Cognitive Poetics and the Dilemma of Writing

"Who are you?"

I should clarify that this is not an existential question thrown at your eyes to prod your soul. No. It is an earnest question that I feel I must always ask before I begin to write. I cannot see you and we most likely have never met, nor will we ever. I can take no pleasure in watching your eyebrows rise, or a dimple appear on your cheek as you deny me the smile that would otherwise be my full reward. And although you could, if sufficiently touched, respond by leaving me a comment in the text box below, the chances are that this is the first and only step on a longer journey of mutual acquaintance which we will never walk together...

So in reality, this is a question addressed to myself, and one which I badly need to answer if I am to write at all; for I have lately come to realise that the burning motivation I have to write, and the intense sense of purpose it brings to me, are themselves only the result of the delight I take in connecting with another mind. 

To wit, an anecdote...

Last nite I met old friend whom I had not seen in around 15 years. Naturally, it could have been an awkward evening of stunted conversation and disappointment as we both realised how little we now had in common. As it turned out, it was a delight, mostly because she remains a very good conversationalist: entertaining, attentive and empathic. 

In fact, so caught up were we in the simple, yet sadly rare pleasure of conversing, that much of the evening was spent alternately defining, praising and mourning the loss of this art. We spoke for example about a common gripe, which is when a conversation begins, but is very soon after interrupted or abandoned completely before you feel you have had a chance thoroughly to explore it. I must confess that when my mother and sister are together they excel in this sport, driving me crazy as a result. Certainly it is one of my pet-hates to have to skim pebble-like over the surface of an issue, able only to utter trite truisms; but beyond this, and here perhaps I can only speak for myself, there is also something downright depressing about being denied the possibility to make a more profound connection with another mind. It only takes a couple of thwarted attempts to build a deeper and more solid foundation to another mind for me to find myself reeling in, packing up and gazing out.

When I reflect upon the intense pleasure I feel in making these connections, I am reminded of a very interesting body of literary theory which I only stumbled across when I was preparing for the defence of my Ph.D. Most basically, Cognitive Poetics seeks to explain the literary with reference to the findings of Cognitive Psychology, which in itself is informed by evolutionary theory. Its starting point is a series of simple questions: Why do we read literature? Why are we interested in characters that don't exist? Why do we take pleasure in the intricate nuances of meaning generated by a proficient poet? The answer, cognitive theorists would have us believe, is that as a social and cooperative species, whose young require a long period of care, education and upbringing, it is of immense evolutionary advantage to humans to want to understand the minds of others. After all, if we are intrinsically motivated to empathise with other minds by a powerful sense of curiosity and pleasure, then as a species, we will stand a greater chance of collective success.

For a cognitive theorist, one of the main functions of literature is to stimulate our sense of empathy, to give us practice in perspective-taking, in imputing intentions to actions, and generally to impress upon us the rich complexity that is another mind. And all this we enjoy because it has suited evolution for millions of years that we be intrinsically rewarded for any actions which increase our ability to survive and thrive as a species.

As a relatively new paradigm, Cognitive Poetics is still finding its limits, and more traditional theorists have particular reason to resist its advance. Those of a Marxist, Post-structuralist or Psychoanalytical stripe resent its claims to draw upon the authority of 'science', a body of knowledge which they refuse to accept has a privileged status. Certainly, Cognitive Poetics does have its limits, and rather tends to efface the socio-political themes of literature. However, that said, I certainly feel that since the 90s, the humanities have suffered from a malaise brought on by the same tired old Marxist, Post-structuralist and Psychoanalytical readings of texts. In this intellectual climate, we need to embrace something radical and progressive in order to re-invigorate and re-validate our disciplines. Maybe it boils down to whether the approach of cognitive literary theorists appeals to your temperament, as William James would certainly have argued. In which case I can only speak for myself when I say that I cautiously embrace the discipline, for it chimes well with my own experience of communicating in speech and in writing.

