[MD] Taking Words Seriously

[david buchanan]

dmb said to Matt:
Imagine if your comments were altered so that they were all about amateur artists instead of amateur philosophers. In that scenario you'd find yourself asking if amateur poets and painters should erect a standard of excellence for themselves.


Matt replied:
Yeah, I'm not sure I see the incongruity. ..If a poet, painter, or any other kind of producer _struggles_ in their process, I'm not sure why we shouldn't think of it terms of them struggling to not let themselves down.  And whatever that thing is we call the "standard." ...I concede to the limitations the metaphor creates in thinking about amateur work, but I'm not sure we can think of "excellence" by itself, ahead of standards, as you suggested later in your post.  That doesn't, it seems to me, describe a process we could actually go through, nor a heuristic I would commend in practical thinking about one's craft (whatever it is). ...


dmb says:

Well, it's not that we can have excellence all by itself but yes, the main idea is that excellence is in some sense supposed to be ahead of the standards. Standards are a form of abstraction or generalization but excellence is a result of active engagement with the concrete particulars of the bike or essay or whatever you're working on. The usual rules may or may not apply to your particular situation. The idea is to put the actual empirical reality first and then reach for whatever standard tools are appropriate to the task. Prioritizing the concrete particulars in this way is one of the main reasons we don't want to think of excellence all by itself. It's worth repeating: Quality is not a metaphysical abstraction, it is the primary empirical reality, direct everyday experience, the immediate flux of life. That's where any artist works, even the amateur philosopher. That's where she struggles in her process, where the rubber meets the road. And yea, it is hard to teach, which is why they don't teach it i suppose.


Matt said: 
...I certainly wasn't trying to move down from a deliberate vagueness. .. There would be no point to calling it "amateur" philosophy if it were standardized.  However, if we begin thinking about ourselves and the standards of excellence we have for ourselves, and _what those are_, then perhaps the best question after that is what is our relationship to others.


dmb says:
It's not quite clear what you mean by "relationship to others" but I took it to mean the amateur's relationship to some kind of audience for his philosophy (Since you blog, chat here and what not). And this seems to be one of the questions for which there really shouldn't be a standard answer. Too much depends on the particulars and there's no end to the variety of particulars that could be involved. As a matter of fact I'd like to get published in an academic journal but I'd also like to do a podcast. That means communicating with two very different audiences and my relationship to the journal readers is going to be very different from the way I relate to podcast listeners. In a Venn diagram of these two audiences would look like Dolly Parton's bosoms; some cleavage but no overlap.

Matt said:
 ... I'm not sure the thinking about the lack is the best foot forward.  For example, the lack of a need to please others. So, conversely, amateur philosophy is minimally an attempt to please yourself.  What if you are easy to please?  Toughening what you allow yourself to get away with, it seems to me, is the required step for amateurs to continually evolve.  And thinking in terms of standards doesn't seem to me get in the way of the amateur ethos.

dmb says:
Maybe it goes without saying, but I assume that any kind artist needs an audience. It always entails some kind of dialogue, otherwise the whole process is short-circuited. Art without an audience is like sex without a partner. Pleasing yourself won't make you blind, but nobody wants to see that and you're not going to produce anything of substance. I'm just saying that once you know what you want to say, how you want to say it and who you want to say it to, then you can start talking about standards of excellence in more concrete terms. So much depends on whether you're blogging or posting here or podcasting or even trying to play by academic rules - not to mention the actual content of your thought and the countless factors that shape your views and purposes. I guess it would be simple enough to just rephrase your idea of erecting a standard of excellence. You can do that, I'd say, but not in advance of the process. You build up a taylor-made set of standards as you go, along side the actual empirical process, as you make the choices that work or sit well or otherwise hammer out the kinks.

I think Ray Davies is over-rated, by the way.