Eubulides wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "joanna bujes" <jbujes at covad.net>
>
> > Carrol writes:
> >
> > "You've got to be kidding. "Expressing one's individuality" is an
> > essentially empty phrase. It names no intelligible human act."
> >
> > Agreed. Though, in this culture, the fact that one can do this and that
> this is the very pinnacle of freedom, is an article of faith.
> >
> > When you look at "individual" artists, thinkers, writers, scientists, it
> always winds up that they are standing on the shoulders of the culture
> itself. By dint of hard work, training, practice, and a comprehending
> audience...some outstanding "expressions" emerge. But, if you look at say,
> the difference between Donatello and Bernini, it becomes clear that
> although the talent is equal, the environment is not, and hence the
> difference in their work. One emerges as a genius; the other, as a kind of
> wasted genius.
> >
> > Joanna
>
> ===============
>
> Standing on the shoulders of giants is not inconsistent with the
> conjunction of 'individuality' and 'expression' as intelligible when
> describing human behavior. Carrol seems to have forgotten his Susan
> K.Langer and her mentor [of a sorts] A N Whitehead. 'Essences' and
> 'essentially' are empty terms, neo-essentialist logicians notwithstanding.
> Of course, one could do to the term 'genius' what Carrol claims we should
> do to 'expression of individuality'..........
>
Don't confuse sloppy writing with the essential point. :-) As K. Burke argues, the statement "X is essentially Y" means that X is really not Y. So let me rephrase. ""Expressing one's individuality" is an empty phrase."
Perhaps we are (in part) having trouble with diction. I take "expression" to be a conscious process. Hence to say, for example, that in this post Cox is "expressing his individuality" is either false or a trivial tautology -- anything anyone does is, willy-nilly, an expression of that person's individuality, and there is no way that a person can be other than an individual.
(Part of the background here goes back over 40 years, to when I taught freshman comp for three years at the University of Michigan. It seemed like every third paper one read was a diatribe against "conformity" and a praise of "being an individual." Yuck. So it wasn't a mere throwaway line when I suggested in an earlier post that the proper domain for discussions of this (non-)topic was in a freshman comp class.)
Another way of putting it: It's an impossibility not to be an individual, so why all the excitement about becoming what it's impossible not to become?
Carrol
P.S. It is quite possible that I have never, except in quoting others, used the term "genius." It explains nothing, and only in a sloppy fashion does it name what needs to be explained.
> Ian
>
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