Dramatic Simplicity (from 2011

I think I would define the best writing as I would the best music: a piece of music is great if it stops you short, makes you abruptly stop doing something, makes you listen to it, and a writing piece is great if it stops you short, makes you read it with great attention.

 

There seems to be a simplicity in beauty, more a dramatic simplicity in beauty.

 

Barber's Adagio for Strings does this. Bach is sacred and beautiful, but if you straighten out his complicated Baroque beauty you seem to find a simple, dramatic, Romantic line. The best Romantic's show this kind of simplification of Bach.

 

Writer's who do this sort of thing do their work for the reader, simplifying, clearing up, illuminating, with strong, beautiful, dramatic simplicity.

 

Perhaps all culture does this, including philosophy and religion.

Dominance not talent usually rules

Watching a series of bad commercials on television I wondered why they increasingly seem to be so untalented---while posing as being talented and clever which makes them worse. Books, films, politicians, and celebrities in general are increasingly showing the same lack of talent and cleverness and the same pose of being clever and talented.

Ads, films, etc. are of course mainly about making money for the products advertised, so they are dumbed down to appeal to the largest number of people---ingenuity or imagination is not their main concern. Greed has much to do with the lowering of quality and can come with some deeper baggage, like nepotism and bias.

But this lack of talent and cleverness also has much to do with the fact that dominance not talent usually rules in business, politics, and culture. If an organization is dedicated to real talent and merit and is also dominant then we can see more ingenuity or imagination, but that combination of dominance, ingenuity, and imagination is not common.

It sounds too cynical but if you are a rising business person, politician, writer, etc. you should know that talent or merit alone won't bring you success in the world, talent needs to be attached to dominance to be heard. 

Writing style and character in displaying reality

Some writers feel that the first draft is for themselves and the second is for the public, but that can be where style gets in the way of substance or truth. When Baudelaire says, “always be a poet, even in prose” reality can more easily fly away in a glut of metaphors. Personally, in my zeal to be honest I make too many grammatical mistakes.

Personalities work that way too, social personas can get in the way of honesty and courage; carried too far it creates phonies. But social interactions are usually oiled by polite lies, without which people might be at each others throats. And people like to be amused rather than dwell on uncomfortable truths after a hard day in the swamps.

Reality and truth can often be unpleasant, especially if the very base of grammar and style contains lies about reality---many truths were unknown when grammar developed. Science too has its own nerdish style of writing and defining the truth and often misses communications skills. (sociobiologist E. O. Wilson is an exception). And many philosophers sail away from reality on the wings of pedagogery.

I find that courage and truth can appear at any caste or education level, the strait-talking longshoremen or farmer often speak more truths than the PhD. It could be that ones reality and ones style is an inherent character trait.

Very few writers had both great style yet reveal many truths about reality. It's a small group. For me Shakespeare and Nietzsche come to mind.