the affections at work in life
In Malcolm Gladwell's work, Blink: the power of thinking without thinking, he describes a situation where affections clearly control intellect. (The book itself is about how people make seemingly intuitive/instinctive snap judgments which Gladwell attributes to the work of the unconcious part of our mind.)
"The art historian George Ortiz was once asked by Ernst Langlotz, one of the world's foremost experts on archaic sculpture, whether he wanted to purchase a bronze statuette. Ortiz went to see the piece and was taken aback; it was, to his mind, clearly a fake, full of contradictory and slipshod elements. So why was Langlotz, who knew as much as anyone in the world about Greek statues fooled? Ortiz's explanation is that Langlotz had bought the sculpture as a very young man, before he acquired much of his formidable expertise. 'I suppose,' Ortiz said, 'that Langlotz fell in love with this piece; when you are a young man, you do fall in love with your first purchase, and perhaps this was his first love. Notwithstanding his unbelievable knowledge, he was obviously unable to questions his first assessment.'" (pp. 14-15)
"The art historian George Ortiz was once asked by Ernst Langlotz, one of the world's foremost experts on archaic sculpture, whether he wanted to purchase a bronze statuette. Ortiz went to see the piece and was taken aback; it was, to his mind, clearly a fake, full of contradictory and slipshod elements. So why was Langlotz, who knew as much as anyone in the world about Greek statues fooled? Ortiz's explanation is that Langlotz had bought the sculpture as a very young man, before he acquired much of his formidable expertise. 'I suppose,' Ortiz said, 'that Langlotz fell in love with this piece; when you are a young man, you do fall in love with your first purchase, and perhaps this was his first love. Notwithstanding his unbelievable knowledge, he was obviously unable to questions his first assessment.'" (pp. 14-15)
posted by ordk90 at 3/02/2005
1 Comments:
You're right -- I don't know if Gladwell would subscribe to the primacy of affections, but I thought the illustration he provided speaks to that issue. The illustration he gives strikes me as being affective.
I didn't intend to suggest that the book is affective. Thanks for pointing it out. :-)
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