Culture vs. Copyright/Chapter 3

by Anatoly Volynets

CHAPTER 3

Arts and Personality

Culture, art, work of art, message to humankind, new world, dialogue, creativity, humanity, freedom—these faces of cultural phenomena were presented in Chapter Two. It is interesting though, to see how all these ideas translate into everyday life. Luckily for me, there were five smart people, my students, who were able to help me in further exploration. They proved already that I should not worry about finding the right question to start with. I had thought I should worry about keeping the conversation going, but I was wrong, for neither took much effort.

Well, first things first. The next time I entered the classroom, I announced my question, "Why do we read books?" Silence and blank looks were all I got at first.… But not for long.

Why Do We Read Books?

Alpha: Isn't it obvious? Books teach us to behave.
Beta: Yeah, like Tom Sawyer in that Sunday school.
Kappa: Tom Sawyer is a good boy.
Delta: Who said he isn't?
Gamma: I didn't.
Beta: Me neither.
Kappa: I am not even sure I don't like what he did in Sunday school.
Alpha: Well, you may like him personally, but he didn't serve as a particularly good example.
Kappa: So? You don't always serve as an excellent example, do you?
Beta: Hey, Kappa, do you like Alpha because of that?
Kappa: Come on, I'm serious here.
Delta: You're always serious.

Teacher: So, what about books? Why do we read them?

Are Arts to Teach Us?

Beta: Can’t we think about looking at paintings too?
Delta: What about theater?
Gamma: Music?
Kappa: Movies!
Alpha: Fashion shows, heh heh.
Teacher: Actually . . .
Delta: I don’t think it matters!
Alpha: How is that? A book clearly teaches you. You understand it. However, when you listen to music, you can imagine whatever you want!
Beta: Alpha, what have you learned from Tom Sawyer?
Kappa: How to tease and beat boys in clean clothes, ha ha.
Delta: How to court girls.
Gamma: To paint fences.
Beta: To take a friend’s punishment.
Alpha: See? You guys only look at the dark side of what Tom was doing!
Kappa: Come on, Alpha, we do not.
Alpha: Why do you mention the bad things then?
Delta: To make you think, Alpha.
Alpha: Make yourself!
Beta: We are trying. Seriously though, I feel like we’re not quite on track yet.
Kappa: Interesting. I have always liked Tom Sawyer from the very moment I got to know him. And I knew, of course, about all these awful things he did, and I’ve never even thought of criticizing him!
Alpha: You fell in love with him, didn’t you?
Kappa: Something like that.
Delta: Yeah, girls love him.
Alpha: I was teasin’, Kappa.
Kappa: But I’m serious.
Delta: You’re always serious.
Kappa: Stop it, Delta. This is different.
Beta: You know what? I’m kinda surprised. I feel like Tom Sawyer is becoming alive in my mind right now.
Alpha: What is he doing? Knocking at your skull?
Delta: Yeah, Alpha, so that you can learn that from him and repeat after him.
Kappa: Guys, what’s come over you today?

