Cultura organizacional y comunicación interna

Anyone capable of composing the following lines would surely qual- ify as a poet of the first rank:

41.The case of the motion lines is a little different from the others. There is no anomaly in the idea that fictionally there is air streaming around the moving object. Indeed that is probably fictional in any case, implied by the fact that fictionally the object is moving rapidly in an air-filled environment. But if the lines are understood to portray directly the movement of air, there would be some pressure to allow that it is fictional in the apprecia-tor's game that he sees it. One way to avoid this is to deny that it is by virtue of generaring fictional truths about the movement of air that the lines make it fictional that the object is moving. Still, it is because we can understand how the lines might portray moving air that they serve so naturally to portray motion. Here I am indebted to William Taschek.

Had it pleased heaven

To try me with affliction, had they raised All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head, Steeped me in poverty to the very lips,

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes; I should have found in some place of my soul A drop of patience. But alas . . ,43

How did Othello, a Moorish general and hardly an intellectual, man- age to come up with such superb verse on the spur of the moment, and when immensely distraught? Apparently he is to be credited with an almost unbelievable natural literary flair; at least this would appear to be a consequence of either the Reality Principle or the Mutual Belief Principle. And isn't it peculiarly inappropriate for Othello to make such a grandiloquent speech in such distressing cir- cumstances? Why does he flaunt his literary skills so pompously? Why do other characters take no notice of his peculiar manner of discourse, or of his astounding literary talent?

Why do all thirteen of the diners in Leonardo's Last Supper line up in a row on the same side of the table? So that we, the viewers of the painting, should be able to see all of their faces, of course. No doubt that was Leonardo's reason for painting them so, for making it fic- tional that they are configured as they are. But what, fictionally, are

their reasons for arranging themselves thus? It isn't fictional that they

want to accommodate us or Leonardo, or that they are posing for a portrait. Must we suspect that they are fearful of facing one an- other-of kicks under the table or bad breath? Or is it fictional that there is nothing unusual, nothing rernarkable or noteworthy about their crowding together on one side of the table? Is it, fictionally, the custom to sit thus at a communal meal? How did such a peculiar custom arise? Could it be fictional that that is not their custom, that diners normally sit on both sides of a table, but fictional also that their departure from the norm on this occasion is not noteworthy, not in need of explanation? None of the alternatives is very attractive.

It is fictional in William Luce's play The Belle of Amherst that Emily Dickinson is an extraordinarily shy person who keeps to her- self.44 Yet she is onstage throughout the play, speaking constantly. Hers is the only role called for in the script; the actress playing it must

43. Shakespeare, Othello, act 2, sc. 2.

44. This is clear from what, fictionally, Dickinson says, and is reinforced by what we know about her real life.

command the attention and interest of the audience for the duration of the performance while portraying an unusually shy and retiring character. How can it be fictional that Dickinson says all that she does, all of what Julie Harris actually says while impersonating her, yet fictional that she is not gregarious? Is it fictional that all that is not much? Is it fictional that Dickinson is and is not gregarious? That she is and is not shy?

These are silly questions. They are pointless, inappropriate, out of order. To pursue or dwell on them would be not only irrelevant to appreciation and criticism but also distracting and destructive. The paradoxes, anomalies, apparent contradictions they point to seem artificial, contrived, not to be taken seriously. We don't take them seriously. Ordinarily we don't even notice them.

Contrast fictional worlds containing paradoxes that we do take seriously. Hogarth's False Perspective (figure 1.2), Escher's prints, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds (see § 5.3, note 18) all highlight their anomalies, and appreciators relish them. It is not silly to ask how a person leaning out of a second-story window could light a pipe for a friend on a distant hill; or how the water in M. C. Escher's Waterfall can be flowing uphill and down simultaneously, as it seems to be; or how a character could give birth to her author's son. These questions may have no good answers, but that is just the point. To ignore them is to miss the point. Other works contain paradoxes that are painful, legitimately disturbing, and that constitute aesthetic defects. Mistakes in perspective can be distressing,45 and so might a character in a novel whose actions unaccountably conflict with his personality (as estab- lished by an "omniscient" narrator). The questions raised in such cases may be entirely in order, not silly at all. They may make the work look silly.

Othello, The Last Supper, and The Belle of Amherst are not science

fiction or metaphysical fantasies; neither are they defective, by virtue of the anomalies one can, if one chooses, dig out of them. How Othello could have uttered verse worthy of Shakespeare is not a question of focal interest, a puzzle to intrigue and entrance, nor is it an irritating intrusion on the appreciator's experience, indicative of a blemish in the play. From the perspectives of appreciation and crit- icism, it is just silly.

