Tag: Faust

No Context, No Citation – Lamentations of an Old Meathead

I’ve written often about AI in the last year and vowed not to use it, at least when I know it’s there and when I have a choice.  Little did I realize that, whether I used it or not, it was using me.

But let me back up.  The old lady has another (related) complaint.  Authors – both online and in print – have been getting very sloppy about citing their sources.  I am not talking about plagiarism here.    I am talking about when someone puts quotes around a sentence, perhaps even informs us that these are the words of  Chesterton or the like, but gives us no information as to where the quote came from, and therefore 1) we have no context and 2) have no easy way to get back to the source.  I try to provide citations for things I quote in the blog.  I hope my readers find it useful; it is a good exercise for me and keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I was trained academically to treat the printed word as if it were holy.  It was pounded into me that all references, quotes, paraphrasing needed exact citations.  At the end of writing my dissertation, I spent weeks in the library checking my sources, correcting the footnotes, and making sure that any ideas that were not strictly my own got appropriate recognition.  It was a worthwhile exercise, because I could not only check the citation (down to the page and the year of publication) but also the context – had I used the quote in the sense that it was written, that it was intended?

But now I am often frustrated by blogs, articles, books (after 1990 or so) in this regard.  Google used to help.  With a long quote, I could put it into the search engine and sometimes find out where it originally occurred. But this is less and less the case.  What I usually get these days are 1) an AI summary of what the quote is about, as if I couldn’t comprehend it without help and 2) a list of site after site where the quote is used, still lacking a citation for it is source.  This is particularly true of pithy quotes that are much used, usually for “inspiration” of one type or another.  Such quotes are wonderful, but they are like 30 second ads – and they bounce off us in the same way.  They become meaningless out of context.

Worse, some quotes are taken out of context for an ulterior motive.  Easy to do. We have all had it happen to us – your child picks up the stupidest phrase you said in your lecture on keeping his room clean – and turns it back on you. Such are the uses of Bible verses and snippets from Ronald Reagan these days.

This whining about correct attributions is a prelude to something that I discovered about my own work lately.  I was  doing a search on something to do with Spinoza (one of my favorites as my readers are aware), and the AI result (which Google puts front and center, steering us all away from more original results) came back with a close paraphrase of a blog I had published on the same subject.  At the end was a very tiny tag which would take you back to my blog, but why would anyone click on it when AI had summarized it so nicely?  As I entered more topics that I had written on, I found that sometimes AI had even turned them into bullet points!  Thank you AI for providing CliffsNotes for my blog!

Do you remember CliffsNotes?  For my generation of high school students it was a way of cheating, of avoiding reading Great Expectations or whatever work of literature was assigned.  It is no way to learn, but I can’t help thinking we are living in a world of CliffsNotes, where work can be simplified, stupefied, taken out of context – stolen in the interest of speed, ease, and propaganda.  And there is no recourse.

So, thanks for listening to my rant.  I make no money from my writing and have never tried to do so.  The blog, stories, bibliographies, novels – all are there for anyone interested.  Lewis Hyde wrote a wonderful book a number of years ago (The Gift) about the art of sharing, and it is in that spirit I post my blog.   But I do feel sorry for authors, composers, and artists who are dependent on intellectual property rights, who need sales, hits on their website, recognition and acknowledgement.  AI seems intent on summarizing the world for us.  Think about that.  It is hard enough to figure out what life is all about without battling a digital and capitalist machine that is trying to usurp our prerogatives and turn our lives into comforting but meaningless memes.

Sunday’s NYTimes had an article about human brains as “dumb meat computers” – I guess the quote is from Elon Musk originally: “We are all dumb meat computers compared to digital superintelligence.”  It made me think of Descartes, who thought animals were machines and what made humans superior was that they had something more – a soul, for want of a better word.  To Descartes, it was degrading to think of humans as simply mechanical systems.   I also thought of Pico della Mirandola’s “Oration on the Dignity of Man”: it is a long way from upholding the dignity of human life (“There is nothing to be seen more marvelous than man”) to describing ourselves as “dumb meat computers.”  Meatheads.  Think about it.

