COMO CITAR:
Monteiro, Joana Corrêa. «Zena Hitz, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life». Forma de Vida, 2021. https://doi.org/10.51427/ptl.fdv.2021.0056 .
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51427/ptl.fdv.2021.0056
Joana Corrêa Monteiro
(Versão em português / Portuguese translation)
Art, philosophy, and intellectual activity in general have been described as having social and political importance for centuries by artists, philosophers, critics, and all kinds of intellectuals. Some of the disheartening—but, to a degree, predictable, even if remote—consequences of such claims are the current labelling of works like Kant’s Critique as potentially harmful and offensive or the recent disappearing of names like Flannery O’Connor’s from university halls. The urge to do such things has multiple origins, with diverse degrees of seriousness, and the importance of social media fury, often combined with ignorance and sometimes with political and ideological agendas, should not be underestimated. But it is noteworthy that these tendencies have risen after several late twentieth-century literary scholars and moral philosophers argued that literature has a specific role either in moral philosophy, in morality or both, with assertions that could be easily extended to art, intellectual activity, politics and the social life.
A significant part of these arguments flourished in the contemporary historical and political context of a decrease in the number of people interested in specializing in the humanities, at least when compared to other areas, broadly thought to be more practical, employable, or likely to “have an impact”, like IT or business. This, in turn, seems to have provoked universities and scholars from those humanistic fields to think about and argue for the value of what they are proposing and to which they are dedicating their lives. As a result, many defences of literature and the humanities have been put forward in recent years. A common thread between most of them is the importance certain kinds of activities related to the study of literature, art, or the humanities have to the moral and political development of individuals and societies. However, most of these defences fail to show how exactly art or intellectual activity could hold such a responsibility, either because they rely on hypothetical effects or consequences of intellectual and artistic activities that are far more uncommon than what they state, or because they reduce creative and intellectual activities to their supposed instrumental role, thus losing sight of their true nature.
At the same time, though, some notion of artistic and intellectual freedom seems to persist in a way that does not quite fit the claim that the arts and humanities should educate publics. Given that they comply, recognize and maintain their work approximately inside a specific dominion of political correctness (whatever its shape in the given circumstance), artists and intellectuals do not need to justify themselves outside the scope of their activity, nor, ultimately, to be understandable by non-peers. The meaning of their work, and also of the type of life they chose, is granted, in a twisted or diluted sense of “art for art’s sake”. On this view, it is not only that creative and intellectual activities are not instrumental; they are, in fact, irrelevant to anything outside their own scope.
I have been disturbed by either possibility since I studied philosophy (first) and literary theory (after), and I have continued to think and work on this topic ever since. While from the beginning it seemed obvious to me that the value of intellectual and artistic activities is intrinsic and that no account that places that value in their intended (or pretended) “impact” is ultimately true or fair, I also did not—and still don’t—identify with the image of the closed-off intellectual or artist, who navigates in a parallel universe of theory, pursing whatever she takes an interest in, with no connection to the rest of the world or, for that matter, to the rest of her life.
Zena Hitz’s wonderful book presents a different and refreshing take on these issues. Focusing on what it means to love learning and learning for learning’s sake, she shows us how intellectual activity is part of human flourishing and is essential to our fulfilment. Of course, there are different temperaments, talents, and obsessions, and not everyone is a book worm. But one of the singularities of Hitz’s book is that it does not single out a given field (“the humanities” or “the sciences”). Instead, it explores the possibility that some person’s love of literature is analogous to another person’s fascination with animals and to another’s interest in politics.
Hitz relies on her own experience first as an ambitious brilliant early scholar in philosophy, then as someone who abandoned a promising career, having become very disappointed with the intellectual establishment, its contradictions and its irrelevance in the face of suffering, poverty and other sorts of evils, and finally as a sort of revenant. Her approach is encompassing and draws arguments and examples from ancient and contemporary thinkers, artists, historians, poets, scientists, mystics, politicians, literary characters and more, making the reading alive and engaging even for non-philosophers or non-academics, without discarding intellectual rigour and honesty.
In at least two instances, her truly philosophical background emerges with splendour with observations such as “I lack an argument that the virtue of seriousness is sufficient to shape one’s thinking toward ways of serving others, but I do have an example…” (p. 175), or “I admit I that I am not able to settle this question to my satisfaction. Laying it before the reader will have to suffice. Learning matters for its own sake, because human beings are essentially knowers, or lovers, of both.” (p. 112). This display of what could be called argumentative vulnerability seems to me to be far closer to our reality of incomplete beings with a limited understanding of reality than the usual contemporary philosophical (or, for that sake, political or cultural) debate. It also corresponds to Hitz’s notion of “inquiry” as she displays it at the beginning of the book:
I chose the word “inquiry” carefully, since it is my hope that you, my reader, will inquire with me. After all, each person lives his or her own life, especially in the use of the mind. I may find myself at an impasse where you see a way through. Where I find clarity, you may find an obstacle. Many of my thoughts will be only half-baked. Their batter may not be even quite mixed. Finish baking them your own way—or cook up something else. (p. 49).
There is also a pedagogical concern that constantly surfaces from Hitz’s writing. In fact, its capacity to truly—not merely rhetorically—engage the reader is one of the book’s meaningful accomplishments. Take the readings of Aristophanes’ Clouds, or Augustine’s Confessions, or Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. It is possible to disagree with them, to dispute the interpretations, partially or globally. However, the beauty of the “inquiry” as developed by Hitz is that it invites conversation with possible contenders as part of its argument. She does not need to be right in her readings of all the works she refers to, nor in her particular choice of examples. The fact that her book engages and prompts such discussions is, in reality, more proof that her broad argument is true: that the intellectual life in which these kinds of conversations and disputes occur is part of human flourishing, not because of its social, political or economic outcomes but because the love of learning is integral to our humanity.
Intellectual life is a “place of retreat” withdrawn from “the world”, a source of dignity, and a way of opening space for communion (p.56). It requires some kind of asceticism, an education of desire that comes from an encounter with reality (p.87). It has a direction, but it is not clear if it has a specific object (p.94), and “the intellect has no subject matter, it reaches greedily for the whole of everything” (p.186). It may be entangled with temptations of superficiality and selfishness (p. 98). “It involves a reaching out past the surface, a questioning of appearances, a longing for more than is evident” (p. 192). And ultimately, it is not an achievement that justifies its practice; it is human need, and its cultivation and sophistication should not be taken as very different from “the little human things” (p.174):
Music is pointless in a world in which no one recognizes the value of ordinary piano lessons or singing in harmony, even if highly trained musicians continue to perform the finest art music. Likewise, there’s no point in getting to the bottom of Plato’s dialogues if human beings do not shoot the bull at the lake or mull over the justice of things while washing windows. The little human things make the human needs manifest; without those needs in mind, the grander endeavours lose their way. (idem).
REFERÊNCIA:
Hitz, Zena. Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020.