We are reminded of dreams that seem perfectly normal and ordi- nary while they are being dreamed but manifest paradoxes when the

45. Perspective mistakes need to be differentiated from alternative kinds of perspective, although the distinction is by no means sharp. And "mistakes" vary in their seriousness.

dreamer tries to reconstruct them afterwards. Joan dreams of paying repeated visits to a man who seems sometimes to be her father and sometimes her boss (and it is clear that her father is not her boss). Who is the man in her dream? Do the father and the boss alternate appearances in it? But it may be part of the dream that all of the visits are to the same person. Is that person someone with (possibly incom- patible) characteristics of each, but identical to neither? But Joan does dream of visiting her father, not just someone like him, and also her boss. Does the recipient of her visits change his identity periodically (whatever that might mean) ? The breakfast conversation will be baf- fling. But the dream experience itself was not. The paradoxes did not intrude during the dream, however inescapable they seem in the bright light of day. Only at breakfast does Joan think something was amiss. Even at breakfast, moreover, Joan may feel that the anomalies have little to do with the true character of her dream or what is important about it, that dwelling on them can only interfere with an understanding of it.46 One can appropriate the dream for purposes of paradox mongering, but to do so is to refuse to comprehend it on its own terms.

Dreams like this are by no means unusual, and neither are represen- tations in which one can uncover pointless paradoxes by asking silly questions. In countless English-language novels everyone everywhere speaks English: French taxi drivers, Burmese peasants, Roman sol- diers. Renaissance paintings portray ancient personages in Renais- sance dress and settings, and contemporary theatrical productions sometimes forgo period costumes in favor of blue jeans. People ride on buses in stories of Balinese Arja theater set in the thirteenth cen- tury. Opera characters sometimes spend their last moments singing (of all things!), while in excruciating pain and as life and strength ebb away-and singing exquisitely. The most minimal disguises, trans- parent to the least perceptive member of the audience and from the farthest gallery, may nonetheless fool other characters.47 (Is it fic- tional that those characters are blind or stupid?) Narrators in literary works-and not just "omniscient" ones-tell of events they could not possibly know about. (How could anyone know that "they lived

46. Joan's association of her boss with her father may be a central "meaning" of the dream, which might be brought out by questions about the identity of the man she visits. But this does not mean that the paradox, the difficulty of finding a logically coherent reading of the dream world, is of any significance.

47. In The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey, 1937) Irene Dunne disguises herself as Cary Grant's sister: "The other people at the party . . . don't recognize her in her flimsy disguise because of the necessities of plot and comic form" (Braudy, The

happily ever after"? And how could even an "omniscient" narrator report this in the past tense?) The mirror in Rubens' Toilette of Venus (figure 4.2) shows us what according to the laws of optics Venus should see in it; yet it is fictional, presumably, that this is what she does see in it. (See § 8.7.) Few works are safe from the determined paradox monger. With a little cheek and a suspension of charity the impish critic can find what look like embarrassing questions to ask

4.2 Peter Paul Rubens, Toilette of Venus, 483/4 x 385/8 inches, panel (c. 1613-1615). Sammlungen des Re-gierenden Fürsten von Liechtenstein.

about even the most staid, ordinary, and straightforwardly "realistic" representations.

There is a lot of variety here. Some silly questions are sillier than others. Artificial anomalies vary in both artificiality and paradox- icality. In some cases one might hope to get away with observing merely that the fictional world differs astonishingly from the real one. There is nothing paradoxical in that, nor in the fictionality of proposi-

tions whose truth would be most unlikely or even impossible. It is fictional that Burmese peasants speak English, that Oedipus wears blue jeans, that there were buses in the thirteenth century; these fic- tional worlds are thus unlike the real one. So what? But reality (or what is mutually believed about reality) exerts its influence on fic- tional worlds in ways that clash, if we allow them to, with recognized fictional truths. Is it fictional that English is the world's only lan- guage? Rarely can we insist comfortably that it is, especially if it is fictional, as it may well be even in a novel written entirely in English, that foreigners and natives fail to understand one another and that translators travel with traders and diplomats. But if Burmese is the language of Burma, how (fictionally) do uneducated Burmese peas- ants manage to learn English? How did the ancient Greeks acquire the technology for making blue jeans? Surely such evenly woven and identically constructed garments could not have been produced by hand (except by virtue of truly extraordinary skill and concentra-tion- which would themselves demand explanation). If they did pos-sess this technology, why were they still riding in chariots and throw-ing spears at one another? Tensions emerge from differences between fictional worlds and the real one when we insist on asking the wrong questions.

The anomalies consist in dissonances among fictional truths each of which, considered separately, appears to be generated in a normal and ordinary manner, by virtue of principles that are in other contexts unobjectionable. Individually innocent fictional truths are uncomfor- tably paradoxical in combination. The source of the dissonances can often be seen to lie in divergent demands made on the artist; diverse objectives he may be pursuing and constraints he may be working under may interfere with one another.

