational Mindreading, and (My) Pedagogical Simulational Mindreading

This morning I finished Alvin Goldman's Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading. In terms of how it substantiates and contributes to much of my own thinking, it is by far one of the most important books I've read lately.

He is arguing that the human mind attributes mental states to other people (mindreading) primarily by simulating other people's thoughts in their own minds. Simulation, however, is buttressed by tacit psychological theory, and human reasoning capabilities. Goldman's theory of mind, therefore, is a simulation-theory hybrid (with heavy emphasis on simulation as the most basic, fundamental, and important).

Goldman distinguishes between two forms of simulational mindreading: low-level and high-level.

Low-level simulational mindreading is defined by two interchangable terms resonance or mirroring. Low-level mindreading heavily relies on a group of neurons known as mirror neurons. When we see someone experience pain, see someone making a sad face, or grasping an object, are brain activates its centers responsible for pain, sad facial muscles, and grasping. Mirror neurons literally resonate with what we perceive in other people. This is an instantaneous and often subconscious process, but neuroscience testing confirms the functioning of mirror neurons. So, low-level mindreading involves the simulation of other people's thoughts and feelings on the subconscious level of resonance and mirroring.

High-level simulational mindreading, on the other hand, is a more conscious process that involves taking the perspective of others, or the use of the enactment-imagination. Most of high-level mindreading rests on what Goldman calls the enactment-imagination (E-imagination). The E-imagination is a form of imagination in which we actually feel (to a quasi, but substantial degree) what we are imagining. We imagine being on a beach and we can sorta hear water, or feel the ocean. We imagine being in pain and our body may twinge with the idea of it. Goldman holds that when we imagine pain, happiness, sadness, or fear, we produce within our minds a state of quasi-pain, quasi-happiness, quasi-sadness, and quasi-fear. It is a form of imagination that invokes the actual qualities of experience. In many instances there is actually significant neurological overlap between imagination and experience.

High-level mindreading is utilized when we have more complex interpersonal behavior to make sense of us. When we are upset how someone has treated us, or when we are trying to figure out unusual or disconcerting behavior, we often use imaginative simulated scenarios to attribute possible mental states to individuals. High-level mindreading is also involved in imagining future hypothetical scenarios, or when actively remembering a certain incident. I can say for myself (and I hope others also do this, I know some who do) that I regularly reenact hypothetical social situations when I am either about to enter one, or if I have recently had a memorable one. In both cases I use my imagination to simulate possible scenarios. I run through imagined conversations, I think of potential replies. Or in the case of memory, I think of what I should have said, and I imagine myself saying it. A fairly common thing, I think. In all of these instances, the E-imagination would be invoking the approximate effects of experience.

I find Goldman's distinction between low and high-level mindreading to be extremely useful. In particular, I am interested in how high-level mindreading can be used to provoke the effects of actual experience, creating a 'synthetic experience.' In terms of effects, I am particularly interested in experience's ability to improve intuitive decision making, and to cultivate social sensitivity. I believe that if equipped with the conceptual tools of simulation and synthetic experience studying history and fiction would be a way to generate a wide range of synthetic experience that would be able to improve judgment and sensitivity.

This is what I want to discuss under my own category of 'pedagogical simulational mindreading.' I think this phrase captures my meaning really well, and it builds on Goldman's work, which is what I will be interested in doing in graduate school. So I really think/hope that I will be working with this concept/phrase for some time. Tough to predict my future thoughts, but at this point I like it a lot.

Anyways, so pedagogical simulational mindreading is the idea is that specific forms of simulation, conceptualized as such, when directly applied in an educational setting, could provide many forms of synthetic experience that would cultivate social sensitivity and intuitive judgment. This applies to the bulk of the humanities. In particular, I am going to discuss historical, fictitious, and philosophical simulation.

I am only going to run through these three forms very quickly. I have already explicated them in my post of april 30th, and will likely explicate them in much greater detail in the future. So a few sentences for each will suffice now.

