I think like almost everything in evolution, the old forms persist. New forms come along - not always, of course; there are species and whole lineages that go extinct - but basically novels and plays, and so on, will continue to exist. Jokes, as the lowest-cost form of narrative, will certainly continue to exist. They're a bit like microbes in the biological world. They're low-cost and they're everywhere. They're the most successful form of life, even though they're not the ones we think about most.
Brian BoydEverything is humanities. The sciences are a form of the humanities. They involve traditions of inquiry; they involve social engagement with ideas. They do not happen with a naked brain going out and encountering a nonhuman world. And the better we understand ourselves, the better we can do science, as well. So I don't see them - the sciences and the humanities - as being at all different.
Brian BoydIf an artwork never gets any attention from anybody, then obviously it's got problems. If it gains attention from a very small elite, then it's presumably doing something. Finnegans Wake gets a lot of attention from certain people who become passionate about it, who are usually very good readers in general. Although - I often talk about costs and benefits - it seems to me the costs of reading Finnegans Wake are not worth the benefits, however many there may be. And it's the same with the more arcane among poets, Zukofsky and so on.
Brian BoydThere's a young Danish guy who has done a lot of work from an evolutionary perspective, Mathias Clasen. Basically, his argument is we've evolved to fear the monstrous, to be very wary of large, unknown, life-threatening forces. In art, we can play with these things in ways that allow us to feel the intensity of the horror, but in "safe mode," if you like, detached from real consequences.
Brian BoydI think that's an important part of art in general. Especially in literature, in stories, we play with eventualities that may put us through a lot of intense negative feelings - say, in horror films or tragedies as intense as King Lear - but we come out feeling richer. We've lived to the fullest, we've tested ourselves in these environments.
Brian BoydIn fiction the story lives the more everyone comes to life, the more each character seems to exist in his or her own right.
Brian BoydI think like almost everything in evolution, the old forms persist. New forms come along - not always, of course; there are species and whole lineages that go extinct - but basically novels and plays, and so on, will continue to exist. Jokes, as the lowest-cost form of narrative, will certainly continue to exist. They're a bit like microbes in the biological world. They're low-cost and they're everywhere. They're the most successful form of life, even though they're not the ones we think about most.
Brian Boyd