(no subject)

[proximoception]

Borges:

The second time--"And miles to go before I sleep"--we are made to feel that the miles are not only in space but in time, and that "sleep" means "die" or "rest." Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments. Then we look at them, we weigh them, we turn them over, and we decide against them.

But when something is merely said or--better still--hinted at, there is a kind of hospitality in our imagination. We are ready to accept it.

Comments

[proximoception.livejournal.com]

Hopefully he means in art only, and something like "entertain" by "accept." The meaning of the passage for me is that no one will like me for arguing with them--a thing I tend to forget.

I think you're right about theoretical readings, except I wouldn't describe those as arguments. They're not propositional, they're inevitably systems, or fragments of systems, designed to replace or rival argument/logic. You have to sieze them at both ends, superimpose them on the life in front of you, rather than build to them from clean premises. And there's two necessary components to their appeal, I think: the one you describe, where you hold onto what you've worked to make any kind of sense of; and whatever you think the system promised at the outset. The second can fall away, like support rockets, when you finally get some sense of the theory. Which may be a good thing, because I'm not aware of any that does anything like what aspirants expect of it. Most are mythologies trying to talk their way into science.