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| META TOPICPARENT | name="OldPapers" |
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| | | In Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, a group assembled from Austrian society is given an opportunity to choose something or an idea to represent content/value and spur themselves/their country/the world to goodness (in the sense of what mountain, "baseball is life, the rest is just details"?, love, picture of wife and children on work desk, the future was a bit 'fuel cells' when I was in high school... ), and they survey/develop though have difficulty reaching consensus among various things and subgroup perceptions and interests. This provides foreground to personal experience/search/development of the title character, Ulrich, who experiences/sees actualities/possibilities and sides of things. Situations have general/particular/similar/different/combining/contrasting components, and even individual components have parts in this way, “Like watching someone eat silently, without sharing his appetite: You suddenly perceive only swallowing movements, which look in no way enviable.” | |
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< | He observes, “Meaning lies roughly halfway between reasoning and capriciousness,” with common forms of capriciousness including how we privilege particular contents/interpretations through cultural or personal preunderstanding and “how we unquestionably seek the firm and solid in life as urgently as a land animal that has fallen into the water.” Ulrich wonders about semi-certainty, considering internal and external material and phenomena, in curious observation/exploration and interest/hope about things, good stuff/truth. Reasoning is often sufficient as well as sometimes asymptotic and/or confounded, with some level of capriciousness contributing to decisions made (or not made) in finite time. Ulrich has/finds/develops/codifies some at least subjectively interesting/positive/graceful material as he goes (subjective to me as a reader as well as the character/author, it is a well-regarded book, at least by some), as do other characters, though the book is not concluded, Musil (do you think a muse pun is intended?) died while still writing it. | >
> | He observes, “Meaning lies roughly halfway between reasoning and capriciousness,” with common forms of capriciousness including how we privilege particular contents/interpretations through cultural or personal preunderstanding and “how we unquestionably seek the firm and solid in life as urgently as a land animal that has fallen into the water.” Ulrich wonders about semi-certainty, considering internal and external material and phenomena, in curious observation/exploration/interest/hope about things, good stuff/truth. Reasoning is often sufficient as well as sometimes asymptotic and/or confounded, with some level of capriciousness contributing to decisions made (or not made) in finite time ("my computer froze" "is it frozen or still calculating?" "there's an insouciance/tolerance/acceptability/appreciability cushion with not too severe content/stakes, at least with some things" "within reason" "but your computer has to know specifically... things, at least some things, are specifically... "). Ulrich has/finds/develops/codifies some at least subjectively interesting/positive/graceful material as he goes (subjective to me as a reader as well as the character/author, it is a well-regarded book, at least by some, I'm eating a pomegranate right now, which is pleasant, "are you insouciant to eating a cantaloupe?" "um, no" "where is it on your insouciance meter?" "I don't like cantaloupe, though my dad does"), as do other characters, though the book is not concluded, Musil (do you think a muse pun is intended?) died while still writing it. | | | In this essay I will further explore structure underlying these phenomena/ideas and consider implications. I will consider content and reality, understanding and misunderstanding, people's participation in, appreciation of, and creative development through openness and reflection in thinking and communication, and issues of range and parsimony.
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