Historical

Historical simulation, as I see it, is inspired by Clausewitz, Collingwood, and Foucault, probably others that I don't know of yet. But the basic idea is that historical knowledge is achieved by rethinking the thoughts that others have expressed in the past. So historians collect evidence of past thought that was expressed, then they simulate or reenact those thoughts in their own minds. Not only does this lead to historical understanding, but it provides a synthetic experience. And if reflected on, this synthetic historical experience can invoke the actual effects of experience (i.e. increased sensitivity and judgment). History, in particular, gives us access to a wide range of emotions and situations to draw synthetic experience from. When we use Goldman's E-imagination in historical study, we get close to actual experience.

Fictitious

History, however, cannot enter the same realms as fiction. Fiction is capable of depicting things, experiences, emotions, that never occurred in actuality. There is some freedom to this. It opens up uses of the E-imagination that are intense and fantastic. Surrealist literature (a la Steve Erickson), for example, has made me feel some of the most intense feelings, despite that it is completely impossible. The E-imagination can bring fictitious experiences to life, and provide a useful form of synthetic experience that differs from synthetic historical experience.

Philosophical

Philosophical reading would also provide a specific form of synthetic experience. While history and fiction are more likely to fall under the umbrella of emotional experience, philosophy provides more of an intellectual synthetic experience. When we read works of philosophy we are imagining why the person wrote the way they did, what questions they were trying to answer, why they thought their answers were good. So, we are gaining access to forms of thought (experience) that we never accessed before.

One quick experimental example. In Mirroring People Marco Iacoboni cites an experiment in which groups of individuals were told to imagine a very intelligent professor they knew, and to write down everything that came to mind as if they were that professor. Another group was told to imagine a group of soccer hooligans, and to write. After the imagining of other people they were given a general intelligence test. Those imagining professors mind's performed better. The moral: imagining intelligent people makes you more intelligent. This finding applies to all three of these types of pedagogical simulational mindreading. But it seems most specifically applied to philosophical simulation.

Conclusion

Goldman's distinction between low and high-level simulational mindreading seems extremely useful for me. I can build on the notion of high-level simulational mindreading, and in particular the idea of the E-imagination, to espouse my own views on 'pedagogical simulational mindreading.' I think this is a new phrase, I think this is a new idea. I want to reconfigure the educational systems using these ideas. Experience is the most important aspect of learning. The imagination can provide something like synthetic experience. And it turns out the humanities as a whole is fraught with different forms of synthetic experience that can be invoked to produce different effects. Booya.

But anyways, this is such impossible thinking. It seems impossible to change the way things are, or to implement these ideas on some meaningful level. I guess I'll see what happens before I die.

Savage Nobility?

I am unsure how to go about explaining my interest in noble savagery. It’s a bad term. But I feel like it communicates something that I want to be a part of. Something that really means something to me. But without the connotations of colonialism and ignorance of other cultures etc. What I really want it to communicate is that language/reason should be subservient to emotion/experience. Emotion/experience should always come first. I often think that popular opinion believes the inverse; that emotion/experience should obey the rule of language/reason. Bull shittttt.

Historically that is what the term noble savage seems to have meant. That an ‘indigenous,‘ ‘uncivilized person,‘ a ‘savage,’ was capable of embracing civilization and shedding their impulsive and animalistic ways in favor of logical control of the self. What I am seeking is to flip this on its head. I feel like I live an overcivilized world. All this emphasis on language and science and self-control and reason and logic and fuck that. Crying is so much easier. Being furious is so much easier. Feeling is so much easier than thinking. And somehow we have this idea that thinking logically is ‘what we do.’ And let me say right now I do not buy it for a second. I have read a number of books that trace the existence of the West’s logocentric view. The best I have seen so far are by Guy Claxton, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind and The Wayward Mind. Claxton is a British psychologist and a practicing Buddhist. Smart guy, I really like reading him. I’m sure there are other very good ones too.

