At 08:04 PM 20/12/2006 +0000, you wrote:
>Yes, but it doesn't follow that all that is
non-optimistic is,
>perforce, pessimistic. There's a middle
ground.
I'm not sure a middle ground is so easy to find in "real
life" as you say below. What would it be? Indifference? Win
some, lose some, things carrying on pretty much as they are,
no better and no worse? I ask, because the second at least
sounds like a failure to transcend, to me.
>No, I CORRECTED what you said.
If that is the only means by which you can come to
acceptance, fine.
>If I say that a dark and sinister atmosphere is the
defining element,
>it follows that it MUST be an inherent element. I
don't know whether
>or not I ever said "inherent" explicitly, though I
may have. If I
>didn't it's because, like "crime fiction," it was
clearly implicit.
But it was not and is not clearly implicit in the phrase
"dark and sinister" alone. You're trying to use the word
"inherent" in two close but different contexts here. In
Duhamel's version, the immorality or darkness is inherent in
it's valuation, not its mere presence.
>Aside from that, I find little to disagree with in
the above
>paragraph. I don't believe that "noir" is, by
definition, "non-
>transcendant,"
we'll have to agree to disagree on that, obviously.
> nor do I believe that all "noir" fiction shares
a
>common philosophical premise.
but we can agree on that. Like any point of view about "real
life" though, it lends itself to philosophical discussion,
and I think we've seen that some philosophers have
successfully used the genre to illustrate and explore their
beliefs.
>But I do agree that in fiction deemed Either
hard-boiled or noir,
>there is always the sense that justice only wins on a
case-by-case
>basis, and only because of the efforts determined
individuals, NOT
>because it is an immutable force that will not be
denied. And very
>often, justice doesn't even make a token appearance,
even if strong
>efforts are being expended on its behalf.
Wish you hadn't drawn "hard-boiled" into that paragraph. I
liked your definition of hardboil as "tough and colloquial"
as entirely sufficient, agreeing that hardboil and noir can
and often do overlap. As for noir itself, if we combine the
notion of justice appearing only occasionally and in
isolation, with the idea of immorality or "dark and sinister"
being an inherent value in the genre, well, this is where I
come to "non-transcendent."
>But that's not a philosophical belief; that's just
real life.
What is philosophy but the attempt of a fallible species to
apply meaning to real life?
Best, Kerry
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