(no subject)

Why is tragedy better than comedy? If it is, I think it would have to be because the risk of death forces us to define life, so as to locate and save it or, if the assessment warrants, let it go. Tragedy forces us to put our values on the table and in order: activates philosophy not as a game or deferral but an imperative. Like Hamlet making Gertrude look at the pictures. How is being made to look at yourself, at the generally unbearable truth of the world a pleasure, anything anyone would subject themself to? Generally people don't, as we see by the list of most popular movies in any given week, but they tend to look back at the times where they did as more important ones, as groundings in unillusion. This works with heroes, too--Oedipus is not Abraham Lincoln, but we see them both having to judge what is most meaningful and then act accordingly. Tragedy has the prestige of reality to ashamed dodgers of it, of growing up to children who just want to play but suspect they're half-tired of playing.