Critics of sociobiology, who are dogmatic Liberals, denounce this idea as monstrous. We will not attempt to decide that difficult question here, since any attempt to decide what aspects of behavior are genetic and what are learned after birth always descends into ideological metaphysics in the prevailing absence of real data.
Art is by its nature implicit and ambiguous. It is also embodied: it produces embodied creations which speak to us through the senses, even if their medium is language, and which have effects on us physically as embodied beings in the lived world.
I argued that physical discomfort is important only when the mood is wrong. Then you fasten on to whatever thing is uncomfortable and call that the cause. But if the mood is right, then physical discomfort doesn’t mean much.
[A private report to JFK from his friend Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield that was blunt and pessimistic about the future of Vietnam] showed that if this policy had not fooled anyone else, it had deceived the deceivers.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “Relate” as: “(v) - to bring into or establish association, connection or relation.” If you want to connect with your audience, get their attention, convey information and possibly move them to act, you must be relatable. It’s simple biology: People are animals. Animals are instinctually self-preserving. Animals learn the best self-preservation techniques by studying successful examples of others of their same species and copying those behaviors. (This is why dolphins tend to school with other dolphins and don’t generally hang out with oysters. At least not socially.) Animals respond to other animals that they relate to.
Collingwood makes a long detour through the history of the idea of ideas, agreeing with Hume that an idea is what consciousness makes of an impression.
