The Educated Imagination chapter 6 by Northrop Frye

I started writing my own summaries of this book as a way to help myself absorb more of it. Previous chapter summaries are here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5

I had to set the book aside for a couple of weeks to tend to other things, but I finished the sixth (and last) chapter just now, and it was the best chapter in the book! He explains how education needs to expand our entire beings, not just bits and pieces of us, and we need to have a vision, not just cliches and opinions . . . it all ties right in with why CM thought that the whole *person* needed to be educated, and taught to reflect and think. Very CM, this book is. ;)

Chapter 6 - The Vocation of Eloquence

Everyone should know how to read and write, but why does that have to include literature? Language/communication is on three levels, and reading and writing needs to be done at all three levels. We all have an imagination. It's what makes us dream when we sleep. And some of us have educated our imaginations, and some don't.

The way we experience society is based on our imaginations, it's our perception of what the world is that makes us act the way we do. Our worldview isn't a tangible reality, it's how we perceive reality--it's within our imagination. We rarely speak totally honestly--it wouldn't be proper. We don't say how awful our friend looks, or we choose to overlook an awkward remark, or we keep our discomfort to ourselves for the benefit of others. Frye likens this kind of speech to wearing Sunday clothes. Our words clothe our real feelings and hide what would be improper to show publicly. On the receiving end, we pretend to take what we hear at face value. When a friend insists that she's fine, we may opt not to pry, even though we know she's upset. It's a kind of dance we do, reading between the lines while being polite about taking the words at face value.

As a society, we have a bigger dance. We refer to a country or our own government as a single individual. Advertisers have gotten wise to this aspect of society and they use it for their own ends, to sell the public an image of status, acceptance and security that everybody idealizes, yet knows doesn't really exist. It's a world of illusion, and we choose what to accept and believe, and what to reject as false. Politicians attempt to appeal to our emotions by presenting only part of the truth. If we're not wise, we can be swept up, like the Nazis were under Hitler. Our part is to accept a certain amount of status quo, to adapt to the illusion enough to survive in the world without rocking the boat.

When people in a society get insecure, usually because changes are coming too fast, they huddle for security behind cliches and stereotypes. They label those who are different ('commie,' 'imperialist pig,' racial slurs) in an attempt to dehumanize or even demonize them. People who wholeheartedly buy into those stereotypes are not thnking freely, they're refusing to see the whole truth. Real people are complex and never fit neatly into a stereotype.

Then there's jargon, where lots of impressive but vague words really mean nothing, or hide the truth (the kind of language that turns a housewife into a 'domestic engineer.') Politicians use it to hide or soften the truth. Ordinary people use it for diplomacy, or tact. Direct speech is forceful, but jargon makes things sound less imposing than they really are. For instance, an email moderator might say, "We'll activate your membership when we've assessed your interest in this list," instead of "We don't want spammers! If you're a spammer, stay away!" LOL!

There are other illusions that society uses--the myth that it was better in the simple, good old days and that the world is declining and society is getting more and more immoral. The truth is, every society has always thought the world was getting worse and youth was corrupt and rebellious. Or, conversely, that progress with its factories and technology will bring a better world for everyone. The truth is rarely that black and white.

Generalizations and stereotypes aren't useful to someone seeking the truth. They tend to be used by people who want to sway the masses with fear. When people feel threatened, they react without consciously thinking through their actions--they resort to name-calling and labelling.

Wise people understand that they need to exercise discernment and choice. In wartime, a society agrees to accept propaganda, understanding the need for half-truths until the war is over. In a totalitarian regime, discernment and choice are limited by only allowing one view to be spoken. In George Orwell's book 1984, language was so debased that only meaningless jargon was allowed.

What does this have to do with studying literature? Language and literature are part of our right to free speech. Mob rule has no free speech--the mob overrides and drowns out everything in a cliche or slogan. Generalizations (the kind of liberalism that criticizes Bush every time he opens his mouth, or right-wing fanaticism that sees a conspiracy in every bit of environmental legislation) aren't really free speech. They're hysteria that's blinded to the truth. They're vague cynicism looking for a mob to follow along. And a mob can never exercise freedom.

Mobs operate on fear and ignorance. Freedom operates on truth, and that takes education. To improvise freely on the piano, you need training and practice. To go wherever you want, you need to be able to walk, and that takes practice. In the same way, freedom of speech doesn't happen all by itself. It takes more than skill with rhetoric and grammar. It takes years of practice handling ideas until you have something worthwhile to *say.* So, freedom of speech is really something that's exercised fully by only a very few thinkers.

Most people adapt to the illusion of society, they accept status quo. But in order to find meaning in life, people need more than that. They need more than keeping pace with the illusion of reality. it's those who see beyond the illusion with their imagination, and imagine something better. Then they use their freedom of speech to pass that vision on to others and make it a reality. It's the few educated people whose ideas inspire people to work together to make the real world a better place. That's why people become doctors, or work for peace as a social worker, or teach. Their vision for a better world becomes an unselfish act.

Humanity is a constant. People are always people, whether they live in 1500 or 2005. And the spirits of those people are immortalized their ideas and thoughts, which are stored in books. So, while fashions may come and go, and buildings may crumble, the human spirit lives on in books. The vision of a better world (or the warning about not seeking a better world) is what we find in the best of literature. That's usually what's meant by 'culture.' It's in the records of those visions for a better world that we find the standards and values that are more eternal than the shadowy illusion of current society. If we're going to go beyond just existing and keeping the status quo, we need to read those books.

It's natural to use language to express our immediate needs, and to be diplomatic. That keeps society running. But the world pressures us to live in fear and join the mob, labelling anyone who's different and regarding new ideas with suspicion. Every time we resist that pressure, we're using language to express something beyond our own immediate needs, and beyond diplomatic politeness. We're exercising our free speech and joining the 'great conversation' that tries to preserve the permanent spirit of man. We're using our imagination to go beyond the illusion and to join with the voices of all of humanity.