Literature Is Made Upon any Occasion That a Challenge Is Put to the Legal - Essay Example

?Literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by a Conscience in touch with humanity a. What does this mean? What does it entail? What kind of statement is this--a definition, a description, or an exhortation? b. Is it true? Can we test its truth? How can we justify (or refute) Algren's claim, and what kind of evidence might suffice? c. Can literature be "made" differently? What does or would it look like without conscience, or out of touch with humanity? a-The Meaning of the Statement: What does this mean? What does it entail? What kind of statement is this--a definition, a description, or an exhortation? The given statement means that a literary activity arises out of a special occasion of encountering the established order. While lacking the possibilities of development and enhancing the potential of coercion, the statement entails that a social order gives way to the human expression, in the form of literary expression, linked up with the conscience having concern for humanity. The literary activity has to address its social environment and can not remain in isolation. The solipsistic activity can generate a literary activity but it will not be considered a literary piece unless it imbibes within it the cries of uneven social justice. The given statement tries to develop a definition for the literary expression. To identify an expression as a literary expression, the expression must be seen in the light of three things: challenging the existing legal order; having conscience; and must have a concern for the humanity. A literary piece must be having all these three elements in order to be identified as a literary expression. In this sense the statement can be considered as a definitional statement. However, the statement is also exhortative. It is certainly not a universally accepted truth that literary piece must be having all three given elements. It is possible to have a literary piece in conforming to the existing legal order and lacking the conscience for humanity. In this way, the statement can be considered as an exhortative statement claiming to consider literature only in the prescribed form. Further, as the statement describes the way literature should be, the statement can be considered as a descriptive statement. b- Testing the Truth: Is it true? Can we test its truth? How can we justify (or refute) Algren's claim, and what kind of evidence might suffice? The statement makes a point in such a way that it should be considered as a truth. However, the truth of this sort is different from the truth of many other sorts. There are truth-claims making an objective universal claim of truth. From any perspective such truth-claims can be accepted as truth positions. Sciences, especially those of physical and natural sciences make such claims. For Jurgen Habermas, these forms of truth-claim are purposive-rational and directed towards technical interest of controlling the environment (McCarthy 55). Sciences employ Empirical-analytic method for following purposive-rationality within their specific tradition in order to gain better control on natural environment. The empirical-analytic method brings forward objective truth claims through collecting sufficient experimental evidence. There is however another form of expression that brings forward different sort of social interest, as what Jurgen Habermas says, practical interest (McCarthy 56). Truth generates within society and also embeds within itself the social interests. It is not possible for any individual to transcend this condition, even a scientist needs to be a social being first for producing a scientific fact. Society however does not only generate interest emerged out of as scientific interests; an objective observatory tendency to generate a truth-position for finding out the essential-truth of the natural environment in order to have a predictable control. Society also brings forward the conflicting tendencies rooted in the existing social justice. An expression that emerges out of aesthetic feelings and employs the tradition of literature, though does not entail with it the empirical-analytic interest, yet it stands upon that social ground where distribution of social justice plays a vital role to entitle a social being of certain social position. The Algren’s claim regarding literature needs to be understood in this context. His position that literature must show concern for humanity reflects the position that understands the facticity of human existence within a certain social order. In order for showing concern for humanity, a literary piece must have courage to speak against the prevailing social order that has been generating an occasion of social un-justice. Such a position needs not to collect experimental facts for its truthfulness. Sometimes, even a single instance is sufficient to reflect the condition of society. When a kind ruler claims that, even if a single woman remains hungry under his rule, the justice must be considered as denied, for him a single instance is sufficient for figuring out the condition of justice. c- Can literature be "made" differently? What does or would it look like without conscience, or out of touch with humanity? Literature can not be made differently, i.e. without conscience, or out of touch with humanity. Whenever this thing that is called literature arises it emerges out of conscience. Literature whether understood in such a generalized way as to include any text worthy to be taught to students by teachers of literature, when these texts are not being taught to students in other departments of a school or university (qtd. in Hernadi 34). Or, as for some, as that in antiquity and in the Renaissance, literature or letters were understood to include all writing of quality with any pretense to permanence (qtd. in Hernadi 23). Or as Mc Fadden says, that literature is a canon which consists of those works in language by which a community defines itself through the course of its history. It includes works primarily artistic and also those whose aesthetic qualities are only secondary. The self-defining activity of the community is conducted in the light of the works, as its members have come to read them (or concretize them) (qtd. in Hernadi 56). Literature understood in whatever way, it always arises out of conscience. However, conscience remains desires-centric and group-centric. For Freud, individual’s conscience is an introjected voice of parental standards and social prohibitions (Storr 63). The conscience, therefore for Freud, is heard whenever the ego falls short of the ego-ideal (Storr 63). Paul De Man suggests that a writer's language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language (134). Karl Marx also takes this position when he embeds consciousness with the respective class of an individual. One can see the difference between the writings of Maxim Gorky and Ayn Rand, as one brings forward the condition of the under-dogs while for other the growth of capitalism remains significant. Conclusion Alexander Solzhenitsyn maintains that Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice (Chang 165). Literature, in the sense of practicing activity, exists through the expression of conscience. However, the conscience is not a finished thing. Rather, it is a struggling effort from self-centered perception towards the universal position. It is this struggling conscience directed towards the value of universal humanity that Algren suggests becomes the basis of Literature. The literary style and genre, for Algren, does not produce difference among literary acts. The difference remains that of the condition of conscience. Literature, though, always brings forward the expression of the conscience, hidden or revealed, as Algren understands it, yet the conscience directed towards the value of universal humanity must remain the basis of a literary act. Works Cited Chang, Larry. Wisdom for the Soul: Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing. Washington: Gnosophia publishers, 2006. De Man, Paul. Blindness and insight: essays in the rhetoric of contemporary criticism, Oxon, Uk: Routledge printing press, 1996. 134 Hernadi, Paul, ed. What is literature? Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978. McCarthy, Thomas. The Critical Theory of Jurgen Habermas. Massachusetts, USA: MIT Press, 1991. Storr, Anthony. Freud: a very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Read More