5 ms·

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

by krona 3y ago

nathan_compton 3y ago
Yeah, dude, that's a set of words you can type. It hardly constitutes an argument. Globalized financial markets are new. The internet is new. Machines you can converse with are new. CRISPR is new, Quantum Field Theory is new, RNA vaccines are new. While I agree its true that less is novel than some people believe, the idea that nothing in the contemporary experience is worth meditating on beyond what people in the past have said is, I think, obviously absurd, pithy quotations notwithstanding.
- krona 3y ago
  All you're interested in is ephemeral window dressing. The best literature stands alone, in time and space. The world that created the Epic of Gilgamesh no longer exists and is completely alien to us. And yet the epic is reskinned every century for a new audience. Things change and yet everything is the same. Maybe you're not old enough to realise. I was a neophile too, once.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Well most modern TV series use these in their plots like Bitcoin and SuperPACs in The Good Wife springs to mind. So same for books?
  - nathan_compton 3y ago
    I don't disagree per se. But it doesn't follow that therefor all the good literature is in the past. In fact, rereading your post I'm not even sure where you get the idea that I'm a "neophile." I have no particular interest in the contemporary. My argument is just that the past cannot hope to comment comprehensively on the present or future, which I think the analogy with science makes pretty clear. Things genuinely do change. Our genes change, our technology changes, our philosophies, sciences and religions change. I agree that the past has much to say about the present and a really informed person could not possibly ignore it, but it simply doesn't follow that we don't need any more literature or new ways of telling stories or interrogating our lives.
    - spicymapotofu 3y ago
      The GP comment appears to not be saying anything which opposes the idea that new literature can interrogate our beliefs too. I think they're trying to point out that the new tech you're highlighting is on the object level, whereas the fundamental topics which make good literature stand the test of time are meta level - human nature. Yes, we trade digitally instead of physically, and yet tales of merchants long scattered remain pertinent. The GP's frustration, I believe, lies in the fact that you've been presenting the trappings of modern society as if they're the bedrock of modern existence; as if the findings of a science article today act on the soul the same way as realizing a dead Russian wrote a cartoonish parody of the actual personality one has cultivated for twenty years (a reaction I see commonly!). All writing may share similarities, but not all writing is literature, and recognizing that distinction would resolve the disagreement you first posted. Many analysts would say the limiting factor of Plato on today's audience was not the total population, but the shift in interpretations (and related, writing) which make it so difficult to translate. And still, classics departments are offering fresh takes on the works, even through the 20th century, radically shifting the meta-level conclusions that we teach as takeaways. I hope you can acknowledge that this is more due to the underlying human nature which the works speak to, rather than some inherent unending depth to the writing - and that literature as a field carries this interpretive depth as its activity, rather than just cobbling object-level tools to interrogate their premises.
      - nathan_compton 3y ago
        "lies in the fact that you've been presenting the trappings of modern society as if they're the bedrock of modern existence" Yeah, I am not.
        spicymapotofu 3y ago
        Then you're moving the goalposts from what you've been arguing upthread.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
  - cafard 3y ago
    Yes, but the classics were new once. Should the crowds that lined up to buy War and Peace have thought better because after all The Song of Igor's Campaign was written some hundreds of years before?
AniseAbyss 3y ago
[dead]

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

by krona 3y ago

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

nathan_compton 3y ago

Yeah, dude, that's a set of words you can type. It hardly constitutes an argument. Globalized financial markets are new. The internet is new. Machines you can converse with are new. CRISPR is new, Quantum Field Theory is new, RNA vaccines are new. While I agree its true that less is novel than some people believe, the idea that nothing in the contemporary experience is worth meditating on beyond what people in the past have said is, I think, obviously absurd, pithy quotations notwithstanding.

krona 3y ago
All you're interested in is ephemeral window dressing. The best literature stands alone, in time and space. The world that created the Epic of Gilgamesh no longer exists and is completely alien to us. And yet the epic is reskinned every century for a new audience. Things change and yet everything is the same. Maybe you're not old enough to realise. I was a neophile too, once.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Well most modern TV series use these in their plots like Bitcoin and SuperPACs in The Good Wife springs to mind. So same for books?
- nathan_compton 3y ago
  I don't disagree per se. But it doesn't follow that therefor all the good literature is in the past. In fact, rereading your post I'm not even sure where you get the idea that I'm a "neophile." I have no particular interest in the contemporary. My argument is just that the past cannot hope to comment comprehensively on the present or future, which I think the analogy with science makes pretty clear. Things genuinely do change. Our genes change, our technology changes, our philosophies, sciences and religions change. I agree that the past has much to say about the present and a really informed person could not possibly ignore it, but it simply doesn't follow that we don't need any more literature or new ways of telling stories or interrogating our lives.
  - spicymapotofu 3y ago
    The GP comment appears to not be saying anything which opposes the idea that new literature can interrogate our beliefs too. I think they're trying to point out that the new tech you're highlighting is on the object level, whereas the fundamental topics which make good literature stand the test of time are meta level - human nature. Yes, we trade digitally instead of physically, and yet tales of merchants long scattered remain pertinent. The GP's frustration, I believe, lies in the fact that you've been presenting the trappings of modern society as if they're the bedrock of modern existence; as if the findings of a science article today act on the soul the same way as realizing a dead Russian wrote a cartoonish parody of the actual personality one has cultivated for twenty years (a reaction I see commonly!). All writing may share similarities, but not all writing is literature, and recognizing that distinction would resolve the disagreement you first posted. Many analysts would say the limiting factor of Plato on today's audience was not the total population, but the shift in interpretations (and related, writing) which make it so difficult to translate. And still, classics departments are offering fresh takes on the works, even through the 20th century, radically shifting the meta-level conclusions that we teach as takeaways. I hope you can acknowledge that this is more due to the underlying human nature which the works speak to, rather than some inherent unending depth to the writing - and that literature as a field carries this interpretive depth as its activity, rather than just cobbling object-level tools to interrogate their premises.
    - nathan_compton 3y ago
      "lies in the fact that you've been presenting the trappings of modern society as if they're the bedrock of modern existence" Yeah, I am not.
      - spicymapotofu 3y ago
        Then you're moving the goalposts from what you've been arguing upthread.
        nathan_compton 3y ago
- cafard 3y ago
  Yes, but the classics were new once. Should the crowds that lined up to buy War and Peace have thought better because after all The Song of Igor's Campaign was written some hundreds of years before?

AniseAbyss 3y ago

[dead]