Department Of Dilettante Research, Part 3: The Dilettantists

[koganbot]

Last week Mark made yet another Department Of Dilettante Research post on poptimists. And here are some additional thoughts of my own.

A crucial component (the centering component, perhaps) of the Department Of Dilettante Research is conversations among several people - surrounded by kibitzers, onlookers, revelers, brawlers, etc. - where no one leaves the conversation until everyone is satisfied that the others understand him or her. Different conversations may have different central characters (though my guess is that the same characters will keep turning up time and time again), and "central" might just mean "central to me"; that is, there may be other conversations with as many or more participants and onlookers than the ones I'm calling "central." But the conversations I'm calling "central" will be the ones where no one leaves the conversation until everyone is satisfied that the others understand him or her. Without those conversations, there's no department.

I want these conversations to occur in a fundamentally open space, hence the revelers, kibitzers, etc. (how open will be a matter for experience to teach us). This is to lessen the chance of our becoming social retards.

I will have trouble finding people able to take a central role. Most people who show up are going to bring their tastes, their perceptions, their particular insights and accumulation of knowledge, their special enthusiasms, their sociability. But few of them will have the desire to get into someone else's head, the willingness to work to make their ideas comprehensible to others, the drive to face the tensions and inadequacies of their own ideas, or the desire to test those ideas. Way fewer. The conversation a couple of threads ago between me and cis about "normal" and "abnormal" discourse is a case in point. I said that Rorty's definition of normal discourse was inexplicably retarded because it demanded something that's actually absent from most normal discourse: near unanimity as to what is considered relevant and what counts as answering a question. cis disagreed, but to my mind didn't understand why I thought such consensus was so rare. I elaborated. cis disappeared into the night. And it's always this way. Of course, people have their priorities, and not everyone is going to try and finish every thought; but what's causes conversations to abort in ilX and poptimists comes from some deeper problem: a mental block of some sort, or an inner fire that's missing. (Too early for me to tell if cis has the fire or not.)

To repeat something I posted on Mark's poptimists thread, there's a tension in the word "dilettante." It is pulled between two meanings:

1st meaning: A dilettante flits from subject to subject and project to project, alighting on one, taking shallow sips, and then heading for the next, without really concentrating his efforts on anything. (Most crucial defect: the dilettante leaves off from an inquiry before the subject matter can work any changes on him. In fact, his being this sort of dilettante may be due to his aversion to being changed.)

2nd meaning: A dilettante is someone who is endlessly curious and follows questions and connections wherever they lead. ("Dilettante" derives from the Latin verb that means "to delight.")

The second meaning describes a very ambitious dilettantism, since I'm including in it my idea that we won't allow ourselves to break off a conversation until each is convinced that the others understand him or her; it is suggesting that in one's journeys one tries to master other people's ideas.

But the flitters may themselves play a crucial role in keeping the department open to the world, given that you don't know what interesting place they might land or whom they'll meet and whom they'll introduce the more "central" characters to. They can provide a broader view of the landscape. Even if the view is terribly inaccurate, it's better than no view.

Also, there may be people, flitters or not, who can't analyze their way out of a bathtub but who are skilled at getting to know the character of someone or something.

Comments

Questions

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

1. What happens to ideas after they are mutually understood?

2. How long a gap is permissible between elements in a conversation? i.e. can conversations fall into disuse for a while (say while somebody goes and does more research?)

Speaking as a dilettante #1, my problem tends not to be fleeing from the alien idea but by being too easily persuaded of almost anything that's put in front of me, given a sufficiently persuasive style. In order to argue through my position or ideas, I need to work out what they might be, which so far I haven't to any satisfaction. (To put this another way: what happens if Participant A says something, and Participant B disagrees, and Participant A then says "Oh yes, you're right."?)

Comment

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Form is going to be very very important. Online, for instance, I've never seen a format that makes it easier to complete conversations - I've seen very long drawn out arguments on Usenet where ideas die in a forest of nested block quotes. ILX turned out to be accidentally OK, as is often the case.

(Being able to break up and interrupt text when you reply to it has changed - for the worse I think - the way argumentative discourse tends to happen).

Re: Comment

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I quite like PHP BB boards for that because threads aren't dated or limited in length and there's none of the nesting things and in fact there's a sort of impetus to keep them going and extending. I know a lot of other people hate them, though and they are a pain in the ass.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Is there any form of dilettante that fits Type #1 exactly? Surely if someone is sufficiently involved to be able to be called any form of dilettante then the conversation will change their opinions on some level anyway? Hrmm perhaps that is just me. Although I think the time-gap thing that freakytigger mentions is probably the same thing, in that people may not change their ideas 'in public' as it were but may come back to it later or something.

Argh my brain's really not awake yet. Will stop typing and find coffee.

