This would be more powerful with some examples, e.g. “we’ve all learned that Lamarck thought species evolved by passing on acquired traits, but Darwin told us that species can’t evolve that way but do so through selection on preinherited traits; but here’s a quote from Origin of Species in which Darwin explicitly endorses Lamarckian evolution.” Repeat for Kuhn, Kant, etc.
This is true. I think the for OP (and definitely for me) it feels obvious enough that that ‘shouldn’t’ be necessary, but I agree it is. Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere. But that only happens if you are one of the people who reads the original work.
One of the simpler, though fictional, classic examples is The Road Not Taken, which is very very short, yet even Frost himself complained about how people were misunderstanding it. And even people who do read it seem to keep misunderstanding it. Many people seem to completely gloss over the sentence structures and small-but-critical words in what they read, and end up parsing it incorrectly. Ditto for Mending Wall. I find literary examples useful because they’re less technical (and therefore more accessible) and very easy to confirm.
One example I like is that Einstein wanted to call the theory of relativity the ‘theory of invariants.’ He understood that what matters, as a deep principle of physics, is which quantities and laws are truly fixed. Yes, he showed that some important things people had thought were invariant weren’t, but what mattered were the things that were invariant that people hadn’t realized. Instead even physics teachers talk about ‘paradoxes’ and end up confusing a lot of hapless undergrads, a century later.
The Sorrows of Young Werther was a similar case. From the book it’s very obvious that Goethe disapproves of Werther’s clueless, self-destructive behavior under the guise of “romanticism”. But tons of young people at the time took it the completely opposite way, and started dressing and expressing themselves like Werther.
Another case that kinda baffles me is Clavell’s Shogun. In the book, early 1600s Japan is shown as a horrifying oppressive society where the weak are completely at the mercy of the strong. The Englishman who’s the audience stand-in spends basically the whole book recoiling from one atrocity after another. Yet the book created a Japan-mania in the West, and lots of people describe it as pro-Japan.
I have heard nothing about Mending Wall, so here’s my impressions as a first time reader:
Mending Wall React Comment
I can’t quite parse “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”. It’s repeated twice, so it’s obviously important. I’m projecting my ambiguity to whether we should love the wall or not.
Later: oh, “Something there is” is equivalent to “There exists something”, practically, entropy; poetically, ???elves???
Classic ambiguous Frost on whether hunters actually destroy walls or not.
It’s obviously a commentary on “good fences make good neighbors”, the same way Dulce et Decorum Est is a commentary on the Latin phrase. This neighbor appears to be good (annual mutual wall maintenance, out-door game), but his insistence on the wall where it serves no purpose (his father’s saying, thus giving into tradition) gives the author the thought of his neighbor as an “old-stone savage armed”, upon contemplating whether the wall is to keep things in or out.
But these thoughts are “mischief” by the author, so are possibly a problem for the sake of a problem.
Also, I don’t think he tackles my interpretation of the phrase, which is about clear communication about boundaries. Frost focuses on the literal interpretation. Would apple trees outcompete pines, or vice versa? the neighbor’s insistence on a clear boundary could make sense.
Summary:
Walls are victims to entropy and must be maintained. Perhaps actively destroyed by hunters?
The mere existence of a wall can be sufficient to imagine the Other as a threat.
Please question Appeal to Tradition.
--
Good imagery and Frost style, but I still find The Road Not Taken to be more clear and more succinct.
AFAIK it’s the origin of the saying that good fences make good neighbors. A saying the speaker pretty explicitly disagrees with, as a general principle. Yet it’s the saying society remembers.
This would be more powerful with some examples, e.g. “we’ve all learned that Lamarck thought species evolved by passing on acquired traits, but Darwin told us that species can’t evolve that way but do so through selection on preinherited traits; but here’s a quote from Origin of Species in which Darwin explicitly endorses Lamarckian evolution.” Repeat for Kuhn, Kant, etc.
This is true. I think the for OP (and definitely for me) it feels obvious enough that that ‘shouldn’t’ be necessary, but I agree it is. Once you start noticing it, you see it everywhere. But that only happens if you are one of the people who reads the original work.
One of the simpler, though fictional, classic examples is The Road Not Taken, which is very very short, yet even Frost himself complained about how people were misunderstanding it. And even people who do read it seem to keep misunderstanding it. Many people seem to completely gloss over the sentence structures and small-but-critical words in what they read, and end up parsing it incorrectly. Ditto for Mending Wall. I find literary examples useful because they’re less technical (and therefore more accessible) and very easy to confirm.
One example I like is that Einstein wanted to call the theory of relativity the ‘theory of invariants.’ He understood that what matters, as a deep principle of physics, is which quantities and laws are truly fixed. Yes, he showed that some important things people had thought were invariant weren’t, but what mattered were the things that were invariant that people hadn’t realized. Instead even physics teachers talk about ‘paradoxes’ and end up confusing a lot of hapless undergrads, a century later.
The Sorrows of Young Werther was a similar case. From the book it’s very obvious that Goethe disapproves of Werther’s clueless, self-destructive behavior under the guise of “romanticism”. But tons of young people at the time took it the completely opposite way, and started dressing and expressing themselves like Werther.
Another case that kinda baffles me is Clavell’s Shogun. In the book, early 1600s Japan is shown as a horrifying oppressive society where the weak are completely at the mercy of the strong. The Englishman who’s the audience stand-in spends basically the whole book recoiling from one atrocity after another. Yet the book created a Japan-mania in the West, and lots of people describe it as pro-Japan.
I have heard nothing about Mending Wall, so here’s my impressions as a first time reader:
Mending Wall React Comment
I can’t quite parse “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall”. It’s repeated twice, so it’s obviously important. I’m projecting my ambiguity to whether we should love the wall or not.
Later: oh, “Something there is” is equivalent to “There exists something”, practically, entropy; poetically, ???elves???
Classic ambiguous Frost on whether hunters actually destroy walls or not.
It’s obviously a commentary on “good fences make good neighbors”, the same way Dulce et Decorum Est is a commentary on the Latin phrase. This neighbor appears to be good (annual mutual wall maintenance, out-door game), but his insistence on the wall where it serves no purpose (his father’s saying, thus giving into tradition) gives the author the thought of his neighbor as an “old-stone savage armed”, upon contemplating whether the wall is to keep things in or out.
But these thoughts are “mischief” by the author, so are possibly a problem for the sake of a problem.
Also, I don’t think he tackles my interpretation of the phrase, which is about clear communication about boundaries. Frost focuses on the literal interpretation. Would apple trees outcompete pines, or vice versa? the neighbor’s insistence on a clear boundary could make sense.
Summary:
Walls are victims to entropy and must be maintained. Perhaps actively destroyed by hunters?
The mere existence of a wall can be sufficient to imagine the Other as a threat.
Please question Appeal to Tradition.
--
Good imagery and Frost style, but I still find The Road Not Taken to be more clear and more succinct.
AFAIK it’s the origin of the saying that good fences make good neighbors. A saying the speaker pretty explicitly disagrees with, as a general principle. Yet it’s the saying society remembers.