I think I understand what you mean by your metaphor, the heart of stone as the unempathic, cut-off-from-caring state vs. the heart of flesh as the empathic, open, vulnerable-but-alive-and-feeling state. However, I don't agree that the "happy" version represents the "heart of flesh" and the "cynical" version represents the heart of stone.
For starters, let's remember that the "cynical" version is a parody. If we're going to damn parody, sarcasm, cynicism, and such, then we've pretty well damned ourselves to a humorless existence. As Valentine Michael Smith pointed out in Stranger in a Strange Land, humor is based, not on the happy and good, but on the unhappy and bad things. The parody, cynical as it is, is humorous precisely because it is cynical: It evokes that sadly ironic sense of recognition in most anyone who's lived long enough to realize that real life is more complex than the happily ever after fairy tale romance version of relationships. It addresses our point of pain. We recognize. We relate. We grok. And we chuckle.
Also, I think that there is just as much danger (as I've said) in being wholly romantic as there is in being wholly cynical. Maybe the Heart of Novocaine -- numbing via thinking only happy white-light thoughts and not allowing sarcastic thoughts to take hold?
Finally, at the risk of stating the obvious: It was, from what I see, mainly an intellectual exercise in word play, and I think everybody's making a far bigger deal of it than the situation actually warrants -- unless, of course, there really are people out there who think that cynicism and parody have NO place in a balanced life of the mind and soul.
In which case, I can only say: I disagree. The bitter and the sweet are all part of a balanced diet.
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Date: 2004-07-22 06:18 pm (UTC)For starters, let's remember that the "cynical" version is a parody. If we're going to damn parody, sarcasm, cynicism, and such, then we've pretty well damned ourselves to a humorless existence. As Valentine Michael Smith pointed out in Stranger in a Strange Land, humor is based, not on the happy and good, but on the unhappy and bad things. The parody, cynical as it is, is humorous precisely because it is cynical: It evokes that sadly ironic sense of recognition in most anyone who's lived long enough to realize that real life is more complex than the happily ever after fairy tale romance version of relationships. It addresses our point of pain. We recognize. We relate. We grok. And we chuckle.
Also, I think that there is just as much danger (as I've said) in being wholly romantic as there is in being wholly cynical. Maybe the Heart of Novocaine -- numbing via thinking only happy white-light thoughts and not allowing sarcastic thoughts to take hold?
Finally, at the risk of stating the obvious: It was, from what I see, mainly an intellectual exercise in word play, and I think everybody's making a far bigger deal of it than the situation actually warrants -- unless, of course, there really are people out there who think that cynicism and parody have NO place in a balanced life of the mind and soul.
In which case, I can only say: I disagree. The bitter and the sweet are all part of a balanced diet.