Getting on Track: Art Influences Us

Gamma: We went to a concert yesterday, my family and I. And I just listened to the music and liked it mostly and didn’t like some. And then we left, and I forgot it and was thinking how I would play Freeciv at home. Dad was discussing the concert with Mom, and my aunt started to argue, and all that was pretty annoying, but I jumped in at some point, I don’t know why. We were arguing all the way back to our house, and I almost got in a fight with my kid sister Becky, and we all couldn’t stop. Mom wanted to calm us down, but Dad couldn’t stop either. In the end, all of a sudden, I felt a huge drive to go back and listen to it again! It’s like Beta said, I felt like it had become alive in my mind! I mean, all those things I was imagining—while I was arguing—people, feelings, actions, you know. They kind of crowded my mind while I was trying to make my point, … maybe because of that, … I don’t know.
Alpha: I don’t follow you. What does it have to do with today’s question?
Kappa: I know how that feels! That’s exactly what happens every time we go to a movie! We always argue afterwards, and my kid brother Jimmy always argues with me because he likes to tease me, and Mom tries to calm us down, and Dad jumps in. Dad tries not to take sides, but he can’t help it. And then we go to watch it again sometimes, not the entire family, but whoever can or wants to, you know, and we often buy the video as soon as it comes out. And I am starting to understand now, all of this argument is the best part of it. I think I wouldn’t pay much attention to many of those movies, if not for this argument! But I can write books about them now!
Alpha: Wow, what a story! A family fight! How does this relate to our subject?
Gamma: Don’t you see? It’s all the same.
Alpha: No, I do not! It’s all different! In a movie, you see what you see. In a book, you can’t see it but have to imagine all of the heroes, and landscape, and action. Everyone imagines it in their own way! It’s like everyone is reading a different book although we are all reading the same Adventures of Tom Sawyer. And when you listen to music, you don’t even know whether you think of it the same way the composer does. How can you say it is all the same?
Teacher: If I ask now, why do we read books, watch movies, listen to music, will your answers be different?
Alpha: . . . Well, that’s not what I meant. I don’t know why we do all those things. My point was that they are different, that’s all.
Beta: Thus, you don’t know any more?
Alpha: What do you mean?
Delta: Beta is reminding you that you had the answer about books, remember?
Alpha: I think that books, and movies, and music . . .
Kappa: And fashions?
Gamma: Hold it!
Alpha: . . . do the same thing to us. They teach us, but in different ways. And everyone learns what they see or can see or . . .
Delta: Or want to see?
Beta: Well, say, you learn from Tom Sawyer how to defend your girl, and the other guy learns to smoke, and someone concludes that Indians are bad guys because there was a bad Indian Joe there. . . . How do we really know that books teach us?
Alpha: I told you, everyone learns what they see.
Delta: Listen, Alpha, if books are supposed to be used for learning, then are writers teachers?
Alpha: So?
Delta: Is that a yes or a no?
Alpha: Come on, we’re not in a courtroom.
Delta: Why don’t you answer?
Kappa: OK, OK. Suppose they are to teach us, what is your point?
Gamma: Delta is just taking up what Beta is getting at. If authors are teachers, but everyone learns different things, then what do authors teach? Did I get it right, guys?
Beta: Well yes, you’re even getting ahead of me now.
Kappa: Well, I don’t know what Mark Twain was trying to teach us, but I was never the same after I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Beta: I have a feeling that I’ll never be the same after this discussion.
Teacher: Me too, I think.
Alpha: What are you guys talking about? Are you going to paint fences from now on?
Gamma: Oh, very funny, Alpha. Everyone is laughing.
Alpha: Gamma, you may cry if you want to.
Gamma: Well, thank you! Now I feel like I live in a free country.
Kappa: Oh, here we go again.
Delta: But we were being all deep about these ideas, and I don’t get why Alpha has to play it down like that.
Alpha: Oh, so Delta can be serious too!
Teacher: Can we do a little summary now? It won’t look like final answers, and I cannot even say we have some answers, but certain things were definitely said.

The First Summary

Teacher: First, books, movies, music, etc. do affect us in similar ways; Gamma and Alpha came close to that. Second, arts do this in different ways; Alpha stressed this. Third, arts change us; this was Kappa’s point. Fourth, argument magnifies the influence of art; Beta, Gamma, and Kappa all touched on that.

Arts and Reality

Kappa: You know what? I realize now, I argued a lot with many different people while I was reading Tom Sawyer!
Beta: Do you mean Aunt Polly or Sid?
Kappa: No … well, yes … Well, I don’t know. It was like, say, I didn’t like what Sid did, but, at the same time, I felt like it was my brother Jimmy, you know …
Gamma: Actually, when you are deep in a book or music … you forget yourself in a way. I realize very clearly that I felt as if I were with Tom Sawyer … and on all of his adventures … I was there.

