An Epicureanism?
September 29th 2006 06:21
A quiet entry today.
Okay, this is the way it went. I'm talking to the guy next to me about a Bob Dylan concert, and the conversation moves on to the value in going, to if I generally go to concerts, and so forth. I don't generally go, in fact I practically never go, though there are these advantages: there is the visual spectacle, the crowd atmosphere, the rawness and improvisation in the music, and the sight of the person in the flesh (and I suppose people always feel, rightly or wrongly, that to see the person in the flesh is perhaps to obtain information they can't otherwise get).
And, of course, people always feel, rightly or wrongly, that there's something important or authentic in the experience of being there; and if I were a muso there'd be other considerations also -- to do with difference in sound, ability to check out technique, better ability to examine the process of playing an instrument as a trial or as an artistic event, etc., but anyway...
The conversation progresses to hypotheticals (which, this time, is not my fault) -- are there any other people I'd want to see in the flesh, or to meet? In fact, if there is one person, living or dead, I could meet and talk to, who would it be?
I think and think. It's not JC, I say, because I'd have nothing to ask him, there's nothing I'd want to bother him with; and it's not Oscar Wilde because I'm a bad conversationalist and Wilde would just put me down, the pederastic bastard.
And while I'm focussing on who it wouldn't be, I throw the question back at him to give myself time, and he's initially stumped, then mentions a few 60s rock bands, then the thought occurs to him that there's a few famous mysteries he wouldn't mind finding the answers to. I help with suggestions, and he wouldn't mind speaking to a victim of Jack the Ripper, or the guys who shot JFK, or people who've succeeded in huge bank jobs and never been caught.
But the emphasis in his choices is on pleasure of conversation, not information, and I get him to admit this, that there is no desire on his part, burning or otherwise, to find out anything, or to say anything to anyone, that the main reason he'd resurrect someone is to enjoy their company. And meanwhile I'm thinking, and eventually I say, that I'm not sure I even feel this much desire, partly because, being a bad conversationalist, conversation doesn't give me that much pleasure. So that there's no one, living or dead, I really have anything to say to at all, and the thought is actually comforting.
Okay, this is the way it went. I'm talking to the guy next to me about a Bob Dylan concert, and the conversation moves on to the value in going, to if I generally go to concerts, and so forth. I don't generally go, in fact I practically never go, though there are these advantages: there is the visual spectacle, the crowd atmosphere, the rawness and improvisation in the music, and the sight of the person in the flesh (and I suppose people always feel, rightly or wrongly, that to see the person in the flesh is perhaps to obtain information they can't otherwise get).
And, of course, people always feel, rightly or wrongly, that there's something important or authentic in the experience of being there; and if I were a muso there'd be other considerations also -- to do with difference in sound, ability to check out technique, better ability to examine the process of playing an instrument as a trial or as an artistic event, etc., but anyway...
The conversation progresses to hypotheticals (which, this time, is not my fault) -- are there any other people I'd want to see in the flesh, or to meet? In fact, if there is one person, living or dead, I could meet and talk to, who would it be?
I think and think. It's not JC, I say, because I'd have nothing to ask him, there's nothing I'd want to bother him with; and it's not Oscar Wilde because I'm a bad conversationalist and Wilde would just put me down, the pederastic bastard.
And while I'm focussing on who it wouldn't be, I throw the question back at him to give myself time, and he's initially stumped, then mentions a few 60s rock bands, then the thought occurs to him that there's a few famous mysteries he wouldn't mind finding the answers to. I help with suggestions, and he wouldn't mind speaking to a victim of Jack the Ripper, or the guys who shot JFK, or people who've succeeded in huge bank jobs and never been caught.
But the emphasis in his choices is on pleasure of conversation, not information, and I get him to admit this, that there is no desire on his part, burning or otherwise, to find out anything, or to say anything to anyone, that the main reason he'd resurrect someone is to enjoy their company. And meanwhile I'm thinking, and eventually I say, that I'm not sure I even feel this much desire, partly because, being a bad conversationalist, conversation doesn't give me that much pleasure. So that there's no one, living or dead, I really have anything to say to at all, and the thought is actually comforting.
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Comment by MichaelB
Diet Dog
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
My main problem is this: I don't engage in conversation, I engage in information exchange.
This is apparently a plus in Buddhism. Someone told me yesterday that there's a Buddhist precept against "frivolous talk". But, on the other hand, if one wants to play the citing authority game, Aristotle included "wit" among his list of virtues.