- On the whole rationality vs. spirituality thing I have to say that I don't think that either one of these perspectives on their own is enough to give a complete understanding of the world. I just think that our culture worships rationality to the extent of ignoring more instinctive, subjective, poetic forms of understanding. I would certainly never deny that reason is a useful thing. How could I, whilst sitting typing this on a computer? And I'd be the first to admit that my own bias leans towards the less rational side of things - this is not always a good thing! We need our heads in the clouds and our feet on the ground! I surely wouldn't worry about it, nigel - we all have our own perspectives on and approaches to our experience and each of them is valuable in its own way. Here's a quote from Robert Graves' The White Goddess:
"What interests me most in conducting this argument is the difference that is constantly appearing between the poetic and the prosaic methods of thought. The prosaic method was invented by the Greeks of the Classical age as an insurance against the swamping of reason by mythographic fancy. It has now become the only legitimate means of transmitting useful knowledge... As a result, the poetic faculty is atrophied in every educated person who does not privately struggle to cultivate it... The mechanical style, which began in the counting-house, has now infiltrated into the university, some of its most zombiesque instances occurring in the works of eminent scholars and divines. Mythographic statements which are perfectly reasonable to the few poets who can still think and talk in poetic shorthand seem either non-sensical or childish to nearly all literary scholars."
Robert may bemoan the withering of the "poetic faculty" and I'd be the first to agree, but we must be (in my view) equally wary of "the swamping of reason by mythographic fancy".
- On the matter of the experiment I proposed carrying out. I have to confess that I was just musing, though as soon as my musing hit the (electronic) paper I saw that I should probably start something along these lines myself. I'd have to give it more thought, first, though. The problem would be finding a context within which everyone could describe the spirit of place in terms where the individual descriptions could be compared meaningfully. This is why "imposing" a human metaphor on people, getting them to describe it as though a person, would be useful - it means that the descriptions are made in equal terms and therefore comparable. I worry that "imposing" any metaphor on people would be too restricting for some people, though, and defeat the purpose of the experiment. I'm sure there's ways around this but need to think more... Oh, and email would have to be the way - you couldn't just post them all as fieldnotes to this site, for example - that way people would see each other's descriptions and be influenced by what those who visited before them made of it. As I say, I'll certainly give it more thought and will most likely be posting something here about it within the next week or two...
Right, that's me done (for now!).
