Snow Sex: A Literary Exercise and its Implications

[darkstar3]

With thanks to the originator, one John Palzer, Adjunct Professor of Writing, RIT, c. 2002. Best. Lecture. Ever.

One day in my Writing and Lit class, long ago, my professor walked into the room and threw down with an old cliche: He wrote "Sex" on the whiteboard. As the class quieted, he moved slightly to the left, obscuring my view, and when he stepped away, he revealed:

Snow Sex

I'll never manage to deliver the lecture that Mr. Palzer did that day, especially not in this medium, but I feel I must at least attempt to describe what happened. It started with this paraphrased quote from Mr. Palzer himself:

"Look at these two words. Either one, by itself, has only a few meanings, most of them mundane. But when you combine them in either order, incredible possibilities unfold. This is the job of a writer."

A full hour of dynamic discussion followed, wherein we as a class not only investigated many of the farther fetched meanings of the phrases "snow sex" and "sex snow", but also got the chance to discuss other short phrases that could be loaded with interpretive meaning.

What was important, though, was that everyone in the class, at one point in the discussion, had managed to come up with a different way to interpret that simple two-word phrase. This was by design, and Mr. Palzer poured fire on this discussion, changing its direction in the process with one question:

"Now what did I PERSONALLY mean by it?"
(I swear, after he asked this question, he suppressed a nearly uncontrollable snicker.)

Mr. Palzer had finally done, with his own simple nonsense phrase, what discussion of books, poems, and short stories had failed to do: He proved beyond a shadow of a doubt in the minds of his students that authors have NO say in what their writing really means.

It bears repeating: Authors have NO say in what their writing really means. Meaning is in the eye of the interpreter. There is no correct interpretation of any text.

The implications of this with regard to religion are far-reaching indeed. How many religions, and how many factions of religions, are based on the idea that one group has the correct interpretation of an ancient text? Are there any religions that have been perpetuated through any length of time that don't fall prey to this problem of interpretation?

[elleng]

1. And THEN there's the Constitution!!!

[darkstar3]

2. Don't get me started...n/t

[htuttle]

3. Religions that didn't write books didn't have this problem, did they?

If a religion is passed entirely by storytelling, songs, and person-to-person teaching, then it would be harder to argue about the interpretation of some detail of it hundreds of years later. Though the beliefs will shift in time, at any given time, the religion/cult would pretty much have to be what it seems to be. On the other hand, not having written material makes it harder to proselytize the masses.

[darkstar3]

4. 2 problems

1. Name a religion alive today that meets this description.
2. It would be harder, but even more important, to argue about the interpretation of a verbally passed religion, given how easy it would be to change. You'd have at the very least some serious authenticity problems.

[Chulanowa]

7. Almost every "native" religion in the world follows this model

I'm aware that for some people those "don't count" but a sizable number of people still believe the many myriad faiths that are scattered around the world. Even some "major" faiths such as Hinduism or Shinto, are much more interpretable than your standard Abrahamic model.

[darkstar3]

8. Well, I have to say, even though I know it won't be popular,

where do you draw the line?

At least for me, I've always seen religion as something a bit more rigid. "He followed his routine religiously." "His work ethic was almost a religion for him."

You make a good point, but here's my question in response: Where does a "verbal tradition" end and a "religion" begin?

[iris27]

5. A religion without historical texts *would* be more quickly able to serve the

changing ethics of its adherents (often due to shifts in the larger culture) over time. Intriguing. I wonder how far segregationist Christians would've gotten without chapter and verse of the story of Ham to point to? Though in that case, the same end was eventually met as one interpretation became dominant over another.

[RandomThoughts]

6. yep

I was taught that by an episode of Twilight Zone. I am glad they teach it in schools also.

Eye Of The Beholder
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMev5QQxs00






AC/DC - Thunderstruck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvoeeq-BH4w

[Igel]

9. "There is no correct interpretation of any text."

