Just the FAQ

Complexity and depth help draw in the audience.

"The nature of a novel is that it has no opinions, only the dialectic of contrary views, some of which, all of which, may be untenable and even silly."

— Anthony Burgess   
 

MEANING

 

 

  DEEPERIN FICTION

 

 

Q. What are imagery and symbolism? 

A. You’re always saying more than you know. So, make sure you’re saying what you mean. 'Symbolism' refers generally to metonymy, one way or another, one thing howsoever suggesting if not signifying another, however similar or different, the systematic utilization of symbols in order to represent or allude to something or anything else, particularly as a rhetorical device central to the meaning of a written work, and especially including the revelation or suggestion or Objective Correlative of intangible conditions or truths by just such artistic invention.

Indeed, the range of art ever extends from the sensory to the cognitive, the prosaic to poetical, and the concrete to the abstract.

Yet the poetical sensibility of art often entails pondering and reflecting upon ideas and problems but via the unique conceptual medium of images, visualizations, sense memories and the like, as opposed to rhetoric, conceptualizations and linguistic abstractions otherwise. Indeed, imagery may be employed to remind us, by approximation, of whatever meaning said imagery may represent, either conventionally within a culture, intentionally by the invention of the writer or even quite surprisingly in reception by an audience, depending upon one one asks, because in delving subtext, The Problem of Meaning in Literature begins with the age old conundrum of layered text, context and subtext, of whether meaning is in simply recognizing what is intended by the author, contained in the text itself , or even created by the reader in response, all along with the Pathetic Fallacy respectably rejected as THE 4 DEADLY FALLACIES in favor, instead, of an hypothesis of reciprocal creative misunderstanding from ambiguity.

Zen  in rejection of explanation as such, likewise strives for clarity and preciseness of allegorical imagery, pointing to that which defies direct description, all in the ardent cultivation of immediacy and awakening to mindful heightened awareness of experience, and thence the rejection of conceptualization as burdensome self-conscious encumbrance and suffering, wherein the Zen quests for the complete abandonment of understanding as such. Indeed, the draw of cult initiation into the quest for enlightenment and the snares exploitation alike, is in the hope that with perseverance all that is nebulous, obscure and even dubious, will become intelligible and important later on.

The truth remains, however, that imagery is hardly actually necessary to begin with for abstract thought, and indeed even seemingly somewhat unwieldy, indeed perhaps among the least practical of intellectual tools, but actually only the more challenging. And so, where is any advantage therein thereby? The answer is, emphatically, that the entire point of employing imagery symbolically or evocatively nevertheless remains in howsoever greater economy, stronger impression or greater familiarity with whatever selected images, than with whatever more difficult and as yet indistinct ideas represented for examination in order to be clarified.

Moreover, an image may be rendered so specifically in its focus and particular selected descriptive detail as to render all other broader aspects vague and alien, indeed, to increase the difficulty, effort and length of imaginative perception as an aesthetic end in itself in order thereby prolonged, all in quest of unfamiliar new recognition even of the most familiar and thereby to express anything more.

For in art for it's own sake, in authorship no less than performance or presentation, and beyond howsoever polemic, the experience of the process of construction may be the salient motivating goal ever put forth the more so than whatever finished product or end impression.

As another artful way to show, don't tell, symbols arise and enrich from analogy, allegory and imagery, events even foreshadowed by anticipatory imagery, even to the point of Pathetic Fallacy.  Hence, the symbolist movement sought to convey very personal, irrational, and dream-like states of consciousness, relying heavily on metaphorical language, and the interpretation of symbols and metaphorical association also plays an important role in psychoanalysis, especially as envisioned by Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Of course, all such subtexting does also run the risk of somewhat questionable free association and projection, actual creativity rather than wholly reliable deduction, perhaps occasionally somewhat far fetched.

In 'The Forgotten Language' (1952) Erich Fromm distinguishes between between three distinct types of symbol:

Even though in the most literal sense, all language is symbolic being metonymy, generally symbolism refers to the use of iconic figures with particular and even conventional meanings. Symbolism is an important element of most religions and the arts. Indeed, many cultures incorporate complex symbolic systems which assign certain attributes to specific things, such as types of animals, plants or weather.

Well rounded fictional characters like unto the real people they generally represent, are wont to associate emotionally to setting via meaningful key "objects" or personal symbols, not only real physical props, decor, senses, smell, mood, ambiance, light and sound, but also triggers of memory and motivation perhaps focused thereupon, sentimentality after a prolonged absence, or to heighten or show any range of affect and motivation from tragic loss to pleasant anticipation.

