Also, do as I say, not as I do.
So part of the Chomskian Revolution (and he despises that phrase, I believe) in linguistics was proposing this. . . thingee, we'll call it. . . called the Language Acquisition Device.
"Acquisition," not learning. Conscious decision there; despite what folks like to think, you don't teach your child a language. As anyone who's struggled to get a hunk of silicon to try to make a decent attempt at passing a Turing Test can tell you, you couldn't consciously impart everything you know about a language if you tried, because you just plain ain't aware of how much is running in the background.
Anyway, [one] theory goes that at some point, around puberty, the Language Acquisition Device goes bye-bye. After that, you're on your own trying to learn (yes, learn this time) a second+ language, and we all know how much fun that is.
Ok, except the Americans, most of whom don't even fucking bother.
Taking this into a new realm, thus stomping all over the theory and leaving it useless, been ripping off Warren Ellis and talking about Neophobes a bit lately.
What if there's something in your head that deals with the new?
That lets you create new categories for dealing with previously-unencountered shit?
And what if that, also, goes bye-bye after a certain point?
This explains Republicans, I think.
But, just like some folks can soak up new languages after puberty, some folks can handle the new past. . . what, early to mid 30's? That seem like a reasonable cut-off?
So, some musicians, like the late Miles Davis, or David Bowie, or even Michael Jackson, can keep putting out material that sounds contemporary for the time it's released, while others just stagnate and keep mining the same ground.
I'm leaving the self-conscious repackaging stuff like Madonna does out of this, because I'm rude that way. Fuck you, I'm vamping.
Difference, I hope, is that while there doesn't seem to be any way to re-activate the LAD, the part that deals with the new maybe doesn't have to wither and die. Or can be brought back through effort.
For folks who have lost it, well, as far as I'm concerned, they're just taking up space and breathing my air, and I wish they would stop.
Because although Neophobes do, apparently, die early, they just don't die early enough. And while these walking zombies are shambling around, they're reacting to newness badly. Often violently.
Not just with physical violence, although there's plenty enough of that to go around, but by trying to force unfamiliar concepts -- or unfamiliar people -- into their pre-existing set of conceptual categories. And hacking off anything that doesn't fit.
Sorry. Thinking out loud. No point, old men like me don't bother making points. There is no point.
Director commentary/bonus footage: Meant to work the sentence, "At some point, the new becomes threatening rather than intriguing," or something like that, in there. But it was going on too long as it is, and I couldn't get the wording exactly how I wanted it; don't feel like looking through a thesaurus trying to find the right words, and they're not coming to me.
Could add some more here about the LAD and Turing Test, but figure there are links for the curious.
That, and at least part of this sounds vaguely reminicent of stuff in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. Well, perhaps no one will notice the similarity.
Oh yeah. And then there's this wretched fucking powerpoint document (remixed/ruined into HTML by Google):
Critiques of schema/frame/script theory (1)How are they acquired to begin with? Processes of induction that are poorly specified
How do we make sense of unique or novel events for which no schemata exist?
Why do stereotypic events get described at all?
Critiques of schema/frame/script theory (2)
What about odd occurrences that nonetheless are not explicitly incompatible with the schema? – e.g.,
‘John is pretty crazy, and sometimes does strange things. Yesterday he went to Sardi’s for dinner. He sat down, examined the menu, ordered a steak, and got up and left.’ (Kaplan 1981, quoted in Brown & Yule, p. 250)Critiques of schema/frame/script theory (3)
Constraining the activation of world knowledge:
Which schemata are activated, on the basis of which text cues? What parts of a given schema are activated? – e.g.,
The Cathedral congregation had watched on television monitors as Pope and Archbishop met, in front of a British Caledonian helicopter, on the dewy grass of a Canterbury recreation ground. (The Sunday Times, quoted in Brown & Yule p. 240)Critiques of schema/frame/script theory (4)
the boundaries of scripts/schemata are difficult to determine
the restaurant script is unusually self-contained
These are general problems for any model of the role of background knowledge: how to determine principles limiting the range of knowledge that must be included, so that all and only relevant schemata, etc., and all and only the relevant parts thereof, are activated.
Critiques of schema/frame/script theory (5)
The number of possible scripts/schemata is potentially limitless: therefore they are of limited use as a text analysis tool. (Hoey)
Hoey argues that the knowledge contained in schemata is accompanied by more generalised expectations – e.g., that problems are followed by attempts at solutions. Typical pattern: Situation – Problem
But delving too far into schema/frame/script theory gives the entire game away, for anyone who hasn't quite managed to work this all out yet. And, again, where's the fun in that?
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