We baby-boomers are a Faustian generation.  No generation has ever experienced the technological change that we have – from radio to TV to VCR to PC to CD to e-retail to replacement hips and knees.  We were vaccinated, entertained, and relieved from strenuous work in a way never seen by previous generations.  Technology has fixed our teeth, our eyes, our ears and our mood swings.  We were able to easily access ideas from all over and spread our own ideas.  But it was not free.  And it feels very much like the Devil is determined to get his due.

For a story about the limits of technology, you might try my “Two New Apps.”  Or you could ask AI to summarize it for you!

 

Addie LaRue, Faust, and Old Age

I have been fascinated (but not surprised) to see a Faustian novel on the best-seller list for the past six months.  The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is a Faust tale with a twist, and quite enjoyable reading.  There are actually two deals with the devil in this book.  Addie, the main character, has made a pact with Mephistopheles (here nicknamed Luc) which includes both a kind of immortality and eternal youth.  The problem is that she has asked for time and freedom.  No obligations.  Luc fixes this for her by making sure that no one remembers her from one encounter to the next.  It makes robbery easy, but relationships hard.  Henry, the love interest, has made his own deal with the devil based on his desire “to be loved.”  So, everyone he meets loves Henry, but it is clear that they do not love him with discrimination or of their own volition. They love him because a spell has been cast.  There is an especially funny scene in which Henry has a reunion with his dysfunctional family of origin where he has always been a black sheep, but now is the clear favorite of all.  Nevertheless, both deals are very unsatisfactory after theinitial euphoria.  Be careful what you ask for.  Or as Truman Capote reminded us, when the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.

Since the original German chapbook about Dr. Faustus in the 16th century (based on even earlier legends), there have been numerous versions of the Faust story.  Goethe and Marlowe wrote theirs in the form of plays.  Thomas Mann wrote a good one (Dr. Faustus) and his son wrote one too (Mephisto – but if you’re going to read one, read the father’s and pity the son).  Washington Irving and Stephen Vincent Benet wrote famous versions. It was done time and again in music too.  Bohemian Rhapsody is thought to be based on a Faust story, as is music written by Liszt, Schumann, and Wagner.  There was at least one successful Broadway musical on the topic (Damn Yankees), and even an episode of The Simpsons (“Bart Sells His Soul”).

The Faust story fascinates us.  Maybe this is because we have all sold our souls for one thing or another – individually and collectively.  Spengler posited that Faust was the core myth of our culture: “Western man sold his soul for technology.”  Take your nose out of your cell phone and think about this.   While not all technology is bad, most technology has some bad consequences, and all technology can be used for evil purposes.  Progress does not necessarily lead to paradise.

But I am especially interested when poor souls make a pact for eternal youth and longevity.  This, for example, is the basis for Gounod’s opera, Faust, where the title character seems to want youth more than anything.   I thought of this recently as I read an article entitled “Is Life Extension Today A Faustian Bargain?”  The author (S. Jay Olshansky) is concerned that while the “longevity revolution” increased life-span by 30 years over the last century or so, we are now trading small increments in life-span for large increases in chronic illnesses:

But Mephistopheles isn’t done with us.  Like the street magician that lets you win the first game, and then sucks you into a bigger con with larger stakes, or a drug dealer that gets you hooked with free samples, the next much costlier offer is before us now.  We’ve had our taste of longevity, and now we want more – much more at any cost, and Mephistopheles knows this.

We know this.  We also know that the chances of dementia after a certain age balloon upward, and as we watch our diets and take our statins, we have to worry about whether we are just preserving our bodies for a longer stay in the memory care facility.  As with most technology, we tend not to think of the negative ramifications.  In the article referenced above, Dr. Olshansky suggests that we might concentrate our research more on having a better old age than having a simply longer one.  I think we also have to think about what a “better” old age means – does it simply mean retaining our youth or is it something different?  What would a “better” old age mean to you?  Mary Oliver asks, “When men sell their souls, where do the souls go?”  Old age might be a good time to get them back.

