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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 9704948" data-attributes="member: 59082">It is a fair point, though I think the situation is far more complex than simply "asking ourselves why we reacted to a work the way we did."One axis of complexity: There are different ways to interpret our findings that depend upon what "languages" we know - aka, hermeneutic frameworks. Literary criticism is one such language, but there are many others - and people versed in one might not be versed in others. The field of psychology includes dozens, or even hundreds, of such languages, each with different "dialects" (e.g. Depth psychology, then Freud vs. Jung, then traditional Jungian vs. Archetypal, and on and on).Many, even most, people who specialize in one type of hermeneutics (whether formally or not) tend to see everything through that lens - including the hermeneutics of other people. This is where a lot of conversations break down already: "I hear why you don't like the Thing, but you're wrong because it doesn't make sense within my own worldview." Etc etc. It is even common that a person completely disregards another's interpretation because they don't like their preferred hermeneutics! You can see this in-fighting especially within fields (e.g. Freudians vs. Jungians).That touches upon the problem of (over) specialization: If we're really good at a thing, we might neglect to develop other capacities, and often "wrongly" interpret something in a way that it wasn't meant to be interpreted. Or as Maslow famously said, if the only tool we have in our toolbox is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.A relevant example might be science fiction and fantasy. They are two distinct literary lineages, that usually express very different tones and themes. The over-simplified version is that SF is often more left-brained, analytic, and allegorical; fantasy often more right-brained, mythic, and symbolic. Both should make sense within their own logic, but they have very different logics (and it gets even more complex with sub-genres, different styles, and specific creators and stories). Tolkien talked about this (though not in reference to SF) when people asked him what his stories "mean" - what the allegories were. He detested that, and sort of blithely said he was just trying to write good stories (though I think it is much deeper than that).One final note. This is related to specialization, but people have a story about themselves and then explain/justify their feelings based on that. Often our stories involve inflated personal experiences to quasi-universal status, so that we see and interpret everything through the lens of "me." Sometimes that basic "me-ness" is unexamined. This can be a hard knot to un-tie, and has a lot to do with intrapersonal intelligence and maturation. We don't interact on an even playing field, in that regard.All that said, I think we can bypass a lot of the inherent problems by co-creating a space of mutual respect and nourishing openness of being, both in ourselves but also in others (to the degree that we can). And this includes agreeing to disagree, and being friendly--or at least respectful--of people we disagree with, even if we find their views on something to be deplorable. If we have that openness, then we're also open to the fact that we're never omniscient and also able to see a person's "essence" to some extent, over specific beliefs they have. I've known plenty of lovely people who had what I consider to be "backwards" views, and also people who had more sophisticated views that I agree with that were interpersonally rather nasty human beings.</blockquote>

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