But that does not entail that every interpretation is correct.

It's also usually true that "There are incorrect interpretations of every text."

[darkstar3]

10. Based on what measure?

[struggle4progress]

11. Concur in part, dissent in part

Language is necessarily and inherently ambiguous because the world is large and our minds are small: there is simply no way to have a unique descriptor for every single distinct phenomenon; we could neither learn nor remember all those descriptors. So language is essentially abstract: it uses this-one-word for many-different-things. But, of course, abstractions can both confuse and illuminate: we want clarity and usefulness combined in a good abstraction, but a bad abstraction can convince us with its stunning clarity while completely misleading us, and a very useful abstraction can also be subtle and very difficult to grasp

Abstraction, of course, means that the idea can be understood in more than one way. In some cases, a dialogue can occur with all parties agreeing, yet having totally different mental maps of the topic: this happens, for example, in mathematics -- and it does not always mean "nothing was said" or "everybody was confused" -- it may mean that some deeper structure awaits discovery

But if you really want to take an extreme view that "Authors have NO say in what their writing really means" then you are essentially denying the possibility of any communication, and it is entirely unclear why you should want to draw conclusions about religion in particular from your claim, since your claim has a much wider scope and applies all texts (political, literary, scientific, legal ...) including your own

[darkstar3]

13. Good subject line. I'll re-use it. Concur in part, dissent in part.

You are correct about language. However, I don't agree with your last two paragraphs.

First, if everyone in a conversation is talking about different things, but without realizing that this is the case, I think it would be difficult to prove that anything but confusion would come out of that conversation.

Second, and my real point of contention here, is that you confuse authorship with communication. All authorship is communication, but not all communication is authorship. Authorship is one way communication, while other forms of communication, such as a discussion board, exist.

Now for some more agreement. My claim does indeed have far reaching implications beyond religion, but I posted it here because something you posted earlier today simply reminded me of the concept of interpretation regarding religion.

[struggle4progress]

18. When the formalist David Hilbert produced a careful axiomatization

of geometry around 1900, he remarked: "One must be able to say at all times -- instead of points, straight lines, and planes -- tables, beer mugs, and chairs." That is, on Hilbert's formalist view, the content of his mathematical arguments was entirely structural and did not depend on any intuition about the "meanings" of the geometric terms

Of course, the physical and common psychological interest of geometry does depend on more than the structure of the theory, and does involve intuitive meanings, so it is unlikely that all significance is purely formal and structural. But purely formal structural aspects of communication can carry significant meaning

Almost all mathematical work is authorship, and the level of abstraction is often very high, which means that the range of interpretations is wide. The situation is worse than commonly realized, even for well-known ideas. For example, an idea like "the counting numbers 0, 1, 2, ..." may seem much more clearly defined to the naive observer than is actually the case -- and yet this does not prevent anyone from agreeing on many basic facts

[darkstar3]

19. More empty elaboration on the concept of abstraction,

which we have already agreed upon. What is this incessant need you have to digress?

Are you, by the absence of such statements, admitting that you have nothing to say on cross-purpose conversation or on different forms of communication besides authorship?

[struggle4progress]

20. No. You claim "if everyone in a conversation is talking about different things .. it would be

difficult to prove that anything but confusion would come out of that conversation." I just pointed out carefully that this is, in fact, not the case

[darkstar3]

27. But is mathematics authorship or conversation?

They are two separate forms of communication. In one post you claim that it is almost all authorship, and in another you tell me that your point was about coversation.

[Jim__]

28. I am curious what you mean by:

purely formal structural aspects of communication can carry significant meaning

I can see where variable placement within a syntactically correct statement can tell you something of the role that the variable plays in the language; but I don't see how you can get meaning out of it. Can you give an example of what you mean?

[RagAss]

12. "From the beginning not a thing exists "...Hui Neng

The old Chan master being the exception, I guess. You can't add your "own perspective" to nothing !