Not only is symbolism employed in the euphemistic description of sex, but sex, likewise and conversely, is often symbolic euphemism, deftly sublime or tastelessly inept, and for all manner of other relations and phenomena, sacred and profane. Moreover, waking or dreaming, every aspect or nuance of human relations, sex especially, is often imbued with any range of extrinsic significance, even far short of fetish and paraphilia.

Indeed, just as the saying goes, sex sells. And potent symbols are deployed in advertising media for consumers to manifest self-image and crucial personal development or progress via the ongoing acquisition of significant possessions.

Advertising didn't mix sex up with our daily lives. The great Marketeer in the sky did that.

— Barry Brooks

And whereas a word seeks for definition and disambiguation, as professor of British literature William York Tindall observes, a symbol, rather, by it's nature and usage, strives for expansion in reflection of the ambiguity and and often value loaded abstraction out of memory association and personal constructs of social cognition built from successive red herrings, innate naturally flawed Epistemological Methodology, the ambiguous diffŽrance of symbolic condensation allows for a host of potential responses depending upon context, textual, cultural or entirely personal and individual to the reader. Integrative symbolic compositions are often evocative rather than merely indicative, abstract rather than concrete, to encompass both thesis and antithesis as in the Zen dualistic opposition of Yin and Yang, often somewhat vague in sheer expansiveness even of the fragmentary, religious modes of being and transcendent mystical connection or associations including mythic magical rhythms of existence, powers and influences of similarity and contiguity as exposited in 'The Golden Bough' A Study in Magic and Religion by the noted Anthropologist Sir James George Frazer in 1922.

Indeed, the symbolism of the Pathetic Fallacy brings to light the entirely subjective, either to character POV or authorial voice. -At least barring anthropomorphic prosopopoeia, or literal personification of Fairy Tale unpremeditated magical realism. Even if perhaps melodramatic and implausibly convenient, the Pathetic Fallacy is an aspect of writing style finding typical particular utilization most saliently pertaining to setting and even situation wherein descriptions are often intended to reveal moral or psychological aspects of character.

Because motivated characterization is shown by external description of physical appearance including physical characteristics often constituting symbolic elements along with meaningful names, setting the scene and more, along with relationships and contrast between characters (foil), perhaps symbolic of any larger abstraction, with development or not, and any better hidden revelation and understanding gleaned from the reactions of others, dialogue and action; but also revelations of any character's own thoughts and feelings, via straight exposition or rhetorical discourse directly providing needed background information from the authorial POV, introspection of any character's private inner most thoughts and feelings from the POV of inner life, even interior monologue attempting to portray or convey, in words, the process of consciousness or thought as a means of narrating a story, even stream-of-consciousness of experience, the entire subjective Phenomena, as it passes by, often quite at random. All of which may be rife with personal symbolism and imagery.

A glove may represent the hand which wears it, or a portrait, no less obviously, the person depicted. Or a symbol may come to stand even quite distinctly, say, to equate for whatever the point however said symbol may come, one way or another, to show by demonstration, for example, as the practicality or impracticality, or any other function, priority or value, for example, of a possession for said quality likewise of the owner. Setting and even mood, likewise.

However, more generally, meaning arises less from however so precise correspondence or identification of sign to object of meaning signified, than at all adequate differences and distinction of one category from another. The multiple meanings symbols admit, (to reiterate) poetically, with ambiguity and abstraction out of memory association and personal constructs of social cognition built from successive red herrings and innate naturally flawed Epistemological Methodology, remain indeterminate, even ambiguous, and thereby, resonant in metaphor, theme, tone and subtext; POV all redolent in theme.

By contrast, excessively pat, trite, glib and superficially complete allegory insults the intelligence, and often at the expense of unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characterization.

 

Q. What is meaning?

"Man is the measure of all things." - Protagoras

A. The ineffable, even knowable, even transmissible, nevertheless defies explanation or description. And living knowledge (as opposed to knowledge that is rightly called: inert), serving renewal and vitality, is growth, the experience of change put into practice, learned behaviors never immutable but ever subject to re-adaptation, emergent in collective interaction, tacit, highly charged and redolent, profoundly with the sensibility of drama, may even skirt the ineffable, often defying ready articulation let alone routine management via knowledge-driven Epistemology.