But anyways, so how is it that we can change the relationship between emotion/experience and language/reason so that we can begin to think of emotion/experience the guiding force? And is that really what I am after? This has perhaps been a vague notion of mine for a little while. Savagery, that is. When I read Angels by Denis Johnson the blurb on the front was very striking, as was the entire book. But the blurb said ‘Mr. Johnson has written a savage and dazzling first novel.’ And now that I think about it, I think this book is actually a convenient avenue for explaining my inclination towards ‘savagery’ in general. I used quotes because I have realized how muddled this term is in my mind right now. Navigating the connotations is interesting.

So sure, I will use my experience of reading Angels as an avenue for addressing this idea of noble savagery. So, I guess first I want to talk about my experience of reading Angels. The story is about a woman who leaves her husband with her two small children, ends up meeting an ex-marine/ex-con and they ‘get into some shit’ involving drugs, rape, multiple robberies including a bank robbery. Essentially, these are American savages. These are people whose lives are governed more by impulse and happenstance, more by sex and violence, more by emotion/experience than by language/reason. The story is quite engrossing. I found it overwhelming in the best way. I had a friend tell me that he didn’t like it because he found nothing to identify with in these characters. That they were too extreme. That their pain, their plight was too unrealistic. Bull shit. I found the story universal. I guess I will draw one conclusion from this story in the form of a question with an obvious answer: What is it that made these people do what they did? Why would behave this way? What could spurn such violence, drug use, and ‘recklessness?’ (I quote this because it is implicitly value laden and I don’t want to give the sense that I disapprove, or I find these characters detestable. I have infinite sympathy for these characters).

So why would these people act this way? In a way considered forbidden by Western views? Ummm, because they are savages? Ah, this is so interesting writing this out because these are views I have been holding for a long time and trying to get them out is interesting. Proving that the O’Connor quote on my first post is indeed somewhat true. Anyways, to ask the question ‘why do they act like savages?’. My friends answer was simple, they are crazy, they are brutal, they are stupid, etc. It would be easy to write off that sort of experience as madness or stupidity. However, this assumes that the nature of human life is civilization, that we exist primarily as beings using our rationality/language to make ‘choices.’ Like little scientists every day deducing the proper path and then implementing our logical plans.

I am proposing that the very nature of life is constant savage compulsion through time. That the nature of human existence is to feel violent and sexual and angry and confused. To react to changing and uncertain circumstances without the benefit of reflection. That living is about doing feeling doing feeling doing feeling and NOT thinking writing thinking writing thinking writing. I am very curious about the connection between science and the idea of choice/responsibility. In what historical moment were people first able to conceptualize something like choice? It would be interesting to see what other sorts of events it coincided with. Does it have something to do with science and logocentrism? Who knows, historical research for the future, no doubt.

One of the major directions that this whole thing leads me to is the different ways of conceptualizing action. The idea that we are beings who primarily use language/reason allows us to conceptualize action in terms of choice, and responsibility. These concepts are soooo very important to our sense of morality in the West. But what if life is not driven by choice/responsibility, but by things like happenstance, impulse, desire? In short, what if life is compelled by emotion/experience far more than it is chosen by language/reason? Well, then, I find myself trying navigate a middle ground in which we need to account for these deterministic factors without totally giving up up on the notion of choice and responsibility. I have often conceptualized the relationship between determinism and free will through imagery, namely the image of a river and the individuals ability to struggle in said river. Fleshing out this idea of the river metaphor will probably be one of my next posts but for now I will only make a few points. By thinking of ourselves as in constant movement through a river accounts for things that I think must be in any account of human freedom and behavior: 1. our constant movement through time 2. the inability to foresee of many crucial events in life 3. the uniqueness of individuals lives 4. the relative nature of all action 5. the limitations that circumstance sets in our lives 6. and the ability to act within predetermined circumstance.

Let me try to bring this whole business back to noble savagery. The noble savage was a concept that is based on a faulty assumption: that people inherently exist as civilized individuals who operate primarily through language/reason. So, therefore, a noble savage was a primitive or ‘inferior’ being who operated more by emotion and impulse than reason. Yet, he attained his ‘nobility’ by learning to overcome these impulses in favor of civilization, language, reason, etc.

