Theoretical boundaries

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 120391


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "arrowsmithbt" 
<arrowsmithbt at b...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "lupinlore" <bob.oliver at c...> 
wrote:
> > 
> 
> lupinlore: 
> > As for it being a "problem," why so?  People are unhappy with 
certain 
> > things and find them pernicious and morally suspect, if not 
downright 
> > repugnant.  How is it a problem to express that genuine feeling?  
> > Because it is emotional?  Because it does not follow the normal 
> > routes of academic discourse?  Because it requires one to be 
firmly 
> > based in "this world" and not "that world?"  Not a problem at all!
> > 
> > Don't ever assume people are stupid or have no imagination just 
> > because they prefer to remain grounded in real, and from their 
> > perspective, serious and important experiences.  It is a 
different 
> > perspective, certainly, but a perfectly valid one, and a very 
> > important one.  After all, if not for people like that most law, 
> > scripture (of any religion) or moral philosophy would not exist.
> > 
> 
> Kneasy:
> Just who is making assumptions here? Have I "assumed" that
> anyone is stupid? I'm not such a fool that I think anyone who
> disagrees with me is half-witted.
> 
> It seems to me that you are conducting the same exercise that
> you appear to with the books - you're taking your own experiences
> and projecting them onto me. Unjustifiably and erroneously.


I will agree with you that I am seeing everything through the filter 
of my own experiences.  I can't see things any other way, and I'd be 
foolish to deny it.  Whether it's erroneous or not is for future 
experience to dictate.  And as for being justified -- well, it's 
natural and inevitable.  If you find it offensive, I am sorry that 
your feelings are wounded.

> 
> And you have no monopoly on experiences. I've watched children
> die; held their hands while they did so, too. That makes a vast
> difference; to me, fiction is nothing like the real thing and never
> can be. I cannot behave or pretend to behave as if it were. 
> Equating *my* past experiences with a character in a light novel 
> would be to debase and devalue real people and real tragedy. 

I respect you for your experience.  But you seem to think it gives 
your method of approaching the text some superior weight.  It does 
not.  Nor does any other kind of experience that I or anyone else 
might have had provide *superior* insight.  However, our experience 
does have the weight of being *our* experience, and therefore 
provides the basis for our honest answers to the challenges the text 
brings to us.

> 
> Maybe I'm old fashioned. I consider my emotions to be intensely 
> personal. I would find it distasteful and an imposition on others to
> spread them all over a web-site. I'm of the generation that 
considered
> public displays of such matters to be ill-mannered and unnecessary.
> Others apparently think differently. 
> 

Yes, we do see these things differently.  And it is not, in our view, 
either ill-mannered or unnecessary, or we would not do it.  I am 
truly sorry you find it offensive, but then all I can do is suggest 
that you avoid such conversations.  Perhaps we do have different 
modes of public discourse than were common some years ago.  Once 
again, if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm sorry, but we aren't 
going to stop, and the best I can say is that if it upsets you that 
terribly you would be well advised to avoid it.  

Lupinlore