Even if literally Jonah in the Bible was swallowed by a giant fish, we now better know and understand whales in reality to be, like dolphins and porpoises, mammalian cetaceans, sea going bovines, aquatic cows! Likewise, regardless of propaganda exploiting the ill informed etymology of the very word 'conception' as beginning new life, actually fertilization is continuous from the preceding lives of the parents via their zygotes into the inception of the development of a new individual of whatever species, as yet unformed into existence. For just as with logic, language alone cannot discover truth without Empirical data. Ideas are DESIGNATIONS or TERMS or CONCEPTS or else they are STATEMENTS or PROPOSITIONS or THEORIES. And STATEMENTS or PROPOSITIONS or THEORIES may be formulated in ASSERTIONS, perhaps TRUE and even in turn reducible by DERIVATION to simpler PRIMITIVE PROPOSITIONS ultimately unto infinite regress, but never to any mythic first principles. Likewise, DESIGNATIONS or TERMS or CONCEPTS may be formulated in WORDS, perhaps MEANINGFULLY and even in turn reduced by way of definitions to concepts in turn begging further definition likewise unto infinite regress and never to any mythic self evidence.

Nevertheless, meaning in the poetical, philosophical and literary deepest sense vests the dharmic neutrality of the indefinable and classifications of merely physical and implicit consequence of mechanistic causality, grappling with the dharmic and karmic indefinable classifications of causality, and ever best achieving "unity of action", Sequence and plot logic with relevant karmic value, point, the meaning of life, inspiration in the motivational sense of howsoever pleasurable and even euphoric engagement, susceptibility and stimulation of the mind or exaltation of the emotions to a high level of feeling or activity even to sudden exciting thought and spontaneous creativity, with purpose, interest, engagement and satisfaction howsoever in the doing instead of the dreary and painfully meaningless and futile drudgery, empty diversion, interpersonal superficiality and sheer boredom so many endure; perhaps such as beyond self, connection and contribution, even Altruism in service to others.  Because meaning, including value, none the least morality and even esthetics, are Phenomenal and contingent experience no less than comprehension and reflection.

Of course, to quote Jacques Monod: "The first scientific postulate is the objectivity of nature: nature does not have any intention or goal."  Indeed, in the immortal words of Protagoras "Man is the measure of all things"  because there is no intrinsic meaning in any sense; for meaning at all, let alone value, is an aspect of human experience and comprehension that the Zen mystics strive so quixotically to transcend as unjustified. Indeed, desirable values even as far as sheer necessities of life at all, let alone any further amenities or loftier concerns, are not logically reducible, but ultimately as innately biological and therefore arbitrary as survival instinct to begin with, let alone pleasure principle or meaningful engagement. But we are all still biological.

Moreover, Plot situation and character motivation, together equal dramatic destiny, because the literal oxymoron of inherent meaning as a poetical figure is inherent only dharmicly implicit in causal consequence, the function and importance of plot logic in drama, while, dualistically, simultaneously, as a matter of POV, subjectivity, reflection and Representation of Consciousness, also alluding to purpose of personal fulfillment, Perceiving What's at Stake in Your Story along with the six core motivations for dialogue, all relevant value, what matters deeply, none the least of which being classic reversals as in the estrangement of the bullied idealistic whistle blower, pressing positive disintegration and growth if not towards the highest self-actualization then at least to realer freedom and autonomy, all without which life itself threatens Zen futile Ecclesiastical vanity! and such literal meaning, only then, as may be expressed, also, in the intention of deeds, including that which is most broadly signified in the act of communication of message, TEXT and subtext all in CONTEXT, information content, ideas, indeed conveying Phenomenal subjective experience or understanding, unless, most narrowly, scientifically, literally and precisely, denotatively or referentially, that which is signified and thus conjectured, is simply and clearly whatever corresponding objective reality, Ontologically, hence, also, implication, inference of evidence, and logically inherent and implicit consequence and Deterministic inescapable causal effect, that inspires bleak fatalism but also liberation, optimistic hope in better knowledge and even wisdom, for discovering better choices, autonomously.  

Hence, misdirection, whether error circumstantially and honestly, by deliberate manipulation or even hamartia and self-deception, is key in moving from promise to catastrophe. Frequently, the self conscious illusion of individual will is only the burden of responsibility in hindsight, an artifact of the personal narrative facilitating growth.