[darkstar3]

14. Solipsism by any other name would still be just as self-centered.

I don't think that the concept of indeterministic interpretation lends itself well at all to the concept that nothing outside the self really exists.

[RagAss]

15. Nothing means nothing...what is this "self" you mention?

[darkstar3]

16. .

:boring:

[RagAss]

17. Now you've grasped it.

;-)

[trotsky]

21. Great point - and then you look at works like the bible, when you have to add...

translation, transcription, and re-translation into the mix. The bible is going to say whatever the believer who's reading it WANTS it to say. And we see that everywhere - including right here in this forum. But a disturbing number of liberal believers play the same game as the fundies - insisting THEY have the "true" interpretation of a particular passage or story, and everyone else is wrong.

[Jim__]

22. While interpretation is open, not all interpretations are equally credible.

In the instance cited, the author throws out a phrase, "snow sex", completely without context. However, most phrases, most events, that take place within any narrative take place within a context. In this instance, if the phrase were included within a sentence, say, Although the initial snow flakes form slowly within the atmosphere, once two of them have formed, snow sex quickly leads to an abundance of flakes, the interpretation of the phrase becomes somewhat bracketed by the context in which it is used. People can still interpret it any way they want to, but, now, other people will place a judgment on how credible their interpretation is.

Context and discussion can validate or largely invalidate certain interpretations. The more context, e.g. the interpretation of the phrase within a novel, the more constraints there are on the interpretation.

[darkstar3]

33. Context may matter, but also falls prey to interpretive problems.

There's also the fact that general acceptance doesn't equal validity, so it is wrong to say that discussion of any kind can invalidate certain interpretations.

Finally, as has been shown numerous times on this board, the more context you quote, the more someone who disagrees with you will find problems with your context and then post some broader context which proves their point. It's all a matter of interpretation, and there is no correct one.

edit: missing word.

[ZombieHorde]

23. You should post this in all of the forums. Recommended. nt

[darkstar3]

34. I don't know about all the forums,

but I could post it in the gungeon and watch them eat each other alive.

then again just about anything qualifies as chum in the gungeon...

[jeepnstein]

24. Context is king.

Two words on a blackboard are quite different from thousands of words carefully arranged on the page. It is quite possible to be crystal clear in one's written word. Of course you will always have legalistic swine who try to twist words to suit their own agenda.

Jesus showed his contempt legalistic religious types. They hated him even more and eventually sought to have him killed in an attempt to silence him. So what's different today? Not a thing.

[trotsky]

25. So are all Christians who disagree with your particular interpretation of the bible

"legalistic swine"?

[jeepnstein]

26. Not at all.

There are those who will refuse to sit down and study, though. Maybe I'm all wrong, maybe they are, maybe we both are; you don't figure things out like that unless you're willing to study it through. I've been wrong plenty of times and I'm sure I will be again.

The New Testament gives a pretty wide area for disagreement on all but the most basic bits of doctrine. When you run into an individual who absolutely must be right about each and every thing with no room for growth or study then you have run into someone best described as legalistic. I've had preachers hammer on topics that aren't even discussed in the scriptures and they've been convinced their opinions were binding on us all.

On essentials, unity. On non-essentials, liberty. In all things, Love.

[trotsky]

29. Oh, I get it.

Christians who disagree with you just haven't studied it as much as you have.

[jeepnstein]

30. Or maybe I haven't as much as them.

It cuts both ways.

Then you have people who have never even cracked open the book and declare themselves authorities on the subject. That's a whole different matter.

[trotsky]

31. So you're one of the "legalistic swine" in that case? n/t

[jeepnstein]

32. If I am I deserve to be corrected.

[onager]

37. Jesus H. Christ apparently being a "legalistic swine..."

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” (Matthew 5:17-18).

[trotsky]

38. Now wait a minute...

is he the swine, or is the person who claims he didn't really mean that the swine? And which one gets the disease cast into him and tossed off a cliff? I'm so confused.

