Michael Austin – A Motley Vision

Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon edited by J.Michael Hunter– coming soon to a university (but probably not a personal) library near you

On December 12, I received my copy of the two-volume Mormons and Popular Culture in the mail. know it’s not out until the 31st, but Praeger‘s the sort of classy joint that hooks the contributor up before the general population. I think this is the first time in my career I’ve received a copy of my work before the general public. . . .

Anyway, the two-volume work covers the gamut from film to football, with surveys on everything from comics to historical sites and closeups on folks from Stephenie Meyer to Glenn Beck. Some of the essays are versions of ones we know like Randy Astle’s work on cinema and some are utterly new. I mean—did you know about Rose Marie Reid? Continue reading “Mormons and Popular Culture: The Global Influence of an American Phenomenon edited by J.Michael Hunter– coming soon to a university (but probably not a personal) library near you”

Evolution, useful fictions and eternal progression

I have some more speculative, more specifically Mormon thoughts that follow up to my post about Michael Austin, useful fictions and anxiety.

Let’s assume, and I realize that not everyone is going to agree with all of the following assumptions, but assuming that the LDS worldview is correct and that God created the world as a mortal probation for his spirit children to become embodied and progress and assuming that evolution as currently understood is the mechanism by which physical creation was accomplished and assuming that most or some of the current thinking on cognitive science as it relates to narrative is correct, what does that tell us about the importance of narrative to the plan of salvation?

Okay now that I lay it all out like that, I’m not entirely sure that I have a tidy answer. But a few things occur to me:

1. Progression is bound up with narrative. Narrative is essentially translation so that we can make sense of things and then because we are human, we try to take that translation and make it operative in our lives so that we are better suited to exist in mortal, time-bound, physical life. I suspect that that act of translation is important not only in how we relate to the physical world and society but also how we relate to the Holy Spirit. In fact, I suspect that the difficulties of translation are both connected to and emblematic of the difficulties of translation between spirit and body (I use between, but it very well may be “among”). The mechanics of evolution both demonstrate and interfere with (hopefully productively interfere with — there must be resistance or there is no growth) that process. The fleshy tables of our hearts must be inscribed and such inscription somehow also inscribes our spirit, changing it (if we are doing it right) for the better. Continue reading “Evolution, useful fictions and eternal progression”

Neutralizing anxiety with narrative

I enjoyed Michael Austin’s Useful Fictions: Evolution, Anxiety, and the Origins of Literature much more than I thought I would. It’s an excellent introduction to the field of cognitive literary studies, which is a bit trendy right now, and as with all new theories has it’s rabid proponents and frothing detractors, even more so because it’s fuel for the ongoing battles over the social and hard sciences and their uses and abuses by the humanities. I’m particularly taken by Austin’s focus on anxiety and how narratives create and alleviate anxiety and the potential evolutionary reasons for this. This book is a difficult one to excerpt, but I think I’ve found a passage that works for my purposes because I do want to impart a bit of the flavor of the prose and the argument:

I have discussed a number of neutralizing strategies in this chapter. When a narrative lacks detail, we augment it. When a narrative over-burdens us with detail, we edit it down to a manageable story line. And when a narrative that we consider true conflicts with another narrative that we consider true, we create a third narrative capable of resolving the contradiction. These acts of narrative creation are not governed by any selection pressure in favor of accuracy or truth. All that matters is that they neutralize anxiety effectively. Usually a neat, simplistic fiction will do a better job resolving tension than the truth, which is often messy, complicated, and devoid of closure. Like Robinson Crusoe, we commonly gravitate toward narratives that we can understand, that have a definite linear structure, that resolve all of the issues they raise, and that make us feel better when we are through. This often describes our fictional narratives, but it rarely describes the world we live in. (78-79)

This all may seem to take the magic out of storytelling. But I think it’s just the opposite — I think it (and the book as a whole) shows how integral narrative is to the development of humanity and that fact that it (the evolving via culture of the evolutionary uses of narrative) has led to the complex, beautiful, varied narrative forms and genres currently available to artists is kinda awesome.