[Kalessin]

Gilthalion

Thank you for your reply. Let me try to do it justice and address the various points you made. Apologies in advance for length, I have to admit I've never been described as laconic [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Your points about Good and Evil don't really apply to my post. Nor to the majority of valid contributions in the Trilogy and Bible thread. Let's cut to the chase.

You said -

"The empathy/sympathy/resonance I speak of is not a commentary on the intrinsic capacity for such things that all Humanity is granted. Rather, it is a natural phenomenon that is prima facia. "Birds of a feather flock together." "

In this instance therefore, you are asserting as axiomatic the idea that the more a reader has in common with the author the more they will appreciate that author's work.

Now, this isn't the same as - nor does it inevitably follow from - the assertion that an Orthodox Jew will understand Tolkien more than a secular humanist. The implication that there is more commonality in the (vast) pantheon of Judeo-Christian faiths and denomination than any (or all) other cultural or personal aspects of personality, education, etc. is by no means 'prima facie' and can certainly be challenged.

However, accepting a more general assertion of commonality as an inference toward empathy isn't really a problem. It's obvious. The more two people have in common the more they will probably think alike or react similarly. So, on that basis one can clearly argue that an English academic (let's say, lapsed Catholic, now atheist) with South African ancestry and an interest in languages and ancient mythology will therefore appreciate Tolkien more than, for example, an Isreali engineer with a passion for aeroplanes who happens to be an Orthodox Jew. Whether one is an atheist and the other a practicing follower, the other 'feathers' are both more numerous and more relevant to an empathy towards the author's work.

You could also argue that an English Catholic will understand Tolkien more than an American one. Or that I, being English, with some South African heritage, understand and appreciate Tolkien more than most.

I don't accept that argument. There is a difference between conjunction (or occurrence) and cause-and-effect (or axiom) when it comes to philosophical reasoning. Just because some non-Christian literary critics failed to appreciate Tolkien, while some Christian ones did, is not the basis for any axiomatic statement. There is no a priori (or self-evident) rule at work, simply because it is easily possible to imagine a situation where a non-Christian literary critic might respond more favourably to Tolkien than a Christian one. The line of reasoning is, at best, anecdotal.

Another aspect of the extract I quoted from your post is that it didn't answer my assertion. I wasn't talking about the intrinsic capacity that all human beings have either. I was talking about the actual expression of empathy/sympathy/response that is clearly affected by, and subject to, other factors than one's chosen (or culturally decided) faith or non-faith.

You then said -

"In Art, particularly Theatre, and by extension Storytelling, there needs to be a sufficient empathy with the work for the performance (or reading) to have effect"

I think you have missed out the purpose and effort of the writer/creator here. With regard to Tolkien, this seems to imply that, whatever his skill, or despite his declared attempt to create a particularly English mythos, or his conscious evocations of the universal archetypes of world myth (NOT 'good vs evil') - all that effort was wasted by him. In the end he was writing for English Catholics first, everyone else second.

Do you ever wonder what writers and artists think about this idea? As I said, the statement that "people who have things in common will have empathy/sympathy/resonances in common" is blindingly obvious. But what separates the great and renowned artists from the rest is their ability to reach out beyond their own cultural or social sphere and impact upon the experience of others. The difference between your assertion being anecdotally, or "often", true and being axiomatic, or "always" true, is massive.

Writers of all types are communicating : it is their craft and vision that makes their communication effective beyond cliques or ghettos. Who are we to judge the quality or depth of an individual's response to art based solely on their faith or lack of it? That is arrogance and elitism of the most sinister kind.

So, you then say -

"But to argue that there is no qualitative difference in understanding, appreciation, and empathy from one reading to the next (I suppose on the grounds that we are all Humans and should be thought of as homogenous equals), and that these differences are largely due to the independent worldview of the reader, is what I would call "flimsy." "

As far as I know no-one (certainly not me) said there is no qualititative difference between one reading and the next because we are all human. There are vast qualitative differences - what I am saying is that these result not just from one's faith or atheism, but from education, from culture, from age, experience, from self-knowledge and so on. And that any of these can be, for an individual, more relevant (or equally relevant) to their appreciation than their particular moral or spiritual faith.

Your response to Maril was interesting. You ended with -

"It tells me that a blind man does not appreciate a sunset in the same way as one who sees. I think that I can reliably report that folk of deep moral conviction will find joy in Tolkien's work that the shallow will not."

Well, I almost agree with you. Except that equally, the seeing cannot perhaps appreciate a sunset in the same way as the blind. We may not be as sensitive to the warmth of the fading light upon our skin ; we may not hear as acutely the quietening of the birds as darkness descends ; and so on.

And, finally, I would count many atheists and secular humanists as 'folk of deep moral conviction', while there are equally many practicing Christians (or others) who are shallow. And of course, vice versa.

You see, I do not feel able to judge that I am better at appreciating Tolkien than someone else because I am of a particular faith, nor do I feel the need to. Perhaps that is the key thing - that need to feel as though one can make absolute judgements of unknown others on the basis of these labels. Where does that come from? I don't know, since I don't need to. I guess that is where the real 'sensitivity' lies.

Thank you again for a challenging, provocative sally into the subject.

Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[ April 24, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]