Some say that one becomes addicted to shame when another's heart is closed to one, because, however excruciating, the sheer megalomania of taking the blame protects one from the ugly truth that we really have no control over others and the universe or God. We can't make either love us or, ultimately, even protect those who do. Put more simply, then, and in complete good faith, powerlessness, the impotent helplessness of the human condition is terminally demeaning.

And beyond direct action, our influence upon others may often be even the more misguided and deluded. Life can only be lived forwards, but only understood or recognized in hindsight.

Indeed, do we consider our options and consciously take action, or do our actions simply come upon us as we react, and only then rationalize afterward? People often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually. Hence, Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into hypocrisy.

For as Eve Tushnet points out in Eros and Education, even so integral and elemental a vital impulse as sex is meaningful expression of Eros, more than the quest for completion and transformation, the oft frustrated desire for connection, liberating union with alien difference inevitably first demanding resolution out of conflict on every level arising from any dread of the vulnerability entailed.

No less than sound Epistemological Methodology, likewise the very dawn of comprehension, even the incipient discovery of meaning, all demand more than the mere Inductivist agglomeration of unparticular data.

For if it is, indeed, true that there is, after all, no disputing tastes, just as goes that annoying vapid old canard, then Esthetics at all, much less Literary criticism, is null and void, futile, actually worse off than xeno/exo/astrobiology, the famous discipline without a subject, because even until extraterrestrial life forms are ever discovered, at least said remains at all conceivable. But if beauty is, indeed, merely in the eye of the beholder, entirely subjective, then, objectively, it would seem that there can be nothing to sensibly discus, let alone ever find in all the universe.

But then, meaning, including value, none the least morality and esthetics, are Phenomenal and contingent experience no less than comprehension and reflection.

Indeed, there may be hope that the arts are not completely arbitrary, because of cutting edge studies in musicology, defining the characteristic patterns in what makes a melody pleasing. For this suggests that the preferences of taste are only partially personal and idiosyncratic, certainly in large part cultural, but also confirm that taste, after all, is an aspect of character, psychology, hence partially biologically innate and in common to the human species and intersubjective. Otherwise, art would never evoke, much less communicate, meaning and value.

So, how does any of this apply to the art and discipline of fiction writing? The answer is  in the suggestion that the age old dictums of drama and the writing discipline, are not, after all futile or without value, but simply insufficient, incomplete like the fixed biological component of musical preference, a manifest beginning for the exploration of conjecture even if not the last word.

In science exceptions constitute refutation. And yet, even then, verisimilitude, imprecision approaching truth, may yet persist, as with Newtonian gravity until anything better came along, despite observations in contradiction, for the indispensable uses it still had. Or, more saliently, psychology remains, even to this day, hit or miss, frustratingly imprecise for testable psychotherapeutic predictions, and yet viable hypothesis of profound explanatory significance and still the most viable hypothesis supported Empirically. Moreover, much of the most sophisticated psychology remains manifest in the sagacity of great novelists, a sensibility. Indeed, what is drama, save lies pointing to some truth, however obvious, elusive or both, of the human condition? Indeed, such are the age old dictums of drama and the writing discipline, always subject to exceptions, because life is the study of exceptions, because there is always more to it not less, the art, soul and genius, along with the indispensable discipline of fiction writing, that nevertheless, soulless, churns out only hack.

After all, allegory, as in fiction, endures as the most elusive of techniques, constantly seeming to be other than what it is, redolent with the ambiguity and uncertainty of the world depicted.

And all of that is only why any sort of genuine writer must strive for competence, ever standing at the ready to pick apart technique in order to be able to exchange criticism, meaningfully, so as to however grow in awareness and appreciation of how and why any fiction at all in whatever medium ever held their attention and reached them, and how to apply the same principles and techniques as a fiction writer oneself. 

The Problem of Meaning in Literature begins with the age old conundrum of layered text, context and subtext, of whether meaning is in simply recognizing what is intended by the author, contained in the text itself , or even created by the reader in response, all along with the Pathetic Fallacy respectably rejected as THE 4 DEADLY FALLACIES in favor, instead, of an hypothesis of reciprocal creative misunderstanding from ambiguity.

 

Q. What is Active Reading?

"Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity."

- Simone Weil   

A. Reading comprehension frequently demands that much more than simply decoding of the very words and then parsing of phraseology.

In an experiment with the formatting of text, it was discovered that some prefer shorter line length facilitating “faster” reading, easier because it requires less eye movement, while those preferring longer line length appreciate having more information readily available on a page all at once.
And in all likelihood, the same principle applies even to sentence structure:
Short sentences in succession may seem more readily digestible, but longer compound sentences help relate more ideas at a glance.

