Media Literacy - "The Road Not Taken" (1 Viewer)

[RetroMcBananaFace]

Since the other path was never taken, you don't really know if it was better or worse.

But that's the point, we want to know! Good or bad, we still want to know. Either to justify the good decision we did make, or to be able to find blame/fault in the choice that led us the wrong way.

But until we invent time travel or the Ghost of Christmas Past rolls through, though, we're stuck in our linearity.

The self-deception/rationalization bit is just another layer of that, IMO. That's just what we do to fill in the blanks.

 

[buzd]

But that's the point, we want to know! Good or bad, we still want to know. Either to justify the good decision we did make, or to be able to find blame/fault in the choice that led us the wrong way.

I don't want to know.

 

[superchuck500]

But isn't it all kind of irrelevant? You have a Shrodinger's cat situation here. Since the other path was never taken, you don't really know if it was better or worse.

I think the author is celebrating a kind of "no regrets" mindset, but as to the empiric value of the (metaphoric) road itself, who can really say?

maybe 'unqualifiable' instead of irrelevant
unlike the cat, the result of the path choice is not binary - most of us (77%) will take one path and view it as the best choice regardless (and the other 23% will view it as a bad choice regardless)
the point is that it's not the choice but the self-narration

Okay, so is Frost's point existential?

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

I don't want to know.

As I said earlier, I envy that. It must be liberating.

IIRC, Frost was writing from the perspective of a friend who was basically a chronic daydreamer - he knew that no matter what decision he made, no matter how well it turned out for him, he would always regret not being able to see where the other path might have led.

I don't see that as coming from a place that's intrinsically positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic. It think it's just.....curiosity.

 

[superchuck500]

As I said earlier, I envy that. It must be liberating.

IIRC, Frost was writing from the perspective of a friend who was basically a chronic daydreamer - he knew that no matter what decision he made, no matter how well it turned out for him, he would always regret not being able to see where the other path might have led.

I don't see that as coming from a place that's intrinsically positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic. It think it's just.....curiosity.

I think that regret resulting from curiosity to know something that is unknowable has a certain melancholy to it. Calling it neutral might be a stretch. People who dwell on those kinds of things are often described as neurotic.

 

[buzd]

As I said earlier, I envy that. It must be liberating.

IIRC, Frost was writing from the perspective of a friend who was basically a chronic daydreamer - he knew that no matter what decision he made, no matter how well it turned out for him, he would always regret not being able to see where the other path might have led.

I don't see that as coming from a place that's intrinsically positive or negative, optimistic or pessimistic. It think it's just.....curiosity.

You don't think regret is negative? (Ok, melancholy. Chuck beat me to it)

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Okay, so is Frost's point existential?

mmm...i wouldn't say that
i think existentialists would argue that the path you're on is the only path - that even the idea of a choice was illusory
THOUGH, i think it's important to draw a distinction between european existentialists (whose philosophies were built on the actual destruction of their countries) and american existentialists who just kind of adopted the philosophy and is much more theorhetic than visceral - Americans didn't have their hopes, and thus their future, shattered like europeans; so our existentialism is decidedly less bleak (but a bit more whiny)

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

I think that regret resulting from curiosity to know something that is unknowable has a certain melancholy to it. Calling it neutral might be a stretch. People who dwell on those kinds of things are often described as neurotic.

Solid point.

What would the world be like without neurotics though? Art is most often perpetuated by crazy people.

 

[superchuck500]

Solid point.

What would the world be like without neurotics though? Art is most often perpetuated by crazy people.

Indeed. My conclusion was not to discount the value of that thought process, even if not 'optimistic' or 'positive' by definition.

 

[RetroMcBananaFace]

mmm...i wouldn't say that
i think existentialists would argue that the path you're on is the only path - that even the idea of a choice was illusory
THOUGH, i think it's important to draw a distinction between european existentialists (whose philosophies were built on the actual destruction of their countries) and american existentialists who just kind of adopted the philosophy and is much more theorhetic than visceral - Americans didn't have their hopes, and thus their future, shattered like europeans; so our existentialism is decidedly less bleak (but a bit more whiny)

Heard this point before, in a far-too-deeply philosophical discussion of the popularity of soccer in Europe vs. here. The idea is, they've embraced random happenstance; if a team dominates for 80 minutes and loses because of the randomest fluke you've ever seen, that's just the will of the universe. Westerners on the other hand keep trying to bend the will of the universe to meet our expectations, so we create more rules and more structures in our games to limit the possiblity of fluke happenings.

 

[superchuck500]

Heard this point before, in a far-too-deeply philosophical discussion of the popularity of soccer in Europe vs. here. The idea is, they've embraced random happenstance; if a team dominates for 80 minutes and loses because of the randomest fluke you've ever seen, that's just the will of the universe. Westerners on the other hand keep trying to bend the will of the universe to meet our expectations, so we create more rules and more structures in our games to limit the possiblity of fluke happenings.

I have observed this too. It is exceedingly common to hear Euro soccer announcers refer to something as 'unlucky'. The concept of luck determining sports in the US is far, far less common. If the shot went slightly wide of the goal, it's because he was slightly off target. Luck had nothing to do with it.