"Teaching the Ineffable:  Ethics and Aesthetics in Art and Literature"

Susan Barber and Jan MacLean – Simon Fraser University

CPES – Saturday, 31 May 2008

Session# 4.11, Room 1130, 1:15 – 2:45 p.m.

Abstract:   How does good teaching in the arts and literature facilitate experiences that are beyond articulation?  Wittgenstein states that what cannot be said must be left in silence, and yet art is able to extend understanding where words fall short.  Kant described the sensation of overflowing aesthetic stimulation as the sublime, and believed the contemplation of powerful art leads to reflection on the morally good.  Providing examples of how ethics and aesthetics may come together, two teacher-artists discuss what happens when art permits life-changing experiences to occur.

(Susan)  

Introduction   

Thank you for coming to our session today, “Teaching the Ineffable: Ethics and Aesthetics in Art and Literature”.  I’m Susan Barber, and I will talk about aesthetics, ethics and literature, and then Jan MacLean will discuss how this relates to teaching art and what it looks like in her research project. I’d like to speak now about how we engage with literature, and in particular what ought to happen when we teach literature ethically and aesthetically.  How does good teaching in the arts and literature facilitate experiences that are beyond articulation?  Wittgenstein states that what cannot be said must be left in silence, and yet art is able to extend understanding where words fall short.  I would like to argue that ethics and aesthetics work together on two levels; first in the reading itself, and secondly, in the reader as person.

Aesthetics in Reading

Kant was perhaps the first to recognize that human beings have three faculties for understanding the world around them.  The rational is synthesized with the empirical, both necessary to understanding, as form is necessary to comprehend content.  In turn, practical reason, which decides what must be done, requires rational thinking in order to be guided by the objective principles behind morals and the categorical imperative.  Kant also believed aesthetic judgment mediates between pure reason and practical reason, having both an objective and subjective part, and that a person must be a rational being in order to appreciate beauty.  Without the experience of beauty, the exercise of reason is incomplete; through beauty we are able to see the relation of all our faculties to the world, to see our limitations, and yet in so doing, be able to transcend them.  Kant went so far as to describe the sensation of overflowing aesthetic stimulation as the sublime, and believed the contemplation of powerful art leads to reflection on the morally good.

One of the main reasons to read literature is to experience this beauty.  Literature creates in us a profound experience unavailable through purely rational facts or the chaos of real life in the empirical world.  Literature can focus on specific experiences in depth, intentionally and artistically shaped to filter out random stimuli and just slow things down.  We can enter the consciousness of other people and learn what they think and feel, achieving an intimacy we may not have even with loved ones.  Literature uses sensuous language to appeal to our memory and emotions; Murdoch (1998) calls it “cognition in another mode”.   In this way, the literary arts help students learn and develop through different means.

When we read literature, we are often overwhelmed by our thoughts and feelings, sometimes to the extent that the world seems to stop and we have a glimpse into the vastness of existence.  We lack words to describe this feeling; it is often called the “ineffable”.  How literature manages this effect partly because the whole of the reading experience suddenly seems much greater than any of its parts.  The author has carefully constructed characters with whom we identify and we observe certain situations that are particular but can be understood through universal human experience.  As characters develop and reach self-understanding, so does the reader.  Accumulations of thought and feeling converge and draw on reserves of unspoken knowledge. 

If we can use our imagination and leave our familiar world behind, we can open ourselves up to this kind of experience, which is sometimes called the aesthetic experience.  In this open and imaginative state, fresh thoughts and emotions can break through our daily patterns of existence.  Most people at one time or another have thought, ‘this book has changed my life’.  For this reason alone, teaching literature with aesthetics in mind is a significant means of enabling students to develop as human beings and to understand more of life.

Ethics in Reading

The other side of the coin in teaching literature is ethics.  In the literature itself, there are various moral conflicts to be found.  As we read, these conflicts are isolated, explored and complicated by human factors.  Aristotle showed us that ideals or rules of morality do not carry over neatly into life.  Application of these ideals is much more complex because people carry with them qualitatively different circumstances.

Complex ethical issues, especially for young people, are more often felt than rationally understood.  In these ethical deliberations, there is often a judgment to be made between what is true and what is good.  This enduring conflict can be seen in Kant’s deontological stance in opposition to Mill’s utilitarian position; in other words, when a principle is wrong it should never be transgressed vs. what is wrong may be seen differently when the outcome demands an action that will lead to the greater good.  Literature is able to present both sides of a conflict and allows the reader to find out what happens when certain choices are made.  Nussbaum (1990) describes reading literature as a means of exercising moral imagination. 

Aesthetics in the Reader

Now I’d like to concentrate more specifically on what happens in the reader himself while engaging in an aesthetic experience.  If the author has done her job, the reader can discover for himself what it is like to be in the shoes of a character who may be very different from himself.  For example, a modern day Canadian teen boy may be able to understand what it was like to be a Japanese geisha at the turn of the 19^th century after having read Memoirs of a Geisha.  Many stories read by high school students focus on coming of age themes and show characters making their way in the world.  This exposure to lives foreign to our own may not only open up ways of overcoming racism or sexism, but also may suggest new ways of being in the world, ways of overcoming the contingencies of birth and environment.  The reverse is true as well; after reading stories about characters from one’s own culture, the reader may have a deeper appreciation of one’s background.