Indeed, one common impediment to speed reading, either skimming quickly for an overview or scanning briefly for specific information, is sub vocalization while another is the tendency for the eye to scan every word. And remedies include actually passing ones finger over a line of text faster than one can sound out the words. Also try looking slightly above the line in order to focus upon grammatical clusters of words. With practice one can accustom oneself to see and understand phrases simply even by glancing over them. But that requires practice and may find only somewhat limited application to complex materials. Instead, deciding what seems useful or not, "Key Ideas" to ferret out include causal connection, as in plot, but also theme.

For the techniques of  Active Reading no less than Effective Active Listening, is reading such as involves active cognition and comprehension, indeed, reading with purpose. -Conscious effort to hear, observe or read, then analyze, assign meaning to and respond, as applicable, to what is being communicated.

Tip: In case of incomplete comprehension, Improv, actually pretend, play-act understanding and then explain, either to another or to yourself, out loud, silently in your own mind or most productively, in writing.
 
Often we understand more than we think! Note what does and what else does not make sense. Subtext clues: Consider context and background. Articulate questions as to whatever remains unclear. And whenever you find yourself still really getting stuck, just mark or note the section and take a much needed breather.
 
The very opposite of Effective Active Listening might be Constructivist listening, a process of passively allowing a person to talk without being interrupted, with nary ever a care regarding Miscommunication Competence or Conversational Adequacy, indeed wherein listeners neither overtly respond nor interpret at all, neither to paraphrase, analyze, proffer advice nor seek to relate via personal stories, all because people are simply held to be capable of solving their own problems by thinking aloud.
 
Indeed, bearing in my mind that listening is to be for whatever the other's benefit, in Constructivist Listening one simply does not ask questions for one's own information at all, nor need much care. Constructivist listening, then, seeks the benefit of expression but without valuing communication. An applied Narcissistic Solipsistic Zen paradox of the intimately impersonalized.
 
And as much as genial good listeners may be pleasant to be acquainted with in real life, nevertheless, in dramatic writing, naturally all such characters must be poisonously dull.
 
Reading, no less than really listening, is hard work, the sustained effort born of concern and involvement, which takes a lot of time. 

 

 

Q. And what was the question?

A. Aye, there's the Existential rub! Just what is the question -of Literature?

Or is the very endeavor of Literature effete and pretentious virtuosity for it's own sake? Is writing to an educated audience merely incestuous? Did you know that firemen actually used to actually rescue burning books?

Literary fiction concerns itself with multidimensional characters and circumstances or situations, even however perplexing ambiguity allowing room for interpretation, yet memorable and timelessness in how one relates either thereto, but beyond mere and simple pandering to pathos, indeed, promoting learning and growth, self discovery, and lasting impression changing something however little; all best accomplished by plumbing far-reaching themes, penetrating deep and powerful characters, unfolding complex plots, and all most beautifully and by the exercise of exceptional and consummate skills and writing style.

The question of meaning in the deeper sense, as in the proverbial meaning of life, actually pertains to motivation, signifying whatever valued prospect of fulfillment or else only sheer futility, Ecclesiastical vanity.

And in case of just such Ecclesiastical vanity, utter futility, then there is no use even bemoaning thereof. Yet so much as the aforesaid common sense may seem easier said than done, given actual human nature and behavior. And indeed, the embrace of and surrender to futility is the primary motivating goal ever put forth of the Zen. Ecclesiastical vanity in the face of the quest for meaning has been a theme of narrative and philosophy from time immemorial.

One way or another, literary writing tends to invite attention to the message itself.
Mainstream Literature (as distinguished, narrowly defined and signified by the much vaunted capital "L") strives for the depth and meaning of psychological realism, even amid life at it's most prosaic and private. But Modern Literature, with however much sympathy and sensitivity, may, instead, seek to confront the deep failure of meaning. 
 
Indeed, Literature (as distinguished, narrowly defined and signified by the much vaunted capital "L"), especially anti-drama, may actually fail or even violate the needs of drama, let alone action-adventure, taking a more introverted POV or Point Of View so that study of growth along the Character Arc and the human condition dominates, even if the situation remains somewhat stagnant and unresolved and consequently the plot goes nowhere, indeed, as all too often in real life. 

