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by briangriffinfan
336 days ago
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> It's not that people "are less willing to believe there is stuff they don't understand", it's "people are fed up of being marketed to by centuries of con-people trying to spin the idea that they understand something deep and insightful that we don't, and we need to turn to them for help with it". Everything you said was baked into my post already, so it's funny to me that your conclusion ends up being the exact phenomenon I was talking about. I don't feel like going point by point but nothing you said was something I haven't considered. Yes! Sometimes there are experts in higher-up places that do simply just understand something deep and insightful that you don't, and they may not have a peer-reviewed scientific study justifying this. You are allowed to not accept this - it may even be true, although I don't think so - but how are you going to keep thinking about what you might not know yet if you're already convinced you know about as much as the author does? Like... are you going to keep thinking about the ideals in Star Trek if you think you know more than Gene Roddenbury? Are you going to keep thinking about what Lord of the Rings means if you're absolutely certain no author could really be THAT insightful? I've already come to a conclusion here: no. |
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This doesn't follow as a piece of logic at all; I often find some computer related comment on the internet by a beginner where I definitely do know more, and the comment is a trigger for me to keep thinking about the details long after the comment is over.
We could list some ideals in Star Trek, e.g. the multicultural bridge crew, and then think "I know more about that than Roddenberry so let's imagine about where Roddenberry could have done better". (I'm not claiming to know more, just spinning a thought experiment). Or you could say "look I've studied a lot of multicultural ideals and I knoww more about it than you, and you could learn something of it by watching more Star Trek and focusing on that point". The important part is that you can list specific ideals in the work, and then we can talk about those ideals.
We could imagine a movie about the killing fields of Cambodia. I don't want to watch it. You are saying "you don't think there is anything in there to understand!". But I am not saying that. This is not "the exact phenomenon" you were talking about because here I am accepting that there are things I don't understand, as I did with my example of James Joyce's writing.
However, what I do reject is the idea that there are films which you claim contain deep meaning that you understand - but you can't say what that meaning is, you can't demonstrate its presence, you can't demonstrate that you have the understanding which you claim to have, or demonstrate that I do not have it, but you are convinced that you understand it more deeply than I do and that elevates you to a higher status than me. That is the realm of every mystic, street corner preacher, megachurch pastor, cult leader, every psychoactive drug taker, every dreamer and philosopher, many artists, con-artists and scammers, and should be rejected under Hitchen's Razor ("What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence").
Am I going to think about what Lord of the Rings means? Probably not. I have read enough songs (one song is enough) about Bilbo Baggins hating it when people are careless while washing up plates. That's not because I claim to know more than Tolkien. But if you say "Tolkien made some deep commentary about the choice to suffer to protect those you love" that's different claim than "Tolkien made some deep commentary and it was like, whoa dude, you just had to be there, it was like - well, it was so profound words can't do it justice - but I understand it and if you don't agree then you must be a base simpleton philistine" and you say it in a magazine with a posh register. Yeah well the clouds were very deep and meaningful too and I saw Man's Inhumanity to Man in them, you'll just have to trust me. Why not spend a few hours contemplating it?