And it felt as if my folks were with me in some way, you know? Sometimes it felt like I was talking to my dad or mom or Becky, I mean my sister. And when it was about Tom Sawyer, then for me it was like talking to . . . some other boy.
Delta: I agree. I never thought about it, but I agree. Other people, those you know, are like shadows that are always there, wherever you are, either in a real place or a book.
Kappa: And they can be heroes from other books too!
Alpha: Yeah, Pinocchio fighting with Tom Sawyer! Guys, get real! We do not live in books.
Kappa: But it’s true! If you love Tom Sawyer as much as a real person, you talk to him a thousand times a day; he is there wherever you go! Delta is 100 percent right! . . . And Gamma . . . It’s totally like that!
Alpha: Hey, someone’s a little too excited here, don’t you think?
Kappa: Wait, Alpha, don’t you understand? This is just fantastic! You always have your folks with you! Real ones and art heroes! You always have them!
Teacher: Actually, when you say “real ones,” you don’t mean . . . “physical ones,” do you?
Beta: Wow!
Delta: What?
Gamma: I got it.
Kappa: What?
Alpha: People, it is all your fantasy and has nothing to do with real reality. I’m telling you, get real. After all, we got the question to answer—why do we read books? I don’t feel that we are one step closer to an answer.
Beta: Wow! Wow!
Alpha: What? Cat got your tongue?
Gamma: I am saying wow too.
Teacher: Thank you, students.
Kappa: What is this? Say something already!
Gamma: Wait, I am thinking.
Beta: Oh, that is cool.
Kappa: Come on, both of you! Let us in on it!
Gamma: All right. Do you know, who is your president?
Kappa: Our president today?
Gamma: Yes.
Alpha: So?
Gamma: Is he a good guy or a bad guy?
Alpha: How should I know?
Beta: But you have to have some attitude, some understanding, some feelings about him, don’t you?
Kappa: I do. I don’t want him for a second term.
Gamma: Good! Tell us what made you think that?
Alpha: I see where you are heading. It is all the newspapers, TV, radio, Internet. . . . So?
Kappa: Ah! It is all artificial! The president is as real to me as Tom Sawyer! And all my likes and dislikes relate to stories I read, movies I watched, music I listened to, and so on!
Teacher: Well, something was done by real people like me or your loving parents or your smart classmates or even your president . . .
Kappa: But now I don’t even know who did what and who did more.
Beta: All our lives . . . this happens. . . . We don’t know what we are made of. Is it our parents who read us tales, or is this the tales that were read to us by our parents?
Delta: Is it that the president is cooked up by a journalist, or is it the journalist writing about his president?
Gamma: Is it music written by a composer, or the composer who makes the music?
Alpha: OK, I can play this game too. Tom Sawyer or Mark Twain, right?
Beta: Or yourself, when you read it.
Teacher: Or the classmates you are arguing with.
Beta: Or ideas we are arguing about?
Gamma: Told you! Wow!
Kappa: You sure did! Wow!
Alpha: Everyone—one, two three: Wow!
Delta: So you join in, don’t you Alpha?

Alpha: Join what?

The Second Summary

Beta: Hold it, hold it! I have a question. Our minds are like plays where images of real people and heroes of artistic works act out their roles. Can we sum it up like this?
Teacher: That is an intriguing summary!

Author, Character, Audience

Beta: OK. Now, I read a book and feel compassion toward a hero. Let’s say Tom Sawyer again … or wait, … a thought is sneaking around. OK, give me a second …
Alpha: And what are we going to do while Beta is chasing his sneaky thought?
Kappa: I’m tired.
Beta: Actually, I’m ready. Remember the last thing I said, that we don’t know what really affects our minds, whether it is the person who is arguing in favor of an idea or the idea itself affects us?
Delta: Well, it was not exactly that, but in a sense, yes, you said that.
Alpha: Huh? So it’s not enough for you all to treat literary personages like real people! Now you want an idea to be like a person too?
Teacher: Let’s call it a quasi-personality.
Alpha: Are you serious?
Gamma: Let Beta tell us his new story.
Beta: Thanks. Quite frankly, it is not that clear to me yet.
Teacher: That’s all right. Go on.
Beta: OK. As I said, I don’t have a theory, just a kind of a feeling.
Kappa: Go ahead.
Beta: Say I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I feel like Tom Sawyer. I relate to other characters. I feel compassion toward some of them, anger at others. I get scared, make up my mind about something …
Alpha: Those are not new discoveries.
Beta: No, they are not. I am trying to grasp a theme here. And I understand that Mark Twain likes this boy and makes us like him as well.
Kappa: Yes, exactly! He does not teach us a thing! He just makes us like him! That’s it. That’s precisely it. He makes us feel something!
Delta: Does Mark Twain like Sid?