[darkstar3]

35. You sound like me the first time we discussed this topic in class...

It is quite possible to be crystal clear in one's written word.
No, no it isn't. It's the exact same problem as "make it idiot-proof and they will make a better idiot."

You can write in such a fashion as to try to make people respond to your work in the way that you want, but inevitably you have no control once those words are published for mass consumption.

[Silent3]

39. No control at all, or simply a lack of complete 100% control?

Plenty of effective communication takes place all of the time. Our modern civilization would crumble if we couldn't count on fairly consistent interpretations of written (and spoken) words.

Combine careful and clear writing, contextual clues, and an intelligent reader who shares the language and participates in much of the same culture as the writer, and for all practical intents and purposes a writer can convey very precise meanings and intentions, especially when the subject matter is relatively free from emotional content and controversial issues.

If you say that an author has "NO control" that's only true in the sense that nothing is absolute, an author can't count on having only intelligent readers, can't count on even intelligent readers making no careless reading mistakes, an author can't control readers themselves as if he or she was programming robots or pulling the strings of puppets.

I take the word "control", however, to be a matter of degree, not a binary state. If we aren't being binary about the use of the word, I can't see how it's wrong to say authors have plenty of control over how their words are interpreted.

The degree of control isn't just a matter of the skill of the writer, but the concern the writer has over controlling interpretation. If I'm writing a story, and I write, "Alice waited for Bob at the train station for nearly two hours", I probably don't give a damn what you exactly imagine the train station to look like, how near to two hours you think "nearly two hours" is, etc. If I do care because it will matter later on in the story, I can choose to be more precise as needed.

I'm certainly not likely to care that if my story is found by alien beings as one of the last remnants of human civilization that the aliens will perfectly understand what I meant to convey. That would be well beyond my control not only because of the difficulty of overcoming such barriers of communication, but because I couldn't give a damn about even trying to undertake such a daunting task of communication when my purpose is merely to create a little entertaining fiction.

[darkstar3]

40. If it helps, think of authorship like throwing a dart.

You can aim perfectly, you can carefully gauge the amount of force and trajectory necessary in order to hit your target, but as soon as the dart leaves your fingers, that is the end of your control. Wisps of wind, moving/unpredictable targets, improperly calibrated fletchings, and more things can influence the flight of the dart after it leaves your hand, and even when it finally hits your target, it is up to the subjective rule of others whether you have hit your desired mark or not.

[Silent3]

41. That's a lot of control, even in the analogy, however.

Sometimes all you need to do is hit is the proverbial "broad side of a barn". Unless a sudden storm whips up or a stray meteor chooses an untimely moment to come crashing through, or any other unlikely disruptive event, the control you get to exercise before the dart leaves your fingers is substantial and, if you aren't grossly uncoordinated, likely to be quite sufficient.

If you've got two way communication -- unlike the situation you have with someone writing thousands of years ago, his writing being read by a person today after passing through numerous dubious chains of translation and transcription -- the ability to use feedback to refine communication increases control greatly.

[darkstar3]

42. I agree with you about two way communication,

but then it becomes very situational, and much like upthread we start trying to distinguish between authorship and conversation.

As for hitting the broad side of a barn, if that's all you're trying to do you might just be writing simple fiction for entertainment.

[Silent3]

43. Not just fiction, but, for example, simple instructions

If I leave a note on the refrigerator that says "Please pick up some milk", regardless of the fact that I can't absolutely control hypothetical stupid interpretations (my wife finds some milk, lifts it a couple of inches, then puts it back down) or a lack of cooperation (she sees the note and thinks to herself, "Get it yourself, you lazy bum!") I'm 99.99% certain she'll know exactly what I mean. I don't seriously have to worry that she'll think I mean raccoon milk, that I mean for her to get some milk anytime any old time over the next ten years, that I mean for her to bring the milk home and leave it out on the counter getting warm, that the note is intended for and addressed to someone who doesn't live in our house rather than herself, etc.

