Subject: Re: Lookin' for answers and more. . .
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 20 2001 - 13:09:15 GMT
On Thu, Sep 20, 2001 at 12:39:39PM -0500, lray wrote:
[Your message came through yesterday, though I haven't had a chance to
respond to it yet.]
> I think for young people today crisis of any kind are amplified and very
> common, whether they be spiritual, emotional, depression oriented, or most
> likely a mixture of all of these.
I have long wondered whether today's Franny might be treated by a
therapist who would prescribe whatever antidepressant is popular at
the moment. By no means am I being negative about therapists or about
medicine as treatment; rather, I think it's an interesting change from
what would have been done in the 1950s. (In fact, if JDS were not so
opposed to psychotherapy, I can't help wondering whether the real
Franny might not have ended up on a couch, if Zooey hadn't been able
to reach out to her and get her to find some type of peace.)
> The search for something to "believe" in is
> common for all young people I think, or more generally all people of all ages.
> Granted, it has been a while since I last read Franny, but it seems to me that
> she is not just confused about her own spirituality, but about her life in
> general and that repeating the particular phrase over and over again (I forget
> it and I do not have my copy with me at school) is her seeking to find
> SOMETHING and that doing so will ease her life, give it purpose, and she will
> have all the answers, or at least SOMETHING to cling to. That is my cloudy
> take on it and I am probably reading more into it because of my own ongoing
> spiritual crisis.
I think she specifically mentions the religious aspect of what is
bothering her; I don't think it's left to us to intuit. But like you,
I'm operating here without having a copy of the text.
> Also, the way she talks about her professors and others seems to be an echo of
> the disillusionment we hear from Holden about just about everybody =)
That's true. It's a good link from one book to the other.
> Tim wrote:
> "if Franny's story were happening today, and if it were told by a less ascetic
> writer, how much of a role would television, music, and computer connections
> play in her life, and would there be enough room left over for her spiritual
> crisis?"
>
> Unfortunately television plays too much of a part of American culture (think
> Power Rangers, sitcoms, and the recent "entertainment" provided by the
> terrorist attacks), and music can be as superficial as the next. It seems
> that a modern day spiritual crisis might very well occur but on a lower and
> baser ground, as most people including myself do not have the education Franny
> had.
It does seem as if the education she (and Lane) are getting is somehow
more rigorous than what they would get today. But I may be completely
wrong about that. Can someone who's IN SCHOOL correct me if I'm
mistaken?
> While the background to the crisis might be less sophisticated, the
> crisis' importance is just as important to the individual.
Good point. There's a danger to getting overly analytical, because
one loses sight of the underlying problem.
> been the basis for human contact for centuries. While I think we can all say
> that online interraction is a worthy form of intelligent contact, can we also
> say that this interraction is AS worth as traditional forms of contact and
> does an online community such as this one constitue a "real" community or
> simply put a different kind of community?
This feels as much like a "real" community as has any I've ever been a
part of. Just a little different, in that most of us don't see each
other (though the ones who do see each other form a strong bond quite
often).
> I would be very interested to hear people's comments on all of this as I am
> definitely biased towards the internet and think it is ironic that people call
> someone who spends a lot of time on the internet or the computer as
> "addicted",
I think this is silly. "Obsessed," as can happen, as you point out,
with a book or a TV or a crossword puzzle, is a more apt word.
> OK, so I have done some serous rambling here and I apologize for that but this
> is something that greatly interests me and maybe something I attempt to make a
> career of.
Rambling? 8-) Interesting job possibilities.
Thanks for tossing some ideas into the discussion!
--tim
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