Today's debate question

[Mark Kohut]

Well, one point to bring up in a debate....offhand, I would say that
identifying implies more positive personal emotional feeling
than empathizing might...we are supposed to empathize with ones who
are different..
So, identifying is a smaller phenomenon, a subset so to speak, of
empathizing but necessary in both meanings.

On Tue, Dec 22, 2015 at 11:49 AM, Perry Noid <coolwithdoc at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am corn-fused by this proposition. And I also think there might be a
> dividing line btwn academic reading of literature and those who read for
> funzies. And there is also a diff btwn those looking for escape and those
> who like to problem solve. I think Pynchon veers more to the problem solving
> type of literature, along with Nab, Borges, Eco, the kind of stuff I enjoy.
> But then again these books are not devoid of characters you can identify
> with. And I like that too.
>
> Just to be clear, does empathizing with a character imply identifying with
> the character?
>
> On Tuesday, December 22, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Proposition: That reading by identification with a character condemns the
>> reading to be second-rate most of the time. The major reason: it reduces the
>> sensibility of the writer, whose sensibility is supposed to be richer than
>> ours ( most of the time) but which at least is Other than ours....
>>
>> To ours. The vaunted empathy is crippled; the genius of observation and
>> imagination is lost. The reading is ultimately solipsistic.
>>
>> Sent from my iPad-
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l