From: <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: suffering sufferer suffers
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 2001 10:55:35 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)


On Wed, 3 Jan 2001 10:41:00 -0700 gary patrick norris <ngary2-AT-qwest.net> wrote:

> 3a. Furthermore, since most confuse "the beautiful" with "the good," then 
folks think that suffering is good.  And since we live in a moral society, no 
matter what the cynics think, some consider suffering necessary, moral and 
just.

"No pain, no autonomous art, eh?"

> 4. So, it makes sense to some that artists must suffer.  Even when the 
suffering happens to be an excuse for living the life of an artist. You know, a 
mask.

I think a notion of scenic understanding is worth exploring here, like the 
ever-present cinema cliche, you know the one, a sober conversation, a paternal 
figure getting up and walking away, the pause, <insert name-of-the-father> 
"X, thanks for that" - the humble but knowing nod, final turn, and off the set.

The suffering artist is a bit like the cliche, a stereotype, a regressive image 
- paleosymbolic perhaps, certainly prediscursive. In general, this imagistic 
understanding is read backward: from the effect back to the cause. The more 
salient point being, to look at this effect as to what it causes. Take Woody 
Allen as an example. It isn't that his films are autobiographic, rather, Allen 
puts them together and then buys into his own script. He becomes what he writes 
about. Talk about "special" effects. The stereotype of the suffering artist 
*creates* suffering artists... not unlike the designated pathology of the last 
year "road rage" - once it has a name, everyone steps up to the namesake.

> Maybe we should start by asking:  is it suffering if you chose to suffer?

Is a rose by another name still a rose?

How many trees have to fall in a forest for it to cease being a forest?

Of course.

ken



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