However, true shaggy dog stories are very, very long drawn out allegedly humorous anecdotes building up to a punch line that distinctly fizzles, a groaner. Whereas, the emphasis in Minimalist stories is upon inner conflict, and the central characters are often reactive rather than proactive, so that Minimalist, open and unresolved vignettes, indeed, even aimlessly wandering anticlimactic shaggy dog stories that  do not affect change in the lives of the characters, who come away much the same as when the story or sequence began. For such is the flatness in Raymond Carver's blue-collar fiction, in which characters wander in and out of otherwise unoccupied rooms, houses, or apartments, failing to transcend the banality of their situations, affect their outcomes, or make their lives meaningful, all such conventional dramatic contrivance and cherished illusions abandoned perhaps in favor of local dexterity. Indeed, if any of the questions raised in the story are answered, others remain for the audience to ponder. Indeed, the Existential Zen-like, New Wave, Phildickian, Surreal Anti-drama or Anti-Structure deals in conflicting realities, delving into meaningless absurdity, likewise, effecting little change, however character development  or growth. Time frame is often broken up randomly, and coincidence seems more common than plot causality.

If it is only language itself, and not any timeless truth of innate human nature, that is central to culture, meaning and identity, and, indeed, as Heidegger remarked, man does not speak language, language speaks man, then we are entirely constituted Phenomenally in meanings of our contingent relational patch-work sign systems. And yet it seems, however, somewhat unlikely that culture is so utterly and consistently incestuous, so God-like in complete self-creativity in a vacuum, so as never to reflect or respond to biology (definitely including onstage sex!) among other matters of Ontology at all, even simply as aspects of situation. Hence all such consideration may be deemed inclusively relevant to literary studies, after all. And so, it may be that any Post Modern revival and recapitulation of linguistic Zen futility unto Wittgensteinean paralysis, will be long in ever finally extinguishing human drama completely, after all.

While beyond and distinct from drama yet still short of sheer Postmodern Nihilism, in Literature (As distinguished, narrowly defined and signified by the much vaunted capital "L"), all the indefinable and classifications of plot causality ever best achieving "unity of action", Sequence and logic, plus character development, tone and subtext are even the more thematic towards effect upon inner life, drama of a sort, but introverted, specifically requiring such sequence and relation of events as to cultivate meaning in the mind and experience of the characters and/or for the reader in the experience of reading the work, even so far as eliciting that extra added effort in active reading that is sometimes referred to as the reader's partnership with the author that can even go beyond simple information transmission and begin the creation of fresh Philosophical insight, narrative that not only challenges the reader's higher level interpretive and analytical faculties in processing but then evokes the construction, reflection and experience of differing individual emotional response and opinion and even subsequent debate, beyond simple assimilation of story information and all the more obvious sympathy triggers or pathos in time tested sequence.

Layers of subtext and ambiguity are richer and thought provoking. Of course, all such subtexting does also run the risk of somewhat questionable free association and projection, actual creativity rather than wholly reliable deduction, perhaps occasionally somewhat far fetched, no matter the various different Factors Affecting/Effecting the Reading of Texts, The Problem of Meaning in Literature that begins with the age old conundrum of layered text, context and subtext: whether meaning is gleaned by recognizing the writer’s purpose being, after all, no more than what is intended by the author, unless meaning is actually contained in the text itself , intentionally or otherwise, or else, even perhaps even created by the reader in response, all along with the Pathetic Fallacy respectably rejected as THE 4 DEADLY FALLACIES in favor, instead, of an hypothesis of reciprocal creative misunderstanding from ambiguity.

Indeed, is bypassing, exchange which is not genuine communication because it lacks sufficient intersubjectivity and does not carry at all the same meanings or even purpose, intention or point at all between the participants, all there really is, as according to the Zen?

But then, hair splitting and the painstaking negotiation of reciprocal incomprehension have no place in the Zen, given that originality and novelty are taken as entirely subjective inspiration, intransmissible, with, objectively, Ontologically, no new thing under the sun.

However, not all thinking is so pessimistic and isolated.

Indeed,  as Eve Tushnet points out in Eros and Education, even so integral and elemental a vital impulse as sex is meaningful expression of Eros, more than the quest for completion and transformation, the oft frustrated desire for connection, liberating union with alien difference inevitably first demanding resolution out of conflict on every level arising from any dread of the vulnerability entailed.

six core polemically purposeful
and dramatic motivations for written
expression or dialogue

 

Q. What uniquely profound level of conflict is most intrinsically Literate?