small and unimportant things (my own interests and concerns included). The
'primary importance' of individual people can very easily simply disappear
when you look at the world through such a wide-angled lens.
Have you ever tried looking at people as *animals*? I don't mean to
dehumanise them in any way, just to stop seeing the person for a moment, and
see instead an individual of one particular offshoot of the evolutionary
tree. People can look startlingly different if you get the right mind
adjustment.
It seems to me that to talk about ideologies as if
they were something concrete, something "out there" independent of
individual humans is... strange. And rather dangerous. The sort of
logic that sets up governments to work "for the good of the State" while
losing sight of the fact that "the State" is simply composed of the
individual human beings who live there.
You seem to be confusing ideology with political doctrine. Doctrine is
largely overt, visible (in terms of government policy decisions etc) and
unambiguous. Ideology - that tacit code of convention we all subscribe to -
is largely invisible, and often very ambiguous. It's the unwritten rules
buried deep in the heart of culture, the ones we obey without even realising
that they are rules, albeit quite arbitrary in many cases. And in a way, it
*is* independent of individual people. We, the individuals, dance along to
its tune without even hearing the notes. That includes fictional
characters, because the tune is still there, written in by the unwitting
author. If we all hear pretty much the same tune, then we're all going to
dance in pretty much the same way. Individuality diminishes. It can even
disappear altogether.
"The State" - or just society - is *not* simply composed of individuals.
Once you start considering people collectively, they become something other
than a collection of individuals. Many - perhaps most - people actually
*want* to lose their individuality, at least temporarily, to become part of
something that is larger and at least feels stronger. It can be quite
exhilirating, even euphoric (I presume most of us have been there at some
time or other, whether at a football match, a rock concert, or marching down
a street waving banners. I can only lay claim to the last, and not for
years now). But even outside these obvious and public moments, the
collective nature of human beings exists, in abundance, and the individual
again necessarily disappears, blending into the ranks of the masses.
(FWIW, I don't think any of us are half as unique as we might like to think
we are. Our individuality - or sense of it - comes from the combination of
traits, attitudes, experiences and behaviour patterns that make us what we
are. Since there are only so many traits and attitudes etc, any single one
is going to be shared by an awful lot of people. A smaller - but still
sizable - sample is going to share several if not many of the same traits
etc as yourself. A few will be very similar on most important counts. A
lot of particularities seem to be co-related, so if you have one there's a
good chance you'll have one or more of the others that go with it.
Trainspotters aren't collectively labelled geeky anoraks for nothing.)
That's the sort of association
that this "ideology vs characters" thing has for me, anyway. I regard
it as very important not to lose sight of the individual, and not to
forget that all people are different. They may be shaped by their
societies (something I would never dream of disputing) but they are not
merely representations of their society, but complex beings in their own
right.
Yes, they are complex beings, but also (not 'merely', but also)
representations of facets of society, and of ideological values and
positions. You and I both are complex beings (though some might say that I
am just a being, and even the being part is a matter for regret), but there
is more to both of us than just that.
Actually I would say that the representative dimension is all part of the
complexity of being.
Neil
I'm not surprised that this is muddled because it seems very hard to
work
through and get answers. I've spent the past couple of days trying to
work
out just how much importance I place on the characters, and why, or how,
or
where it's located, and I've yet to come up with any answers.
Yes, I have much the same problem. Everything I've said about why I
*am* a character junky is accurate, I think, but every time I stop and
think about it a little more deeply, I realize that, well, it's a bit
more complex than *that*.
What I do think, and I'm quite aware that this might be nothing more
than a
reflection of my own prejudices, is that my distaste for character
junkieism
(as opposed to those who practice it) lies in what I perceive as a
superficial appraisal of the series. There is an exagerrated awareness
of
differences between individuals, whereas I tend to look for
similarities,
which in turn leads to the social or, dare I say, the ideological.
This probably has a great deal to do with what you value, and what you
find interesting. To me, people are far more interesting than
societies, and, in a sense, more important, because, after all,
societies are only the higher-order product of interactions between
individual humans. (Actually, I'm aware that that doesn't necessarily
follow. Yes, human beings are the higher-order product of interactions
between neurons, and I don't find neurons all that interesting. But,
unlike neurons, individual human beings are incredibly complex, and
thus, to me, incredibly interesting.)
There is
also a focus on immediate impressions - what is said or done (or worn -
now
that is what I really do call superficial) - with an implied reluctance
to
look deeper than the cosmetic surface.
That's very interesting to me, because it *is* very different from my
own view of things. Agreed that focusing on fashion is highly
superficial (though it can sometimes be fun!). But, to me, exploring
the characters' internal lives *is* to look deeper than the
superficial. To not simply accept the things that are said and done,
but to explore *why* this thing was said and that thing was done, and
what meaning those words and actions have for the people involved,
beyond their superficial part in the action-adventure plot. In fact, if
anything, I probably tend to see the background -- including many of the
sociological aspects -- as something superficial, something that only
takes on a real depth when you investigate the effect it has on the
lives of these individual people.
The ideological dimension (if we want to call it that) may be more
*abstract*, in a way, than the character dimension, but it seems
mistaken to me to call it "deeper." How deep something is, in a context
like this, I think, depends a hell of a lot on just how deep you're
willing to *look* at it.
And that devotion to 'playing the
game' - discounting the external contribution of the process of
production
(writers, directors, actors, budget etc).
Me, I can slip back and forth between the two modes, as necessary (and
interesting), but, to me, "playing the game" is far more rewarding.
Possibly because it requires a real creative effort on the part of the
viewer. It's like a puzzle: can you make everything work together
consistently? And if you *can*, the result is a very rewarding
subcreated world (to borrow Tolkien's term).
Which is fine for threads that confine themselves within those limits,
but
not so fine when it gets dumped on threads that try to step out of those
narrow parameters.
Good point. This is certainly the sort of thread where the two
viewpoints can get quite tangled up. (I admit that I've had a bit of
difficultly, through parts of this discussion, deciding just which mode
I ought to be in at any given time.)
--
Betty Ragan ** ragan@sdc.org ** http://www.sdc.org/~ragan/
"The truth shall make ye fret." -- Terry Pratchett
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