Gamma: I’m not sure, but it seems to me that an author cannot dislike his characters.
Kappa: Thus, Mark Twain likes Sid and Indian Joe?
Gamma: I believe so.
Kappa: Do they like him?
Alpha: What? People! You’ve gotten completely derailed.
Beta: Why? Remember, I said I felt like Tom Sawyer was coming alive in my mind. He still is. The more we talk, the more alive he becomes.
Alpha: Ah, I remember. He was knocking on your skull. He did succeed, I admit.
Delta: Well, Alpha, if he did succeed then he is alive after all?
Kappa: All right, is everyone done joking? I am not sure Beta finished his idea.
Beta: I didn’t. . . . Where did I stop?
Teacher: You said Mark Twain made us like Tom Sawyer.
Beta: Oh yes, I remember. Now, when I said that ideas affect us like people do, I did not actually know what I meant. It just jumped off my tongue. But now, I’m starting to see it better. I want to move on to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Alpha: Just the same . . .
Beta: Not quite, but I want to single out one moment—the time when two crooks sold Jim back into slavery for forty bucks. I felt as if I was going to cry along with Huck!
Alpha: OK, slavery is evil. What’s your point?
Beta: My point now is closer to yours in a way. It is not that Mark Twain taught me that slavery is bad, but he made me feel really, really, really bad about slavery at that moment. I felt despair. So now, I do not just love Huck, but I started thinking about slavery, and believe me, it still bothers me.

Gamma: I think I owe you all another summary now.

The Last Summary

Teacher: Go ahead, Gamma.
Gamma: Look, uh . . . remember how we were talking about the president and how his journalist-made image is real to us while we know nothing about the physical man? I now think that everything we love or hate in this life is clarified and taught by the art.
Alpha: Told you.
Gamma: No, not like you said. It is not about teaching, exactly. Huckleberry Finn made us feel kind of guilty about the enslaved Jim. Do you see the difference?
Alpha: Between what and what?
Kappa: Between knowledge and feelings! Understand?
Teacher: So, Gamma, are you ready for your statement?
Gamma: Almost. It feels kind of scary. Let’s talk a little more.
Alpha: Are you scared of your own fantasy?
Gamma: You bet. OK, we are sure now that arts do have a big influence on us. They form the way we think and the way we feel.
Beta: They actually form the way itself.
Delta: What is the way?
Beta: It is talking. . . . It is the process of talking both to others and to ourselves.
Kappa: The arts transport actors into all our conversations.
Beta: And ideas also are transported.
Gamma: And scenarios too.
Teacher: Do you think you have proven this?
Beta: No, we have not, but these ideas have just emerged! And I can’t put forth anything else.
Gamma: OK, I get it. Our minds are entirely shaped by the arts.

Teacher: Wow!

To My Reader

I had planned to summarize the ideas that my first graders would come up with. I had wanted to stress the “right” points, underline unanswered questions, provide some extra logic. But in the end, I saw no reason to do this. All the time I listened to their conversation I wanted to jump in. The subject began to become slightly clearer to me, and at the same time, my head was on fire. I felt a lot of energy and desire to continue, discuss, think, write, and read. This was the best thing that happened to me. I went on writing but did not get too far by the time we had our next conversation. Here are just a few notes.

Two Notions from Child Psychology

These topics were not discussed by the students. Still, they obviously are closely related to our last conversation.

Child Greediness

There is a certain phenomenon in child behavior commonly regarded as “greediness.” Children have a hard time sharing things they are attached to. This attachment can appear suddenly, like love at first sight. Often parents regard this behavior as greediness, so they try hard to disapprove of and “fix” it. In reality, what happens is that adults damage the normal psychological development of the child. The phenomenon we are discussing herein is entirely different. It is not an ethical issue but one of the pure “construction” of the child psyche. In the early years, consciousness is not the same as that of an adult. It is constructed primarily from “one’s things”: habitual clothes, toys, furniture—all the familiar things surrounding the child. When adults try to remove something “accepted” by the child, they plainly damage the child’s consciousness. If the child gets used to letting go of things easily, he or she will never be a normal person capable of “attachment” to other people, ideas, and values. What results is a person with, in a sense, a reduced soul.

Child Aping

There is another phenomenon in child behavior regarded by some as “aping,” i.e. mimicking, repeating, mocking. Children tend to copy each other. This is often regarded as something not quite positive while in reality it is just another vital part of child development. It is a way of acquiring ideas, expressions, activities, skills, etc. There is no way for the psyche to develop normally without “aping.”