Faust fascinates me.  Life is like Borges’ “Garden of the Forking Paths;”  every time we choose one experience over another, we are bartering away our future – for good or bad.  Faust’s experience with Mephistopheles is one metaphor for this.  A more benign one might be Robert Frost’s “two roads diverg[ing] in a wood.”

I have written on this topic before (“Notes on Faust”) and written a novel (unpublished) with a Faust theme, the Prologue of which can be accessed here.  I have also posted a portion of Chapter 5 of that book (A Kind of Joy) wherein Pauline (an agent of the Mephistopheles figure) works out her deal with Faye, a young mother and novelist.

Meanwhile I encourage you to think about the bargains you have made, and what a good old age should look like.

Notes on Faust

I just came back from visiting my mother in Memory Care. A few days spending time with patients in various stages of health and dementia has gotten me thinking about Faust again – about the Faust legend in general terms and what kind of Faustian bargain we might have made and be making for the miracles of life extension.

Spengler called Faust the fundamental myth of Western Civilization and this myth has been tackled by great authors from Marlowe to Goethe to Mann to Bulgakov. In case you have forgotten, Faust is a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in return for knowledge, power, wealth. Faust supposedly traces back to an historical figure in early 16th century in Germany, and was kept alive because it struck a deep chord in those who heard it or read it – in farcical plays, in fireside tales, or in early chapbooks.

“Not enough Fausts are written. Everyone should write one,” said Ludwig von Arnim in the early 19th century. In fact, we all write one with our lives. For what are we willing to sell our souls? I, in fact, wrote a “Faust” novel a few years back (the prologue to A Kind of Joy or An Essay with Characters is here), and the exercise forced me to think about this question and how other authors have dealt with it. Marlowe’s Faust asked for magic, Mann’s wants to create great musical compositions, and Goethe’s wants never to be bored. The Faust I created was a woman, and she wants the opposite of what Goethe’s Faust wanted – my fictional Faye wants contentment, peace. For that she is willing to sell her soul. But that is a story, a thought experiment.

If the Faust legend is the central myth of Western culture, of the Enlightenment, then what has our culture bargained for? Like Goethe’s hero, we surely don’t want to be bored; one might wonder what we have sold our attention for. And we don’t want to die. In most of the Faust stories, the protagonist gets twenty-four years before the soul must be handed over. But twenty-first century people do not want to die at all, and has continually increased life spans until our bodies often last much longer than our minds. Science may solve this problem, but don’t count on it. And thus we keep building “Memory Care” facilities to house our bodies, and we keep uploading our pictures and memories to the cloud to ensure that they are not lost forever. I don’t have an answer. Science has done wonders in eradicating disease (think of polio vaccine!), disability (think of cataract surgery!), and the debilitations of old age (think of hip replacement!). It has also made many deadly diseases into simply chronic ones (think of insulin!). But it has not yet enabled our minds to function as long and well as our bodies do.

In the end, most fictional Fausts learn their lesson. Sometimes they lose their lives and souls (Marlowe) and sometimes they recant and the author rescues them at the last moment (Goethe). It doesn’t really matter. The important point is to consider what we sacrifice in life for what we receive. It is easier to think about the rewards and not the payment, but there is that unavoidable moment when payment comes due (Goethe notwithstanding). My mother has lived far longer than her parents or grandparents, but finds herself in a mental state that they never had to experience. Our planet has afforded most of us in the West lives of comfort and plenty, but now our seas are rising and our summers are stifling. Faustian bargains are traditionally with the Devil, but perhaps we could think of the Devil as representing our more impulsive nature, of the tendency to favor immediate gratification over the long-term good. In any case, it is an interesting problem to think about.

Faust might be an especially good legend to contemplate in our old age. In Goethe’s version, it is the old mythological couple, Baucis and Philemon, who stand up to the land-developing, greedy Faust. They refuse to sell out and move from the remote bungalow and thus anger Faust: “Their stubbornness, their opposition/ Ruins my finest acquisition.” Needless to say, they lose (and die), but they will forever stand on the moral ground. In the remoteness of old age – past the time of ambition and acquisition – maybe we can see the ramifications of the Faust myth more clearly  than our children. It is worth thinking about. What did you sell your soul for? What would you sell your soul for?