Sometimes the need to make a fictional world accessible to the intended audience conflicts with a desire to make it reasonably "real- istic," reasonably like the real world. A Tale of Two Cities puts English words into the mouths of French characters so that English readers will understand, although if it weren't for that, one would expect Dickens to have had his French characters speak French, as the French normally do. Constraints inherent in the medium sometimes make it difficult to generate combinations of fictional truths that might otherwise be desired. Leonardo wanted to establish fictional truths concerning the faces of all thirteen diners at the Last Supper. Perhaps he would have preferred it to be fictional that they surround the tablc in the ordinary manner, but he sacrificed the latter for the

sake of the former. This example, like the previous one, involves consideration of the appreciator's relation to the fictional world, although the question is not one of the accessibility of fictional truths. Leonardo's choice was dictated, no doubt, by the desire to make it fictional in viewers' games that they see the fronts rather than the backs of the diners. Similar considerations are at work in The Belle of

Amherst and in the case of Rubens' optically exotic mirror. It is for

the audience's sake that Emily Dickinson talks as much as she does; it is so that fictional truths about her can be generated, and so that viewers can, fictionally, learn about her. Essentially the same body of fictional truths might be generated in other ways, without making Dickinson so loquacious. Someone else might occupy the stage in her stead and give the audience a detailed account of her thoughts and actions, while Dickinson herself (fictionally) remains in the wood- work. No doubt Luce had reasons for letting Dickinson tell her own story. Given that choice, the conflict with her shyness is hard to avoid. Othello's peculiarly elaborate language is demanded by the style in which the play is written and by Shakespeare's desire to provide superb verse for the pleasure of his audience, which in this case took precedence over considerations of "realism."48

Declaring a question to be silly does not answer it; it is an excuse, however legitimate, for not answering it. Perhaps our silly questions should not arise in the course of ordinary interaction with the work, but they are fair game for the theorist, standing as he does somewhat apart from appreciation and criticism and observing them from with- out. In any case, suppose one simply insists, pigheadedly, on asking about Othello's literary talent, the disciples' peculiar seating arrange- ment, and Emily Dickinson's verbosity. Silly or not, what are the answers to these questions?

Many have no definitive answers, and answers of different sorts will seem reasonable in different cases and to different observers. If the questions do not much matter within the institution of representa- tion, we will not be surprised if that institution fails to provide answers to be discovered from without. Still, if one insists on responding to the questions, how is one to do so?

It may be best to defuse some paradoxes by disallowing fictional

‟

48. Here is a conflict of a different sort among an artist's objectives: "In Queen

Christina, the famous final close-up apparently has the wind blowing in two

directions at once, one to get the boat under way and the other to arrange Garbo's hair to the best advantage" (Halliwell, The Filmgoer’s Companion, under "Boo- Boos," p. 97). This anom-aly does and should bother the viewer, it seems to me, although it would be unreasonable to dwell excessively on it.

truths responsible for them. The generation of fictional truths in what seems otherwise to be a perfectly normal manner may be blocked simply by the fact that they clash with others. When Oedipus and other ancient personages are portrayed in contemporary dress, we can deny that what the actors wear is, fictionally, what the characters do, thereby undercutting questions about how the ancients managed to manufacture blue jeans. We can simply refuse to count the actors' clothing as props, even though the same clothing on the same actors would undoubtedly serve as props in a play about Chicago street gangs. What does Oedipus wear, if not blue jeans? Probably no very specific fictional truths about his clothing are generated, although it may be reasonable to assume it to be fictional that he dresses appro- priately for his culture and station. The world of the play performance is probably incomplete in this regard, just as black-and-white drawings are incomplete with respect to color.

If the silliness of a question convinces us that the generation of otherwise acceptable fictional truths should be blocked, it may be unclear where in a chain of implications the block should come. Given that fictionally Emily Dickinson says all of the particular things she does say, it would seem to be implied that fictionally she speaks a great deal on those occasions, that fictionally she ordinarily or fre- quently speaks much, and that fictionally she is a rather talkative person and not at all shy. The fact that it is fictional, for other reasons, that she is shy will dissuade us from drawing this last conclusion and may suggest that the series of extrapolations should have been cut short earlier. But it is uncertain where the line should be drawn.49

What about Othello? Most of us will probably prefer not to allow that fictionally Othello is a great literary talent, and even to affirm that fictionally he is not. But this only shifts the paradox. Is it fictional that Othello lacks special literary talent and yet is capable of impro- vising superb verse while distraught? Shall we deny that fictionally

49. These blocks differ significantly from those mentioned in § 4.3. The fact that fic-tionally, in a silent movie, someone steps on piano keys may imply that fictionally piano sounds are emitted. But the fact that fictionally the piano has no strings, generated later by a shot of the innards of the piano, would block the implication. Still, it is fictional that it appeared as though piano sounds would be produced when the keys were stepped on, and it was fictional that one would be justified in supposing that they were. But it is not fictional even that Oedipus appears to be wearing blue jeans when the actor portraying him does. It is as though the clash between the actor's blue jeans and the fact that fictionally Oedipus lived in