Add common cultural understandings, subtract controversy and strong emotions, and I'd say most communication that fits within those parameters will be effective and clear between reasonably intelligent human beings. Even in one-way communication without feedback, the writer of a text will be able to exercise a great deal of control, proportional to skill and effort, over received meaning in such circumstances.

[darkstar3]

44. How does your wife know the note is for her,

and not for one of your hypothetical children or a reminder for yourself?

How does your wife know what kind of milk to get, or how much to get? Maybe you're planning to do quite a lot baking. Let's say you put the note on the fridge, she sees it, wonders if maybe it's old (considering all the stuff on the fridge) and checks inside the fridge to make sure you have milk. There's a carton in there. Obviously you have milk, so she throws the note away. Meanwhile, when you get home intending to make desserts for your work's pot-luck dinner, you don't have enough milk.

See the problem?

These are questions I just came up with off the top of my head, and I'm sure you can think of many more examples where the note isn't precisely clear on what you want her to do.

The old mantra you're looking for may be "Prior planning prevents poor performance", but unless you can read minds, how can you plan beforehand with regard to EXACTLY what another person's thought process might be?

[Silent3]

45. Context

All of those difficulties are possible, but I know they aren't likely. To the extent that they are possible in my own home situation, I can write a longer note and attempt to neutralize foreseeable confusion and ambiguity.

The standard of control I care about is not perfection of interpretation and absolute accuracy, but sufficient probability of reasonably correct interpretation and sufficient accuracy. Knowing our shared knowledge I can be quite brief when addressing my wife and still exercise a high degree of control over received meaning. It's shared context and social intelligence that makes it possible for people who've known each other well for a long time to convey a great deal with little more than a look, and the lack thereof that makes teaching computers to understand human speech and writing devilishly complicated.

I think a lot of this comes down to what's called "theory of mind" -- how accurate our mental model of another person's mind is. When you write or speak, you access a mental model of your intended audience. What distinguishes a skilled writer from an unskilled writer is, in part, the accuracy of that model and the skill in addressing the requirements the model creates.

My wife would know the note was for her simply because we have no children, or anyone else living with us. Even if we did have other people in our house, young children who are not very capable of performing errands, or who have never been expected before to perform shopping errands, would be highly unlikely addressees for the note, as would any guest in the house, based on known, shared social conventions of hospitality. If sufficient doubt remained, I could take greater control of the interpretation of the note with the simple addition of a person's name followed by a colon or a long dash preceding the note.

How does my wife know what kind of milk to get, and how much? She knows that I, almost without exception, want one quart bottles of skim milk, and that I don't have a strong brand preference, so she can get whatever is most convenient, on sale, etc.

I know that she knows my usual milk preference, and knowing that, I know that it's my responsibility to communicate any exceptions to her likely interpretation. If I need a different type and/or different quantity of milk, it is within my control to specify that information.

My wife knows that I wouldn't bother to make the request if I didn't think there was a need, so regardless of whether she sees an old bottle of milk already in the fridge, she's likely to honor my request on the basis that I wouldn't make a pointless request. For extra certainty I can manipulate the context itself, outside of the writing, and be sure to take any spoiled milk out of the fridge to avoid the possible confusion.

I'm sure you can come up with other possible sources of confusion, and so can I. Anticipating confusion, however, and taking the effort to counteract that potential confusion, is an aspect of controlling interpretation.

Lack of absolute certainty that one's communication efforts will be sufficient does not mean a writer has no control over the interpretation of his or her writing, to the extent he or she cares to exercise control, any more than a lack of micrometer-accurate positioning of your car on the road, lack of microsecond accuracy in controlling arrival and departure times, and the possibility that your brakes could fail or another driver crash into your car would mean that you have no control over your car.

