So, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it fall does it make a sound?
I've kind of thought that the question was slightly insighful though stupidly phrased. Of course the tree makes a sound, the laws of physics and nature don't stop working just because no one is around to take note of it. The question that I like to think of about is, if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it matter that it makes a sound? This is intersting because it questions whether recognition is necessary for validation. If an event isn't recognized is it invalid, does it just not matter? Phrased another way, if I write a blog and no one reads it does it really matter what I say, does it matter how good the writing is, is it necessary for me to hold myself to any kind of standard?
The fact that I am writing is a clear indication of where I personally stand on the matter, because I try not to waste my own time. A thing is valid because it is valid, not because it is recognized. The sound that is made when the tree falls is the same whether the world is watching or there is no one at all to hear. Emily Dickenson, whose poetry I'm slightly ambivalent to positive about, is a great example of this belief. She spent her whole life writing and let out about 12 poems that were significantly altered before their publication during her lifetime. After she died her sister found over 1,800 poems stashed in her sock drawer and published the works. Today she is easily considered a major American poet. If no one had found her work and published it would the prose have been any less valid, would she in actuallity have been less of a poet, would it not have mattered that she had wrote at all? No, everything would have been the same, the situation just would have been tragic and the world the less for it.
In the same manner the valididty of a blog, and the decision on whether it matters, isn't determined by how many people read or notice what is written, but by the quality of thought and effort that is put into the writing of the work. That said, when I step up to the stage, I plan to step correct.
3 comments:
Step correctly.
What is validity?
Do work, son!
My initial reaction: the premise of this paper depends on the definition of validity, which there are many. It can mean to be well-founded or sound, which indeed does not require recognition. It can also mean to be relevant, to have force, to be significant, which I would argue does require recognition and is a more practical and powerful type of validity, not to mention entirely more satisfying, if not less noble.
If Dickenson's work was not discovered by the masses, it would not be fully validated - it would be less significant, it would be less relevant. And the verb "to validate" also implies the act of giving validity which seems to require recognition as a prerequisite.
As a matter of fact, it may be the case that recognition is necessary for any type of validity outside the domain of logic. While your reasoning in this body of work might be valid in it of itself, how do we know this unless it is recognized, by you or by the masses?
So maybe the tree doesn't make a sound after all.
You can't just start a blog and already be experiencing a lull, son. And Dickinson would have been just another depressed chick who eventually expired had her stuff not been found, and recognition and approval do cultivate validity.
Next post, please.
P.S. Love that you've got the captchas.
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