Striving at Meaningless...
The form this discussion has taken reminds me of popular essay and "seminar" topics given by lecturers when I was a student. And I have good reason to suspect this prefence is typical of humanities "discourse" in general (I've sought in vain evidence to the contrary). It is asking a question (so interpreted at any rate) where it's impossible to imagine an answer, even a wrong answer...indeed it seems an answer isn't seriously sought.*
I think that the humanities present one of the last safe havens for secular metaphysics, providing the verbal refuge of various "theories". Of course, at best it's a kind of watered down metaphysics, much as the arguments given by "Creationists" are watered down and muddled versions of various proofs, such as the First Cause argument, originally though up by philosophers in the employ of the church. In it's most extreme form, however, is postmodern theory, where so much contempt his held of meaning passable student essays can be written by a computer program and were fact and rational action are under direct assault.
I wouldn't bother mentioning this fact, weren't it for it's political consequences. There is a determination to bring the same contempt for reality forth in confrontation major, even life threatening political, economic and environmental problems (though for an artist the related question of politics corrupting artistic integrity is a serious problem). This a fact Orwell himself was keen to point out and probably an important part of the reason he is found so "annoying" by left intellectuals, especially those employed in the humanities.
*When I brought up an Orwell essay dealing with, in practical terms, the exact problem the original post raised, the question was not, Was the essay true or false or irrelevant? It was, Was Orwell a "good" writer or not? Does reading him cause displeasure or not? I think think this can only regraded are a willful effort to avoid thinking about the original question in terns of political--i.e., concrete--application. To remain orbiting in some "realer" ethereal intellectual sphere.
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