[darkstar3]

46. My point was a bit simpler than that:

You didn't predict those problems to begin with when you thought to write that note about getting milk, and once that writing leaves your hands you have no control over how it is perceived. Consider this phenomenon a corollary of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Besides, you're making an awful lot of assumptions about your reader (wife) at this point.

Stepping away from your note and looking at your last paragraph, your car analogy is poor. A person is actively driving a car, and is there constantly to correct when the car goes off course. For your analogy to be apt, everything ever written would need the author to watch over the shoulder of his reader(s) in order to make their desired interpretation corrections.

The dart is in the air. It's left your hand, and you can no more control it than you can move the sun.

[Silent3]

47. You seem to be putting a whole lot of emphasis...

...on the "in the air", after the "dart" has "left your hand" aspect of communication.

Being able to make on-the-fly course corrections is indeed a superior form of control compared to having to do your best to control a trajectory, or a received meaning, by controlling what might be termed "launch parameters". That's still just a difference in degree of control and quality of control, however, not a difference between control and utter lack of control.

I can see how this idea relates to a very serious lack of control over interpretation of the writings in the Bible, the various authors of which, not to mention a fair portion of the transcribers and translators along the way, not being able to anticipate the characteristics of a target audience hundreds or even thousands of years later. To the extent that you want to comment on the futility of claims to the "literal" meaning of the Bible, I concur.

What I don't get is why you seem insistent upon the concept of NO control, which still seems to me an excessive overstatement of the problem. I could agree that there's no additional control once something has been written down, no capability for "course correction" once words are set in place and sent out into the world in a one-way, non-conversational manner, but I don't get the importance of focusing on "post launch" control, or lack thereof, to the exclusion of pre-launch control.

[darkstar3]

48. That would be because I was specifically talking about writing,

or if you would rather, authorship. What manner of "launch control" do you believe you have when your intended audience is "the masses"? I will agree that you have some, but I believe that such launch control is limited, and becomes more limited as your intended audience grows. Furthermore, I contend that in such a situation of authorship, "launch control" as you put it is not so much control over meaning and interpretation as it is carefully planned intent.

Join a literary or book club discussion on Steinbeck (blah), Vonnegut, Shakespeare, or others so often cited as great writers for some examples on how (sometimes) carefully planned intent can turn into a clusterfuck of interpretation. And those are just examples of people who have written in our own language...

[Silent3]

49. "I will agree that you have some"

That's really all I was looking for hear, backing down a bit from what I thought was an overstated absolute.

I contend that in such a situation of authorship, "launch control" as you put it is not so much control over meaning and interpretation as it is carefully planned intent.

Since, even when you have "post launch control", feedback, an active/reactive "guidance" system, no particular outcome is guaranteed, I think it's spitting hairs to make a fuss over the distinction between intent and meaning/interpretation in writing as an issue of control vs. no control, just as it would be to make a fuss over the distinction between the intended target and the actual result when throwing a dart, firing an inert shell, or launching a missile with an active guidance system as an issue of control vs. no control. Carefully planned intent is an imperfect form of control, but a form of control nevertheless.

If I'm in a bar in Chicago throwing a dart, even if I'm terrible darts and terribly drunk, no matter how badly I throw the dart it won't hit someone's cat in Miami. By staying in the bar in Chicago I greatly limit the possible outcomes of my dart throw to a varied but relatively narrow set of reasonably likely outcomes.

Steinbeck may not have been able to ensure that everyone would agree whether George did the right thing at the end of "Of Mice and Men" (he may very well not have wanted to control that, may have enjoyed knowing different people would react differently) he could still be pretty damned sure that no one would mistakenly think he was writing about an alien invasion from Mars, or that he intended the reader to believe Lenny was eaten by rabbits. You may not think of that as a great deal of control, but it certainly is some control be able to limit the likely scope of even wildly varying interpretations.

[darkstar3]

50. Sure...and what's that old adage about best laid plans? n/t

[DeSwiss]

36. Excellent! K&R ....n/t