Update 9

Some Thoughts

The other day someone asked me how my book was coming and we ended up getting into a conversation about Objectivism and the philosophy of art. It was all very elevated and, just remembering it, I can barely keep my pinky finger from shooting out and seizing its privileged place above it's fellow fingers.

What a mysterious and imposing 'wordle' this turned out to be.

Clearly, I'm joking (I hope that's clear, or else my sense of humor is severely out of whack.) I could (I did) characterize the conversation we had that way, but it wasn't a conversation about putting things under the correct headings in a college coursebook, or helping each other feel superior because we both knew who Ayn Rand was or could debate the artistic elements and merit of photography. It was two guys talking about stuff guys think about and care about. If we'd been doing any of that other stuff, the conversation wouldn't have been about art, it would have been secretly about us.

Update 3 - Common Sense

Some Thoughts

As I mention below, I've decided to start my reading with Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, and the reason why is very important to how I think about the book and pop-culture itself. So important that I think I’m going to have to say more about it in the Preface (but maybe it can go in the Introduction).

Also, look at him. Aristotle's so handsome.
He must be right.

In his book, Aristotle for Everyone, Mortimer Adler says this:

Spoilers (2 of 2)

In the last article, I said that spoilers don’t spoil a story itself, suggesting that, were that the case, reading a story all the way through would spoil it.

Once we’ve finished reading something, we’ve heard all the secrets and had everything revealed to us. But, judging and reflecting on a story itself (as a whole) is best done after we know the whole thing. If knowing the whole story ruined it, the task of reading would be Sisyphean indeed.

Search your feelings, you know life is boring and repetitive!

This, however, does not mean that only mindless, sensual hedonists object to spoilers. We aren’t just missing out on a thrill. The fact that spoilers don’t ruin stories as objects of consideration doesn’t mean that our engagement of them as dramatic works isn’t diminished by knowing things beforehand.