Ethics of Teaching Aesthetically

Lastly I’d like to look at the ethics of teaching aesthetically.  There has been much controversy around teaching literature through aesthetics but I feel if this is examined in more detail it can be seen as a more ethical approach than teaching through literary theory or other postmodern methods.  In fact, if a teacher can facilitate an aesthetic experience in an ethical manner, I believe this approach can go further to raise student awareness of injustice or prejudice in the final result.

Most literature used in the classroom today is selected with great care, chosen with the students in mind.  Happily, there is much high quality literature available that is representative of concerns of teens as well as reflecting the multicultural makeup of our society.  With that in mind, I would like to touch on what I believe is an ethical and aesthetic approach of teaching literature.

First, letting students experience the literature for themselves and making up their own minds is the most ethical method.   Just as literature itself “shows” and does not “tell”, as teachers, we should also want to avoid telling students what to think.  Literature avoids the inculcation of ideas by presenting certain situations and their outcomes.  As students think through what happens, we must trust in their ability to pick up on any discrepancies in attitudes in the older texts and how they differ with our values today, in particular, concerning sexism and racism.  Also, students bring their own experiences, cultural values and ideas to the text.  No two students will view the same story in quite the same manner.  Each student will identify with characters in his or her own way.  Allowing them to form their own ideas is the first step in constructing meaning.  I feel this step is critical in respecting the individual, their learning and their unique response to the reading.

Secondly, the teacher also has a responsibility to expose students to other people’s opinions, ideally their peers’ points of view.  After students have individually read the text, discussion of the work is critical.  Inevitably, different views of the literature will arise which helps to put the literature in a contemporary context and see multiple layers of meaning.   Students then have an opportunity to extend their learning and grasp the complexities of the text.  The teacher can guide discussion to relevant topics and raise questions on moral issues that have yet to be addressed.  Obviously, older works of literature are often the most distant to our current values and discussion is the best way to bring in a historical context. 

Many postmodern thinkers feel that much in the Western canon should not be taught because these classic texts perpetuate the views of European white males of the ruling class.  Some postmodern thinkers feel these authoritative ‘grand narratives” continue to marginalize most other groups.  In another camp, Nussbaum (1997) values literature as a way of advancing democratic ideals and unmasking racism and sexism.  The problem with this latter approach is that students may read literature searching for instances of injustice and are no longer open to the experience of reading.  More extreme still is the case at some universities where instructors use literature as a point of departure to discuss literary theory.  Literature can be used for many things but this is not the primary function of the literary arts.

Personally I feel that the rejection of literature or the instrumental use of literature is unethical because it prejudices the students in advance of the reading or casts it in a negative light.  The postmodern view is focused primarily on politics, and, as I’ve said earlier, there is now available a wide selection of quality literature from diverse cultures.  As a teacher and a writer, I feel that we cannot afford to eliminate classic texts that represent in English literature what Arnold called, “the best that has been thought and written”, including Shakespeare.  Nussbaum does not go far enough in my view in trusting the students to pick up on any injustices themselves.  This seems to me to be disrespecting the students’ ability to sense right and wrong.  Red flags can indeed go up during the reading, and in class discussions that follow, the students have a chance to confirm their suspicions as a group.   It is true, however, that for some students the mores of a particular time or author may prevent open engagement with a text and the work of literature will not be suitable for the class.  Teachers ought to be able to foresee what texts might offend their students, but it may be the case that subtle flaws can still be overlooked.  In my opinion, no text can avoid offending all people all of the time; in which case, the guideline must be to do one’s best to be sensitive to the students in the class.  But often these red flags become the stimulus for worthwhile discussions that can educate everyone in the classroom and clarify the issues.   They not only acknowledge how our attitudes have changed but also allow students to benefit in the realm where literature is strongest:  in helping us to understand who we are and what it is to be human.

Conclusion

Although this last area of ethics and aesthetics in literature remains controversial, I have tried to focus on the resonance between them, and stay at the nexus where philosophy meets education.  Certain kinds of questions lead this kind of investigation, moving back and forth between concepts and praxis, questions such as:  What does an aesthetic experience look like in the classroom?  How can the arts communicate more, in ways that go beyond language?  Where can students touch the ineffable?  And, what value does this have for the students? 

Jan, in the next section, may be able to answer some of these questions.

References

Aristotle (2004). Nicomachean Ethics.  Introduction by Kim, Hye-Kyung.  New York:  Barnes and Noble.

Murdoch, Iris (1998). Existentialists and Mystics.  New York:  Penguin Books.

Nussbaum, Martha (1990). Love’s Knowledge.  New York: Oxford University Press.

            -- (1997). Cultivating Humanity:  A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University              Press.