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by klodolph
1970 days ago
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The thesis is that we read the book because it’s about performativity, and Americans have a different relationship with performativity than Europeans do. Every paragraph in the article from “so again” onwards is about performativity. An example of performativity, from the book but not mentioned in the article—Gatsby’s house has bookshelves filled with books, presumably never read, only there for decoration. Gatsby is performing the part of being rich. Since Americans do not have nobility, we take our performance cues (how to act upper class) by imitating Europeans. It’s a hundred years later and we still imitate Europeans and ape European culture when we want to pretend to be rich and upper-class. |
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Well, the theory of that field can start with a statement, observation, claim such as
"It’s a hundred years later and we still imitate Europeans and ape European culture when we want to pretend to be rich and upper-class."
I can believe that some or much of that is true! E.g., way back there when I wanted to learn to cook so I could serve something good to guests, I went for European cooking, sure, especially French cooking. Much of that cooking is still like the first class dinner scene from the movie Titanic! Even now, I'd like to serve guests something from Vienna coffee house cakes -- some of which look spectacular, even if actually they don't taste better than good American apple pie, warm, with good vanilla ice cream!
So, the statement seems clear enough, might seem like good insight, maybe it's obviously true, etc. Still, it turns out, it is usually not easy actually to validate such a statement just from data, e.g., survey data, and associated statistics. More generally, literature, i.e., belle lettre, is awash in statements that maybe one would like to validate with data and statistics as sociology science but which in practice is tough to do.
But for belle lettre, there is a way out!
First, f'get about asking if the statement is true in some scientific or statistical sense.
Second, instead, call the statement art as in the definition "the communication, interpretation of human experience, emotion". Then look at the statement as an example of such "communication, interpretation", that is, just see if the statement does communicate some emotions, impressions, feelings, beliefs, behaviors, suspicions, etc. of some people, maybe even some strange people with no attempt to consider average, most, or all people.
First, then with a lot of such examples of belle lettre, can accumulate a catalog of possibilities for people, call it a collection of Bayesian statistics priors, as first cut guesses when meet a new person.
Second, if some of those claims, etc., from literature seem to describe ones self, then can start to believe that are not alone, not the Lone Ranger, not a total anomaly different from everyone else.
Uh, I wish my various literature teachers, at least one of them, would have made those points to me!