Re: OT: Tinkering versus creativity

----- Original Message -----
From: "And Rosta" <and.rosta@...>



> Sally Caves, On 28/06/2006 00:24:
>> "Thinking outside the box" is a cliche, And.  I was not being reductive,
>> trivializing or uninsightful.
>
> It's not very fair to imply that I had said you were, since I so clearly
> and explicitly didn't...
here's what you wrote:
>>> While it is true that the senses of 'original', e.g. as in 'original
>>> idea', include both 'an idea that nobody else has ever had before' and
>>> 'an idea of X's that X has not borrowed from somebody else', both those
>>> senses are rather reductive, trivializing, uninsightful and problematic
Why?  That's probably how I should have responded originally.  Forgive me
for not doing so. Two people hit upon the spiraling structure of DNA.  The
one scientist published it first and was lauded and awarded, and the other
was not.  Was the other not thinking outside the box?  True, both were
working out of boxes already available, as was Einstein, but it was an
extraordinary achievement for both of them.  Often "thinking outside the
box" is granted to a person who has had the great good luck of becoming
famous for it.

There is something called "metalanguage," I'm sure you know it.  Or reading
and writing between the lines.  We have often been counseled in our disputes
with people to say we don't like the "behavior," not the "person."  It is
rhetorical bullshit. My idea and my behavior are me, and telling me that my
idea is reductive still stings, even when it was meant flippantly. The
English language is regrettably ambiguous (we aren't up to Ithkuil yet);).

What grates a bit is being jumped on for the flippant idea with no
acknowledgement of the stronger one!  However, it's the way dispute often
works on these listservs, and I can live with it.  But please don't tell me
that you were clearly and explicitly not telling me that my idea was
reductive, trivializing and uninsightful! <GGGG>  Them are fighting words,
And!  So fair is fair.  And besides, I disagree with you. ;)

Alright, I say all that here blah blah blah
>> I was being sardonic, ;) and trying to point out, as I have in my
>> previous posts, a basic truth: that even "thinking outside the box" is
>> based on a prior box.  ... some humans think better and more originally
>> than others and manage to change the landscape.  Is that really what
>> we're trying to do in personal artlangs?
>
> Nobody has been saying that personal artlangs are trying to think outside
> the box or reshape the landscape, and nobody has been saying that they
> should. Indeed, in the other message of mine that you mention favourably
> is quite clear on that.
>
Yes but two people have been saying that most personal artlangs on the whole
are boring to them because of their lack of innovation.  In some ways the
argument, on my part, has moved to a defense of the creativity of tinkering
in artlangs because, and this is subjective, I find a lot of the boldly
innovative languages to be intellectually interesting but of no use to me.
You know how I have lauded in the past the irregular, maggelitous and
naturalistic languages, such as the ones that attempt, probably futilely, to
imitate the complexity and richness of powerful natlangs.  I am unmoved by
the attempts to do away with ambiguity.  I think that misread motives  will
always prevail, no matter how precisely engineered a language is. I am awed
by the fact that Zug can have so many meanings in German.  I find my own
invented language too simplistic, and I've tried over the years to
complicate it, make it more foreign.  I like the other invented languages
that strive for this as well.  I guess I have expressed an artistic opinion.

About your joyless poetry listserv:
>...nobody can speak freely of their own readerly engagement with the poetry
>the list is intened to discuss, since to do so provokes wounded feelings,
>acrimony, and so forth.)
<

People are fickle, emotional creatures. Arguments about innovation or lack
of innovation are implicitly dismissive.  I have no trouble with Jeff
Henning's praise of Dirk's Tepa: "It is simply the most expertly designed
naturalistic language," or whatever Jeff said on his page. But "innovation"
is a sore point.  I think most people want to be innovative and creative or
to be thought so; even Adam's morose little remark that he felt his
Brithenig was probably just tinkering was a response to this thread and its
implied dismissals--at least originally.  I'm glad Ray defended Brithenig
and its idea, which started Ill Bethisad.  I second it.

Even if you had the most precise and logical argumentative discourse
possible, with all the proper evidence morphemes and politesse, the terms
"uninsightful" and "reductive" are not complimentary. Nor is
"uninteresting."  In the best of all possible worlds, we should be a society
that is politely logical, impartial, and innocent and decent in our
opinions--and without any trace of ego.  You are one of the few people, And,
who I think IS.  I'm in awe of that.  But given the diversity of
personalities on this list, and the personal involvement of most of us in
our conlangs, seemingly invidious comparisons are not wise IMHO.  And I'm
not sure I could stand such a society where we are all so impartial.  I've
never been so engaged as I have now!  And I say this with as little acrimony
as I can.  Hope you believe me! :)

<
In the case of conlanging, the picture is further complicated by presence of
producers and consumers of engelangs, among whom a very different mode of
discourse tends to emerge -- one in which the focus is on rationally
discussable ideas and in which the producer--consumer distinction and
notions of ownership and amourpropre are of little importance.
>
True.  But not all of us are engelangers.

> So, the regrettable consequence of this is that on a list such this,
> interlocutors' decency, generosity of spirit, innocent intentions, and so
> forth, is not itself sufficient to guarantee the preservation of unruffled
> harmony in their intercourse.
<

Agreed.  Thanks for the ride!

Sally

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