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

See my problem with this is that I know I'm a pretty smart guy, but I don't think I am smart enough to be optimistic about understanding the kinds of ideas that Frank, Mark and others generate - sometimes, yes, but the idea of comitting to a conversation until I do is impossible, because sometimes another party will be bringing up ideas that are beyond me.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I would love to be able to bibble on about stuff all day and take part in the DDR approach, however there are a few problems that will stop me doing this:

1. On a practical level: the obvious problem most of us have, ie actually having to hold down a day job.

2. On a personal level: I have a very short attention span, in the sense that I find it really quite difficult to concentrate on *anything* for more than 5 minutes at a time. Even the post above that I am commenting on. Thankfully the nature of my job means this isn't usually a problem professionally, but when I have to read a long article or comment that introduces new ideas or language I lack the mental rigidity required to really focus and end up skipping bits. I might even end up flicking to another website halfway through and have return to the article later, or just sit and stare into space thinking about something completely different. This can be useful for linking ideas across different subjects (dilettante 1) but scuppers any chance of indepth research or pursuing an idea to completion (dilettante 2).

3. Following on from 2, I have a bad short term memory and tend to forget conversations/obligations/ideas very quickly unless reminded (thank christ for lj comment notifications).

To steal Lex's words from his Bjork review, I feel I could be a good lightning rod for ideas - however I worry they will just get earthed out straight away without ever giving rise to Frankenstein's Monster.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I want to be the kibitzer (assuming the role has not already been begged, borrowed, stolen, etc). Also, considering what I spend my time thinking about already, I figure it'll be a natural assimilation.

(Papers I Wrote This Semester: 'Bob Dylan's Electric Conversion and Leftist Politics,' 'The Social-Psychology of Britney Spears,' and 'The Jewish American Male in Film.')

Maybe I'm already a dilettante?

various hurried points

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i. the point that the time dedicated to this project has to be bought and paid for needs to be re-emphasised --- frank has often chid me for vanishing from these conversations, but one very basic reason is the structure of my dayjob work, which requires that (these days) every two month i have three weeks where i have to focus entirely on one deadlined project (used to be two weeks ervery month); result = anything half-formed i had in my head of REPLIES THAT NEED TO BE MADE is totally driven out, and i have to reread the whole discussion from scratch to de-congeal everything -- when i am even able to recall i have unfinished business on a particular thread (obviously i should have a list of IMPORTANT CONVERSATIONS I AM CURRENTLY HAVING, but even starting this up right here now doesn't do justice to the many uncompleted ideas i have left lying fallow in the past)
ii. "ok i need to go away and think about that" -- very much linked to the above, but importantly different -- given that my "overall position" is fairly organically coherent, an apparently quite small new diea can require me to go back and unpick and reconsider a LOT of stuff: viz my rethink on influence, which took me from considering myself a quasi-bloomian to something harder to state clearly, arose from a collapse in my confidence in the (purose and effects of) citation-protocols in phDs: myt reaction against something i thought locally pernicious has made me want to see HOW FAR I CAN TAKE the pushback (but the project is speculative); where this relates to i. is again the intrusion of the period of dayjob-induced total forgetting in ref.specific actually started arguments... i slog through how my change of mind on something small affects things i am working on and committed to in ref.deadlines, paid-for commissions, blah blah, but "informal" conversations contionually get pushed to the back of the queue, EVEN IF I CARE ABOUT THEM MORE
iii. the this-here-now pressure of the blogosphere, seeming need to react instantly to topicality, adds to the tendency to neglect longer-standing discussions (and every time you go back, you have to start from scratch, and if this is a discussion of BLOOM or DERRIDA or KUHN, that includes going back and re-reading the original, in view of knowing you think differently about important subsequent stuff

summarising above and beyond this:
iv. i entirely applaud the rigour of frank's project and would like it to happen BUT i am only too well aware that the thing i am hoping to get from the discussions we have is only indirectly a fuller understasnding of HIS points than a fuller understanding of MINE -- ie i am likely to drop out of the discussion and go off and work on eg RISE AND SPRAWL or if.... (BIG projects) when i have got what *i* need, which is not (pragmatically) exactly what frank is after; i slightly wonder if what he after will be BETTER for what i am (saying i am) getting out of the discussions, or will impact detrimentally (ie the nbext rise-and-sprawl will be infinitely deferrred while the "complete understanding" project unfolds

Re: various hurried points

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

ok
iv. martin's point i honestly don't understand -- i can grasp the problem of not being on in a discussion of the difficult jargony content of sych-and-such a thinker when you haven't read same (and are daunted by their opaque style); but Frank and Tom are not opaque AT ALL, and while I accept that haha i very often am a bit um compact in expressive delivery, i have always made myself open to attempts to clarify what i'm getting at (when i understand it myself)
v. nor do i think that any of our ideas are "difficult" in the sense that i feel some of derrida's ideas are a bit hard to grasp (and i feel that bcz i am not sure i grasp them, and i feel i don't grasp them bcz i am not sure i can explain them well in my own words, and i feel THAT bcz when i have tried -- eg to frank -- i have felt a huge gulf between what i vaguely sense i am trying to say and how he is understanding them; consequence, i have plunged back into the book which contains the ideas i am trying to restate-explain, and -- probably -- been interrupted by other lifestuff before i got all the way... this def happened w.of grammatology, which was interrupted by my mum's illness and death, and so the "reply" bit of the conversation becomes bigger and bigger and broodingly shelved latent and stalls more and more, and becomes a semi-depressive symptom where the only way out is a kind of FUCK IT refusal to be tied to the dutiful longform version of the response
vi. anyway i think martin has plenty to contribute to such a discussion, and should not be put off by something which is not as much there as he thinks