When Analysis bites
Just out of curiousity, am I the only person who thinks some things lose a special 'something' that they had before they were dissected by analysis? For example, a short story read is enjoyable, analysis brings out depths unperceived and in general kills the story for me. Can I not be heretical by saying that enjoying something often is outside of analyzing it?
posted by Luke @ 26.4.05
7 comments
7 Comments:
I definitely felt that way about the first Lord of the Rings film. I fear that's how it will be about HHGG too.
Personally, I haven't experienced that in a very large degree (at least recently). Generally, I find it pleasurable to think about a work after I read it. I love to learn new things about it: it really helps me enjoy the work more on the next read. That's why good books are good: they have depth that contains more joy than shallow books.
I kinda want to post again, because I feel your question and your dilemma are really important.
I think that analysis can steal the soul from things. Upon reflection, I recognize this has happened in my view of the Bible (a common experience around here).
There seem to be to possible reasons: the nature of the text in question and the nature of the analysis applied to the text.
Why do we like a text, I wonder?
I think what Luke is referencing (could be wrong; this could just be me) is the fact that we can enjoy a work even if it not quite as good as it should be. We can derive a disproportionate amount of enjoyment from subpar works.
What you bring up is also interesting, but I think it's a different topic. In the first, you are seeing something for what it really is, and thus enjoying it less. In the second you are clouding your vision by overanalysis, which leads to less enjoyment of a work.
In summary:
0. Mediocre work, high enjoyment.
1. Good analysis reveals the work better
2. Reduced enjoyment
OR
0. Good work, high enjoyment
1. Poor analysis clouds judgement
2. Reduced enjoyment
I think it's the second of your two analysis. Maybe it is the mental effort of analysis that is robbing the joy of enjoyment. I still think a live frog is more beautiful than a vivisected one.
That's why I think your question is so interesting. Of course discected frogs are more beautiful than live ones.
Perhaps the error is thinking that the information you learn from a discected frog is the sum of frogness. In actuality, it's not: because frogness includes the beauty and goodness of vitality and unity, if nothing else.
The Abolition of Man's last chapter has arguments against science to the same effect: that science gives us incomplete images of the world. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do science. It means that we should be careful when we do science in allowing its conclusions to be restricted to their proper fields when attempting to understand the cosmos as a whole.
I concur with Jon's last post. So, to reiterate in my own words, if we say a unified experience is the sum of a bunch of other experiences, then we are denying the reality of the first experience.
I'm tempted to wonder then what really is the place of analysis. If we have to 'kill' an experience to analyze it, why should we analyze? Maybe it is necessary for us to kill in order to eat. But this seems to make reality seem masochistic. In order for realiy to be it must kill parts of itself, which seems less than ideal.
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