[ExI] EP and sentimentality was songs 2

[PJ Manney]

On Dec 11, 2007 1:14 PM, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> Ok, let's drag out the mental EP microscope and look at
> sentimentality. Why do some stories affect most people in a highly
> emotional way?  I have not given this much thought, so take a crack
> at it and you teach me.  We can start by listing stories and
> describing common features.
>
> I will contribute one, The short story "Leaf by Niggle" by JRR
> Tolkien. It's impossible for me to read or even to think about
> without dripping tears.
>
> Please play by the EP rules.

I have wanted to address your question for a long time, but like in
"Leaf by Niggle", Keith, life and creation got in the way.

Here are some ideas (not fleshed out as much as I'd like, but there you go):

The word "sentimentality" is a tough one.  It's very subjective --
What is it?  And to what people?  Sentimentality is more than empathy.
 It implies to me a personal relationship, like the one you describe
with "Leaf by Niggle".  It is often developed in youth, and we know
when we learn something when we're young, the odds of it affecting us
in permanent way are much higher.  (Think of the books you read or
music you listened to -- you taught your brain to like that while your
brain was still extremely malleable -- or at least more so than it is
now.)  Or the story resonates with your own early experiences, which
are more indelibly printed on our minds than later experiences.  We
can also be hardwired for it, but I'd guess that's more to the general
flavor of the sentimentality and not the specific instances, which are
experiential.

I've discussed why we empathize with stories before.
http://www.pj-manney.com/empathy.html
And we don't need to list stories to find commonality.  If we take the
Joseph Campbell approach that there is really only one monomyth, the
one he calls The Hero's Journey,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
then humanity culturally-evolved, simultaneously and in parallel, a
mythic structure on which to hang all storytelling.  But I believe the
question you're really asking is 'why this structure?'  That is where
the EP lies.

So how about this: Like the new theory of dreams, which sees them as
the mental practice field in which we learn to survive life's hazards
(hence why nightmare are more common than happy dreams)
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20071029-000003.xml
monomyths could be the mental visualization, the internal practice for
the arduous life ahead.  The hero starts with his normal life, then
something happens that changes everything and for which he is not
fully prepared.  So he must rise to the occasion, conquer the
villains/demons/etc. and return to his tribe with the prize.  Stories
teach us survival traits, both practical (how do you run away
from/kill a monster, outsmart a villain, attract someone so you can
reproduce, etc.) and behavioral (don't panic or give up, stick
together, work as a team, don't trust everyone, etc.).

The hero is now us.  The main character is our proxy, going through
his world, encountering obstacles to his success/happiness/survival
and having to overcome them.  And we're learning from our easy chair
what lessons he learned the hard way.

As to the personal reaction to one story versus another -- which I
think is the sentimentality you speak of -- that's not so much EP as
personal psychology.  The EP/monomyth reaction is there, for sure.
But why you weep at "Leaf by Niggle" as opposed to why I weep at
"Flowers for Algernon" has more to say about us as individuals, how
we're wired, when we read it and under what circumstances we relate to
it than anything else.  Like relating to any art form, taste is a
matter of many variables, some innate and some acquired.

PJ