As I have said, I think that emotion/experience is far more important to most human lives than language/reason. So then, if what we have typically called ‘savage‘ is essentially the nature of human life, then how are we to think of our ‘civil’ selves? Ummmm. Well, it seems to me that we need to change the definition of what it means to be a noble savage. What I am proposing is not a full blown retreat from civilization. It certainly has all kinds of great things to offer. Comfort, medicine, stability, etc. But how to deal with the persistence of very violent crimes and other things we see as counter to civilization?

As an individual living in the West I feel overwhelmed by words. They seem to be everywhere and shape the way I think about pretty much everything. They are inescapable. They are limited. So the task is to reverse the morality of the term ‘noble savage.’ Savage is a positive word in my mind. It signifies the ability to lose yourself in feeling, to follow your daydreams without concern for their purpose, to love and to hate, to scream and to cry, to run and to hide and to sleep and to fear. All of these things could not be more real and could not be more human/animal. But logocentrism has, in many instances, made these natural feelings seem perverse or bad. It has made us averse to intense swings of emotion. Scared us of ourselves. Of how very much we can love and hate. So, then, the task is to make savagery akin to experiencing life on the level of emotion and experience.

So how to redefine noble? I think it is noble to admit that you can never say everything that you feel or think. To admit that life is driven by compulsion and intense feelings, by circumstances and unreflective action. To admit that we will never be in complete control of ourselves or our lives. It is noble to admit that words and reason are just not good enough. Above all, however, nobility is about not giving up on language and reason, but radically redefining what it is that we are trying to do with them. Rather than using language/reason to suppress or control our emotions we need to use them to get to a space where we are capable of feeling them without words. A rational pursuit that is ultimately about enjoying sensation in its rawest, ineffable form. This reminds me of The Picture of Dorian Gray. At one point Lord Henry speaks of New Hedonism. Forgive any misquotes or w/e, I don’t have the book with me. But at one point Lord Henry says that he wants to found a new theory of pleasure. One that is aimed at enhancing the experience of pleasure itself. How can this be done? How can language be used to embrace things that are inherently ineffable? How to use words to approach the wordless? Well, it is, actually, the only way that it can be done. Language is the only thing we have.

Now for a little imagery. When we use language we are searching for something. Typically it seems to be used in an attempt to control, to understand. This is an endless quest. We will never have a perfect knowledge of the world. We will always be changing out understanding. perhaps refining it, but there will be no end to language’s pursuit of knowledge. Similarly, any use of language that is meant to enhance experience, or to heighten emotional awareness, or to feel more of life, is also an endless quest. Because so long as we are using language we are not actually entering that world of pure experience and emotion. So then, a moment ago I laughed out loud because of an image that struck me. Then I just fleshed it out in words for myself. Given what I said above, about language’s infinite nature, it is interesting to visualize its use as a line that extends infinitely in both directions. At the center is the mind using the language. In one direction is language in pursuit of more knowledge, articulation in search of articulation. In the other direction language is in pursuit of emotion/experience, articulation in pursuit of the ineffable. Ultimately, the latter, is what I want for language. I want it to be placed back into the pursuit of emotion and experience. I want to, and I do, FEEL so much more than I THINK. I think quite a lot. And quite often the more I think, the more it helps me feel.

This writing is incoherent and if you actually read all of this and find it in the least bit interesting that would be pretty fascinating to me. I have expressed these ideas to very few people in depth. And I have never tried to articulate them on paper in a coherent or systematic fashion. This took about an hour and 45 minutes to type this. It was mostly a stream of sorts. Groping my way through my ideas as I went.

But I would like to offer an extremely brief summary:
I want to reverse the connotations of the two terms ‘noble’ and ‘savage’. For me, Savagery is the fundament of life. It is compulsion, inarticulate emotion and wordless experience. And nobility has to do with the way in which language is employed in life. Typically, articulation would be employed to attain more complex articulation. But I think it is noble to use language in the pursuit of the ineffable. I want to use language to pursue something that is fundamentally different than itself, words must chase experiences, articulation must pursue the ineffable. Endlessly.

This is deeply connected to my views on history, fiction, lots of things. I will chase these ideas in later posts hopefully. This feels ridiculous. ITALICS.