Re: A Sensibility of Worth

Jim writes:
<< We can learn about the human condition from advertisements on television
and in magazines. But we'd rather study Shakespeare or Beowulf [. . .]
instead, because their use of language is worth more attention than the
language in television ads. >>

One can certainly study the television advertisements as an anthropologist
studies tribesmen in the Amazon, or can participate as a loving member of
the culture, or can act innumerably many ways that fall somewhere between
these, but I think that one's desire to seek the humanity in Shakespeare in
addition to or instead of television advertisements is not merely a matter
of linguistic competence. Surely Shakespeare's language is prone to be more
powerful than Revlon ads, but I think his depictions and explorations of
humanity are simply more competent, more thorough, and more thoughtful.

If you want to disagree for insistence that it cannot be anything but the
reader who explores the humanity competently, thoroughly, or thoughtfully --
that these explorations are not in any valuable way present in the text --
then let me say that the depictions in Shakespeare (or whatever it is
exactly that you do allow to be present in the text) is more conducive to a
reader's competent, thorough, and thoughtful explorations than are their
cognates in television advertisements.

-Robbie
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Received on Mon Dec 15 15:40:31 2003