Isn’t this the plot of A CHRISTMAS CAROL?
Isn’t this the plot of A CHRISTMAS CAROL?
It’s not weird at all. In fact, I’d argue it is very healthy.
Stories are our way of transferring human experience from one to another. Our brains intentionally blur fiction and reality to facilitate this transfer regularly. While not a positive example, you can see it in action when fictional representations of, say, trans people are only informed by the media consumed due to the lack of other experiences to draw on. Once an experience/story is no longer relevant or helpful, we forget it. When you read a forgettable story, that’s exactly what happened.
To categorize them in the way of the Ancient Greeks, Tragedies are cautionary tales, and Dramas are explorative/navigational—meaning they primarily help us navigate the comprehensive options of situations.
Looking at the stories themselves, we can see their structure parallels that of proper arguments.
One-act stories are a thesis—they answer a single question Three-act stories are a thesis, countered by an antithesis, and then the synthesis/conclusion. Five-act stories are more based on Marxist thought—a thesis that examines the contrast, contradiction, and possibly the negation of the negative before forming its synthesis.
Long story short, what is a story beat but elaborate dressing for points A, B, and C, leading us to the next logical point and its reasoning? It’s an illusion and allegory of crashing emotions, symbols, and situations for our subconscious to process the same way it does all our experiences. Memory itself is a story we are retelling ourselves.
And that’s underlying all stories that at least have some structure holding them up. Of course, it’s going to affect you. And it should.
I’ve taken a morbid interest in watching the drama of the Kaldorei/Night Elves story unfold and the drama erupting from it. For some in the Imperial core, it’s the first thought they’ve ever given thought to the complications and effects of colonization and genocide on a people. Is it anywhere near enough? Oh, hell no. But the capitalists’ need to sell [edgy] stories at least is breaking the veneer of silence civility of not talking about hard issues. And they’ll keep having to push that line to make money. And as they do, more voices that generally get glossed over will slip through in the trend-chasing. And now and again, we might get a comrade’s allegorical voice (see some of the classics like A CHRISTMAS STORY). Contradictions exist in storytelling, too, and it plays out the same way as it does in other areas. It will affect you like everyone else because you are digesting it like everyone else. We communists, arguably more so because we can see most of it as the junk food it is—and trying to enjoy the odd bit of nutrients that slip through capitalism/liberalism’s processing. But these imagined yet shared common experiences are also what will provide us with the common ground needed to reach others here and there.
If garlic is such a threat to the American people, then why isn’t garlic (and other alliums) allergies covered by any overly priced health insurance plan I’ve seen?
There’s a quote from Huey Newton, “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.” You’re describing the stage/phase/step before the comrade has come to terms with that first lesson. And because it is the first step, we also see a big part of why the Western left is still learning to walk/baby steps.
I will second Brecht’s ON THEATRE. There’s some good gems in there.
Of a strictly ML nature, not many immediately come to mind. We have the Socialist Realism movement, but it is often examined through a western lens, which loses much of its nuance unless the audience is well-versed in art history. A few speeches by important figures touch on art and it’s purpose, but rarely in a way that would help us construct better, more engaging stories. But all this was also the problem identified. We don’t have a strong tradition to compete with capitalist media and their methods of confining stories to mere, and often shallow, entertainment. And what examples I have stumbled across, such as Han Qixiang, I’m not fluent enough in the language or culture to delve into their work as much as I’d want for contextual analysis to really comment or advocate from. And Western works, usually more hidden in history (pockets of French and German expression), such as Walter Benjamin’s DER ERZAHLER, I should probably re-visit before fully recommending since the last time I read through it I was only a baby commie.
There have been a couple of times my worldview has collapsed, and I took better/more accurate positions afterward.
Hell yea! And I’ll be happy to offer up some of my art skills to the project if needed.
The ruling class try to not only rule altogether but to convince the masses of their legitimacy.
It might come from Engels, but I remember reading this line is straight out of the beginning of Lenin’s STATE AND REVOLUTION recently.
It would have been nice if they had kept the axii in the same order between the charts