Derek writes:
"Cheerskep is assuming, I think, that I want to propose working substitutes
or replacements for these words ['aesthetic' and 'beauty']. I don't. I just
want them ignored for say about 10 years. I want people to forget they ever
existed."
No. I said if Derek wants the words banned he could aid his case by
suggesting other phrases in their place. And I expressly said the job couldn't
be done
with single "equivalent" words. I had earlier argued for banning the word
'reality' because it stirred different and often incompatible notions. At base
the
problem Derek or anyone has with 'beauty' and 'aesthetic' is very similar to
that with 'reality': a reader can never be serviceably sure what the writer
who uses those words has in mind.
However, I wasn't trying to ban all the various notions a writer might harbor
when he uses the word 'reality'. Some of those notions may be worthy and
defensible. So I figured I should try to demonstrate how replacement phrases
could
be used depending on the various notions the writer wanted to convey. I said
I believe we can in large part preserve and convey the particular core notion
in the mind, while reducing the confusion caused by the many potential notions
behind the word 'reality'.
For example, when I indicted 'reality', I knew some people use it to indicate
what they might call the "material" world "out there", like the "real" iron
structure in Paris we call "the Eiffel Tower", and explicitly to exclude things
that have only "mental existence" like fantasies of Santa Claus, paranoid
delusions, and even sane worries, anxieties, fears, hopes. Derek, however, on
the
argument that fantasies and fears can be a dominating factor in some people's
lives, opted to call such things "more real" to those who have them than is
some remote material object they'll never see or even hear about.
Neither notion behind the word 'reality' is "wrong", but they are mutually
contradictory, so two people can be using the same word while entertaining
incompatible notions. Brady, because Derek wants to call fantasies 'real',
suggested using the terms 'fiction" and 'non-fiction' to render unnecessary the
use of
'real' or 'unreal' when someone might want to classify factual accounts and
fantasies. And I suggested 'notional' and 'non-notional' to distinguish purely
"mental" entities from all entities that exist outside anyone's mind. Those
locutions, I figured, accommodated Derek's notion when he declared anxieties to
be "very real" to the person who has them, and the notion in the layman's mind
when he insists the Eiffel Tower is "real" and Santa's factory is not. Thus
the use of 'real' could be obviated, but core notions in both men's minds could
be conveyed.
If nothing else, pushing everyone to articulate more explicitly the notion
they have in mind when they are inclined to use the words 'aesthetic' and
'beauty' would, in Derek's phrase, cut down on the "short-circuiting of thought
processes" that the use of easily available but ambiguous terms always fosters.
It's intriguing to see that even the same person can harbor contradictory
notions and never notice it because he doesn't entertain both of them at the
same
time. He or she might, for example, on Monday claim the phrase 'the
non-fiction, everyday world' is "just another term for 'reality'", and then
on
Wednesday claim the Santa Claus fantasy has "reality" for a child. People can
do
this without noticing they have just implied that 'non-fiction' is just another
word for fantasy.
Or they might convey that they know art when they see it because it gives
them a "response to art", and then on another day convey they believe in the
existence of "bad art" -- which, I think we may assume, does NOT give them a
"response to art".
These are not insuperable confusions, but they require the speakers to spell
out what they have in mind with the key terms.
I don't trust anyone who insists that a given word is "the only one" that can
serviceably convey what he has in mind.
**************
Wondering what's for Dinner Tonight? Get new twists on family
favorites at AOL Food.
(http://food.aol.com/dinner-tonight?NCID=aolfod00030000000001)
