TITLE: Tragedy and the Possibilities of Unlimited Storage
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: November 22, 2010  2:18 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
I've spent considerable time this morning cleaning out the
folder on my desktop
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-02.html#e2005-02-13T17_04_44.htm">
   where I keep stuff</A>.
In one the dozens of notes files I've created over the last
year or so, I found this unattributed quote:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
In 1961, the scholar and cultural critic George Steiner
argued in a controversial book, "The Death of Tragedy",
that theatrical tragedies had begun their steady decline
with the rise of rationalism and the Enlightenment in the
17th century.  The Greek notion of tragedy was premised on
man's inability to control his fate in the face of
capricious, often brutal gods.  But the point of a tragedy
was to dramatize man's ability to make choices whatever his
uncontrollable end. 

The emphasis was not on the death -- what the gods usually
had in store -- but on what the hero died for: the state,
love, his own dignity.  Did he die nobly?  Or with shame?
For a worthy cause?  Or pitiless self-interest?  Tragedies,
then, were ultimately "an investigation into the possibilities
of human freedom", as Walter Kerr put it in "Tragedy and
Comedy" (1967).
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like this passage now as much as I must have when I typed
it up from some book I was reading.  (I'm surprised I did
not write down the source!)  It reminds me that I face and
make choices every day that reveal who I am.  Indeed, the
choices I make create who I am.  That message feels especially
important to me today.

And yes, I know there are better tools for keeping notes
than dozens of text files thrown into nearly as many folders.
I take notes using a couple of them as well.  Sometimes I
lack the self-discipline I need to leave an ordered life!
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