To begin with a quote from a recent comment: "One of the challenges inherent in exploring both of these questions [artistic voice and what is art] is the need for vigilant definition plus careful assessment of personal/collective assumptions. Without attention to both of these hinges on reality, discourse turns muddy, even as mental streams tend to dry up."
I have been busily stripping away as many assumptions as I can (well, ok that's the goal, I'm not there yet). In my tiny world of learning I have been soaking up teachings this summer. One of them is apparently called "MicroInequities" - I believe this is a trademarked term and I love the content encompassed. 10% of our communications are verbal, the rest are non-verbal including body language, pauses in delivery, tone of voice and the flying saucers we envision as we allow the inner critic to dominate the field and tear apart our unworthy opponents.
A microinequity is the small, yet potent message we actually send as we smile and deliver some sultry palaver of platitudes. While that issue may or may not have much relevance in the artistic process, the assumptions that feed into this behavior are at the core of the issue. Why do we make stuff up about: people, places, created works, ourselves, everything?
As I walk about, lie around and just do my daily stuff I'm assuming all of these things. That person has all this baggage I have endowed him with, even though I know nothing about it and he would laugh at what I have assumed. As I am practicing the big strip tease, lose it or name it, I have all of these wild artistic notions. For example...
Returning this morning from a walk in the park I saw a young boy, an old man (truly, those were not assumptions, though I can't say what the ages are, but shorter than adult growth and reclining, with cane and grey haired) I examined my internal dialog. First I decided they were grandson and grandfather. Strike that, could be any relationship. They are definitely male people, humans, persons of color, could be any class, might be any relationship, although it's before 8am, so someone probably knows they are together.
The boy was chasing the geese into the south pond at Lincoln Park. Awesome - just what I always want to do. The older man was ensconsed in a chair with a fishing rod, instructing the boy (he said "do it [this] way", I think it's fair to say he was the teacher). Without going into more assumptions, I named my issue (now don't go making assumptions) and thought how much I would like to be one or both of them (probably not the geese or the possible fish on the hook). They belonged to each other.
What if the story is taking place somewhere else, New Orleans, Mars, a ritzy apartment in Vegas? What if only song is involved? Or dance? Photomontage would definitely show the perspective of the geese, quite possibly the fish as well. I would suggest that to build an entire story about who's who, what the relationship is and then impose a plot is an example of linear thinking.
If this is the case, I finally understand what linear thinking is. Send me your thoughts.
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4 comments:
Lots of threads and weaving in here--all done with an imaginative needle and thumb. Thought I would pull a few threads as part of my own personal linear pursuit.
On Microinequality. A fun word to capture what linear thought tends to leave out--all those hidden below surface activities that the linear mind often finds too illusive, too open and freewheeling, and thereby too complicated to address holistically. So the linearist smooths things out, or dispatches some of the stuff to the nearest psychology lab for definition and assessment, or just turns it all over to those messy art people. You know, those indulgent folk who love to muck about in all the sensory non verbals. Question: Is this how you intended to use the term? Your twist? Wasn't sure.
On Strip Tease. That is also fun phrasing. A good way of thinking about the effects of a linear mindset acting on subject matter--one with operations that strip away density and experiential richness. What is wanted is something sleeker, more manageable in size and shape(reduction to information bits will sometimes do here). This process can even end in the buff. A real strip tease.
On Imposition. I think this is what the linear often wants to do, that is, exercise a thought pattern that seems to have inherent tendencies wanting to dictate, be directive, take control, levy/leverage authority, prevail in some direct way--and do all this from outside. Here preference moves away from open-ended narrative toward more abstract objectivity. Yep, to impose a plot is to think linearly. It also invites the inner critic. And often gets a rejection slip.
On Making Things Up. I don't think the linear feels comfortable here. This seems like/feels like a counter impulse demanding a different set of skills and processes. In other words, making things up gives too much rein to the imagination with all its potential alternatives and their multiples. In some ways "making things up" is too risky, too free floating. Doesn't have enough mechanisms of control--direct causality being one of them.
In sum thanks for the creative way you play with a subject. Did I get what your narrative was after? I am afraid I've gone pedantic here while you show yourself the the imaginative one. Win a few loose a few.
More imagination and less linearism anyone? Other assumptions and definitions to share?
For me "logic" is what we call it when we reason from fixed principles in a closed system in a domain where it's appropriate (eg, a proof in geometry or an opening system in chess) and "linear thinking" is what we call it when we try to apply such rigidity and shutting down of inconvenient thoughts or data in more complex domains such as ... oh, say, real life! (And now the postmodernists are chiming in that no two of us even live in the same "real life"!)
I've mostly heard it as a pejorative. I may not like linear thinking in my novelists, but I absolutely LOVE it in my freeway designers and aircraft mechanics!
And yet, these also need to deal with real-world complexities. They seem to do it by banding together to arrive at ways of approximating or summarizing the wild world until they feel confident enough to proceed...and they tend to be loud about the exceptions that scare them (unless someone shuts them up).
What fires me up about this subject is that the same skill (of rigorous exclusion of information that doesn't fit in the system, is unmeasurable, can't be agreed among multiple points of view, etc) can be applied to our systems of thought themselves. Pythagoras's insistence on continuing to sketch his proof in the dust despite the presence of hostile soldiers, at first glance, strikes me as an extreme example of "linear thought"... it seems he'd have benefited from another perspective (not being killed!) But it's also possible to appreciate the event as a work of performance art by P, saying: "I choose to value my beautiful thought and reason over your ugly squabbling over who will rule the city! You may kill me, but you cannot divert me from my truth!" And this is sufficiently moving to others that the story is still retold. So recognizing or labelling "linear thinking" may be an act of linear thinking itself...and the snake swallows its tail...
I'm struck by two things on the benefits/detractions of linear thinking. The most obvious is that linear thought has its place. There are times when a good plot twist works rather better because of a linear lead up. Linear also seems to proceed along as we have become literate.
It is my finding personally as well as through reading that non-literate types don't as much care about the order of story telling for example. Start at the beginning, stop for awhile and try something else, start in the middle, stop for a song. And likewise, non-notating musicians (non-literate or non-western sorts) seem to have better recall and can string motifs along backward, forward and in all different configurations.
if anyone wants to go quoting the story about hte drawing, I think legend attributes that action to Archimedes, not Pythagoras. My bad!
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