In a sense then, a good conversationalist should be like a good author, as he or she would be defined by a cognitive theorist; that is not only an endlessly rich and diverse mind, but also an individual who constantly makes decisions at the level of discourse, lexis, sentence structure, intonation and timing to showcase this richness and diversity. Such qualities, when combined with the patience and attention required to display an authentic interest in the mind of one's interlocutor, can only serve to draw us in with curiosty and pleasure, for it is in our nature as a species to take an elemental delight in the the minds of others. 

But of course there is an essential difference between speech and writing, which brings me full circle to ponder once more my initial question. Who, indeed, are you? I cannot see you, I do not know you, and we will most likely never meet. So how can I be motivated to build a bridge to a mind which qua me does not exist?

Altruism and the limits of Darwinism

I am very fond of my neurologist friend for a number of reasons. For one thing, he is Hungarian, and therefore possessed of a unique and fascinating language as well as a devil-may-care attitude and certain weakness for hard liquor that I find so refreshing having lived among Germans now for 6 years. But I think the true source of my tender feelings for him stem from the very childlike attachment he has to people. Quite simply, it seems physically to pain him to be alone. Many's the time he has phoned me during those occasions when his girlfriend - also a doctor - has been on duty to beg for someone to accompany him while he undertakes such homely little projects as stew-making, pickling or preserving.

But despite all his homely qualities, my friend is most definitely a neurologist at heart, and tends to over-emphasise the biological or materialist influences upon human life during our regular philosophical discussions. Such was the case last week when we met for Jenga and mulled wine in a bar up in the old town. I had just talked over with him my reasons for wanting to leave the town and so had begun a general discussion on what the purpose of a life ought to be. Predictably, he answered as a life-scientist and spoke of life's purpose purely in terms of the imperative to pass on your genes and ensure the survival of your offspring.

Now it's not that I do not agree with him. In fact, I remember holding and propounding similar views myself when I first met my ex-wife back in 2002. Also, my thesis is written in the field of Inter-disciplinary Nineteenth Century Studies, and specifically the exchange of ideas between literature, theology and evolutionary biology in the post-Darwinian period. In short, not only do I know a thing or two about the evolutionary argument, I also find it very convincing... up to a point; for in my opinion, what makes humans unique in comparison to other species is the way in which we often disregard the so-called biological imperative to selfishly pass on our own genes and are motivated instead to sacrifice our own advantages and, at times, our life for others.

Now you could argue, as my neurologist friend did in fact, that we are not unique among species in our sometime tendency for self-sacrifice. True, individuals of many species use alarm calls which, in alerting other members of their species to the presence of danger, also make it much more likely that they themselves will become the quarry. But a moment’s reflection will surely impress upon you the chasm of difference between the mechanistic chirping of a marmot at the shadow of an eagle and the intrinsic motivation, year after year, to care for the sick and the elderly as so many unsung heroes and heroines in our communities currently do. Indeed, it is a testament to how complex and rationalised the motivations of such individuals are that they often spring from a system of values which for some even goes by the name of religion.

Of course, you could view the emphasis which many of the world’s religions place upon charity as itself the product of evolution, an extra-corporeal tool which serves to increase our ability to survive as a race as much perhaps as evolved immunity to some diseases. But it is important to understand that if we do go down this path of reasoning, we are merely creating the illusion of understanding charitable behaviour by appending the label ‘evolution’ to a set of processes so complex that we haven’t even begun to truly understand them.

This was how I argued with my dear friend, as his sleepy girlfriend yawned on his shoulder. “I’m almost finished honey.”, I reassured her with a smile, “Then you can go home.”. So my conclusion in a nutshell was and is this: that if you want to look for the identity of an individual, that essential part of themselves which can be ascribed to their own will and character rather than the selfish urges and drives of their race, that part of themselves which has risen above the eternally looping hum and chatter of their biology to contribute something which has real meaning, then look for what they have done for others. At the end of any human life our saving grace should be that underneath all that vanity and selfishness, there is enough love to matter.