So today in class, we were trying to understand the performative versus conative use of language as J.L. Austin puts forth in the aptly titled How to Do Things with Words. He's trying to contend against the philosopher's tendency to treat every utterance as a statement to be either true or false. For Austin, language is not always a statement of fact or opinion that reports (conative), but it can also actually perform actions (performative). Saying "I do" in a marriage or saying, "I name this ship the Queen Elizabeth" while smashing a champagne bottle against the ship would be examples of the latter (both examples on p. 5 of his book). By saying it, you do get married, and you do name the ship, if everything else is all good.
Anyway, to end a too-long setup, our professor first tried to give an example from her very specific upbringing. Then she tried to bring up a short story. "By that... who's that author. The one who wrote... 2001, and - " "Arthur C. Clarke!" That was me. There was a brief lull of silence. Then some laughter started bubbling out. "Ye-es," the professor replied, "Arthur Clarke." Then she said something to the effect that I was very quick and eager to give that answer. I can't help being so swift when she mentioned one of my favorite books, by one of the big three authors of science fiction. (The story she then proceeded to tell about was "The Nine Billion Names of God," where by making a computer program for some Buddhists to say all the names of God, programmers brings about the end of the universe, though they obviously didn't believe or intend to have that happen, and indeed were leaving the monastery to get away from the monks' dismay when they would "fail.")
It's been one of the difficulties in class participation though, to think about how much of my personal interest I can bring into play. Officially, I'm into medieval and early modern literature. And I am. I'm writing at least one, perhaps two (of three) term papers in that long period. But at the same time, I flirt with the nineteenth century Romantics (currently on my reading list from that period is Algernon Swinburne because he sounds so wild). I could a lot with twentieth century poetry and fiction. I'm decently well-read in science fiction and fantasy, and I know more about video games than a lot of people. And though some of these fields of study are less common than others, they do exist. For example I have been pleasantly surprised to find a book, The Meaning of Video Games by Steven E. Jones, that addresses textual study in video games, and uses a lot of contemporary theory to make it relevant. The author's an English professor. And from his writing, it's obviously a case of a hobby that crossed over into serious study, though to be fair he can bring a hefty number of literary allusions in too, including Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare. He definitely thought it through more than I did (to be fair, he's thought about it a lot more... in terms of a decade or two). But I could bring that up in class. That isn't a real problem, just going outside of what people assume I know.
No, it's doing so in a way that ... isn't literary? Or that others might snicker at? It's learning not to take myself too seriously in discussion. Like today in my other class, we were talking about Adam Smith and his Theory of Moral Sentiments. We tried to differentiate his sympathy from the sympathy and empathy of today. And A brought up Counselor Troi from Star Trek: TNG. She's an empath. She feels others' emotions as they feel them. And in the context of the discussion, that was cool, and it helped the professor understand what we were trying to say. Then (a few minutes later) he started talking about how Adam Smith says we want our joys to be shared as well as our sorrows, and how we want to reaffirm our joy by having others share in them. His example was his assigning a story for class and how having no one respond to it affectively was a disappointment. I wanted to bring up something from, of all things, an episode of Home Improvement as another example, but I held back. Too cheesy. Or maybe I didn't want people to know I watched Home Improvement.
For me, the toughest thing about classes is that I have a few too many locks on what I say in discussion. By the time I figure out the right way to say something, chances are someone's already saying something that does just as well as what I would've said. Or, perhaps worse, I'll filter myself and then find out that what I would've said would've been right. I prefer it when I say something and I get corrected. The correction is not the issue. It's getting over trying to get an absolute right answer by only consulting with myself. And, on the other hand, recognizing that what I have to say, if not any complete answer, may help others get to it, and may not. It's like learning to share again.
So, here on out, how about I try to undo one or two of those locks. Not all of them... there still is such a thing as propriety, but I've got to stop doubting I have interesting things to say before I find out whether any of it's actually interesting or not. (Wrap your head around that one.)
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