The following reflections were inspired by the recent interview published on the Emancipations with Daniel Tutt YouTube channel. Daniel Tutt also writes on Substack (Daniel’s Journal) and runs study groups, organized through Patreon.
Here (at the time and place of this writing), it is Canada Day, which for me means a brief break from work, from the pressures and constraints of my usual daily life. This morning, while scrolling through YouTube and drinking coffee, I noticed the interview mentioned (and linked) above. While it’s not short, I ended up listening to it twice, and hope to listen to it again in the future (perhaps after reading Gorelick’s book, The Unwritten Enlightenment). It was a very pleasant way to spend the better part of a morning, while also spending some time with our cat (who hasn’t been feeling well since Sunday).
In the world of podcasts, interviews, and video presentations, there are contributions that succeed in giving their audience a sense of joy, possibility, discovery, and open horizons. There may be a subjective element on the part of particular audience members for that success to take place, but there are elements in the content itself, the way it is produced, and the reasons for its production. I cannot put my finger on what makes Daniel’s interviews engaging. He is a careful reader (regarding his preparations before the interview) and listener (regarding his responses during the live exchange), but are those enough on their own? He is interested in the subject matter, and he brings his interest into the conversation without letting that interest dominate the conversation.
Multiple times during the interview, he touches on a concept or a term and says something along the lines of, “This is of interest to you,” or “I know this is central to your work,” as part of his attempt to invite Gorelick to discuss them further. But Daniel also highlights what is of interest to him, or the thinker he identifies with (Rousseau), and these make the interview more dialogical and open-ended. I suppose the way to keep an interview open-ended is to show the open-ended nature of your own thought, and the questions that may be urging the dialogue in certain directions.
On that last point, I appreciate Daniel’s habit of saying, “This is a question I have, but feel free to not answer it and do something else with it.” I am paraphrasing, and I think what he says may be closer to “Do with this question what you wish.” Or, I’d like you to be aware that I have this question, without feeling obligated to respond to it. This is such a wonderful way, such a self-reflective way, of raising questions and tending to them. It’s as if Daniel is responsive to an inner critic, and by being responsive to that part of himself, he communicates effectively to the critic that’s in his audience. (Note, incidentally, that the theme of writing/creating primarily for critics is also included in the interview above.)
With respect to the organization of the interview, it is striking how many topics and concepts were introduced in it. A bit scattered, perhaps, like many tangents on several different paths. But that organization might make more sense if we see the interview as a collection of notes at the end of a scholarly book. In such books, each endnote is taken from the main body of the book and given the status of a tangent. A note/tangent is of interest to a subset of the readers, corresponding to a deeper level of interest. With this interview, the book (the main course) is sitting elsewhere, comfortably, as if all three parties (interviewer, interviewee, and audience) are done with a first reading of the book. They’re now free to discuss the book without having to cover the book or introduce it (or sell it?) to a neutral audience. They’re free to be organized in terms of a book’s summary, and can be organized instead in terms of a book’s endnotes.
I am aware of the inversion that’s being ignored in the previous paragraph. Yes, more people might listen to Tutt’s interview with Gorelick than might read Gorelick’s book, so if we follow the analogy of endnotes, we’ll reach the contradiction that there are viewers who are expressing a deeper level of interest (going through a series of endnotes and tangents) without enacting the basic level of interest (going through the text that inspires those tangents). I might be one of those audience members, but at least in my case, what I end up with is an awareness of the fact of not having read the text. An awareness of a missing piece and a possibility. It is precisely the way in which I am presented, and made aware of, this possibility that offers me ground for joy.
Is there a part of that joy that is not associated with presupposing that I’ll read Gorelick’s work eventually? Is there a part that presupposes a refusal to read, to be well-read, a part inspired by Marquis de Sade to not direct one’s desires along conventional lines, in response to the Other’s desire? To both recognize and refuse the will-read presupposition, and ultimately to see that desire as a tangent on the dialogue that I am listening to, the dialogue that is bringing me back to the here and now, to my finitude, to my brief break from work, and to my ailing cat.
Gorelick points out that Tristram Shandy begins his life story at the time of his conception and ends up nine years before his death. Similarly, at the end of such a good exchange, we end up at a point that’s before our initial position. We could get relatively closer to the “beginner’s mindset,” which is perhaps better described as a beginner’s mindset (since we differ in our initial positions and, therefore, in our positions before our initial positions). There is no blank slate to return to, though we might be able to unearth a list of real questions, questions that for us are real, and with which we could do as we wish.