Arendt says in The Human Condition that there are no new ideas--someone, somewhere has already imagined everything you imagine, only he never managed to get it off the ground, so to speak. "In the realm of ideas there are only originality and depth, but no absolute, objectively novelty...ideas, moreover, as distinguished from events, are never unprecedented..." Her example was atomic theory--Democritus had an idea, some people discussed it, but it "had no consequences in the factual world." John Dalton had an idea, some people discussed it, and it resulted in nuclear weapons.
For Arendt, this emphasizes the primacy and complexity of action. But for Miss Self-Important, it renders futile her ongoing efforts to come up with a new thought. Every time I discover that all of my ideas have already been articulated in great detail in someone else's book, I take comfort in the fate of Democritus' atomic theory and think about how everyone is probably an idea usurper. First, there was all the fruit of my two years of thinking about B. Franky. Now, this book.
This book is my entire plan for grad school. From the introduction: "Questions about childhood and authority permeated the political and religious debates of early modern Britain and its colonies." Do you see this--childhood, authority, politics, religion, early modern Britain, colonies? That is exactly what I wanted to study--every aspect of it. Except it's already been done. Even worse, I didn't even have a chance to start in on it. Unlike the B. Franky letdown, I can't even claim that I also had these thoughts, because I didn't yet, and now it turns out that I can't. Sadness! What now? What is left for me to do?
(Don't say, "read it." Already on that.)
Saturday, March 14, 2009
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10 comments:
what about education? is that in the book?
It doesn't look like schooling is a major part of it, but I think education may be synonymous with childhood in politics. Whenever there is a question about education, it's a question about childhood and vice versa. Can you think of exceptions?
something similar happened to me last year before coming to brown. i read a book on rousseau, religion, and democracy, and realized that it already said everything i wanted to say (oh, and the guy who wrote the book teaches at brown).
it's okay! grad school is to explore interesting ideas-- and you'll get to some new-ish ideas along the way! :)
Oh, don't worry, we're surely due for another Revelation soon enough. That will change everything, no doubt. Who knows, maybe Sebastian will even be the first one to recieve it!
Jennie and Mordu: I know, I know, more ideas will come. But I am still disappointed.
On a somewhat unrelated note, I've always found the bit about no new ideas to be liberating. Its easy to doubt your own capacity to produce a truly new idea - and it doesn't seem like theres anything you can do about it except habitually take long walks through the country. On the other hand, if all it takes to create something really worthwhile is hard work, patience, knowledge, a desire to work out the shortcomings of arguments you like thinking about, then its easy to feel good about what you're doing.
What now? Prepare for this to happen again, and again, and again...
Hannah's always (usually?) right.
MS-I:
I just looked up the work "esoteric" in the dictionary. There is a small photo of you next to the definition.
Alex: Yes, in a way.
Phoebe: Boo.
Mgc: Oh, I thought that photo belonged to Leo Strauss.
You wish to write in order to pass along an insight, presumably to benefit readers, right? Suppose your insight was exactly the same as that produced by someone else. Now suppose your readers never discover the other text. Would they not be impoverished if not for your efforts? How many biographies of Ben Franklin are there? How similar are many, a consequence of covering the same limited subject. How many will the average person read? Which one? If we want to know about Franklin, we look for a reputable biography. Fortunately, several exist, so we select the one before us. We learn and benefit.
The frontier of ideas may be closed, but the thirst for education is nearly unlimited. Presenting a reflection of the ideas of one of your professors, as Jennie faced, might pose a problem. But the audience down the educational ladder should get at least equal consideration to the audience up the ladder. If you feel competitive and accept no new ideas are in the offing, be the best at passing along ideas.
FLG is contemplating my suggestion of a contest involving the writing of Poulos. The contest concerns the inability or unwillingness of Poulos to communicate. As you note regarding the Stuarts, a great deal of what has been written holds no value because it is impenetrable. Beat that.
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