I first encountered Calvino when studying a module at University called 'Literature in Transition'. Cosmicomics is a collection of 'Neorealist' short stories that take a scientific 'fact' (of the time) and redirects it toward fantastical, whimsical froufrou. As somebody eternally invested in imagination, the ineffable and the Chthonic, this approach to story-telling really appeals to me. I am also wary of the authority of Science to the exclusion of all else and particularly interested in Romanticism and its relationship with the Enlightenment. Romanticism was seen as 'immature' by disciples of Reason. Anything that speaks of what cannot be rationalised or explained by science is generally obviated by what I find to be extremely arrogant scoffers who throw around missives like 'Nu-Age', 'Mumbo-jumbo' or most violent of all, CODSWALLOP. There seems to be a correlation - for these doubters at least - between imagination, Spirituality and Mysticism with immaturity and childishness. You see this in the zeal of 'The facts don't care about your feelings' boys like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan.
I don't remember why I made a note in January 2019 to read Calvino's The Cloven Viscount. I finally ordered and read a copy in May 2022. Synchronicity City! as I arbitrarily picked it up just after I wrote the previous blog post about conceptualisations of childhood. The story really chimed with the thoughts I'd been metabolising and writing about in that post. I wrote at the time:
"With the dawn of the Enlightenment came a shift away from dominant Medieval philosophies of Foundationalism as espoused by thinkers like Descartes, back toward ‘Aristotelian teleology’. (Newbon, 2018, p.27). This teleology proposes that knowledge of a ‘thing’ (in the epistemological sense) is dependent upon not just the ‘cause’ of the thing in and of itself but also its wider ‘causes’ upon the development of a greater whole. In biology at the time this led to mechanistic considerations of nature; that each organism acted upon something else and contributed some purpose, as the ear to hearing or the eye to seeing (Britannica, 2019). ‘This understanding of human history as linear and progressive inculcated a model of the evolution of human societies: the stadial paradigm’ (Newbon, 2018, p.27). Thinkers of the time, such as Smith (1763) saw history as existing by stages of development and sought to discover what caused these developments. It is easy to find correlates in the developmentalist tradition in Psychology. During this period Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762) set forth his belief that children were different to adults, and just like sociocultural stadial theory regarded society progressing through stages, that children did the same. If societies were developed out of primitivism or natural forms they would gradually mature into industrialisation. The Enlightenment was Man’s progression away from the ‘immaturity’ of Romanticism. Development in Sociocultural Theory finds its parallel in Psychological Theory in that an equation is made between progress and maturation; from the ignorance of a state of nature (the child) to the civility of industrialisation (the adult)."
The Cloven Viscount really resonated with me on an emotional level, or at least on a level hard to quantify or rationalise. This is my favourite experience of art now. I will offer my interpretation of my interpretation of the story, rather hesitantly (I don't think I'm very 'good' at this type of thing, despite being aware of how ridiculous that statement is), I won't go into any great critical detail because I think you would enjoy reading and experiencing it for yourself. An Italian viscount is severed in two by a cannon ball. One half, 'The Good 'Un' wanders the land whilst the other, 'The Bad 'Un' does too. The metaphor, like the viscount's injury is not exactly subtle. 'Splitting' is something I still struggle with, personally. Extreme, absolute thinking and characterisations of self and others is often symptomatic of Borderline Personality Disorder. Much of my experience of myself and others is in this black and white mould; on a relational level particularly, perhaps attributable to a turbulent adolescence (which involved collusion with one parent against the other - often referred to as triangulation). I view others as wholly good or wholly bad. This has often led me to idealise particularly romantic partners to then engage in games that serve to tear them down and lead me to consider them wholly bad. As a culture we have form with this - particularly our characterisation of celebrities.
With regards to my previous post, a couple of moments at the end of The Cloven Viscount jumped out at me and really spoke to the concept of childhood through a developmental lens. I wrote that whilst children progress through stages of development my own belief is that even so, it behoves adults to regard children as complex and defined in their own right. Within The Cloven Viscount as well were concepts of Non-duality. What is the use of splitting children into immature vs mature? What is the use in splitting human development into immature vs mature? Why is the 'maturity' of fact valued higher than the 'immaturity' of imagination? Why do we split so much when the irony is, it's often considered a mark of immaturity? 'It's not all black and white!' 'It's more nuanced' 'It's a grey area'. Of course! That's why binary structures serve to undermine a whole - we need to simplify grand complex patterns to smaller shapes to stand any chance of understanding it. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts (see Gestalt Psychology). It's Mythology since time immemorial; good vs evil that plays out upon Marvel IMax screens for adults often more invested than their children.
Children are nuanced. Children are complex. Children are whole beings.
Children, Woodall (2020) writes,
are induced to employ psychological splitting, as a defence mechanism against an intolerable emotional and psychological double bind.
The double bind is that they cannot hold two realities in mind any longer because one parent’s reality has created such pressure on them, that the defence is necessary in order to enact the next part of the family drama. The next part of the family drama is that the child must find a way to physically put the other parent at such distance that they can be concurrently placed into the unconscious mind and thus be ‘disposed of.’
Each of the eight signs that Gardner speaks emanate from the defence of psychological splitting and in psychoanalytical terms can be readily recognised as the splitting or fragmentation of the ego.
The APA refers to fragmentation of the ego as as follows –
in the object relations theory of Melanie Klein and British psychoanalyst W. Ronald D. Fairbairn (1889–1964), fragmentation of the ego in which parts that are perceived as bad are split off from the main ego as a mechanism of protection.
What this means is that the child is faced with a pressure to experience in the felt sense and cognitively, a fear or dislike or anxiety about one parent and a pull to align with the parent who is causing this. Much of this takes place in the inter-psychic relationship between parent and child. Many parents who alienate, are suffering from distortions in their psychological profile or unresolved issues from their own childhood, which means that what leaks out in their belief and behavioural system, is readily absorbed by their child.
Back to The Cloven Viscount. From page 245 to 246:
'...neither good nor bad, but a mixture of goodness and badness, that is, apparently, not dissimilar to what he had been before the halving. But having had the experience of both halves each on its own, he was bound to be wise. He had a happy life, many children and a just rule. Our life too changed for the better. Some might expect that with the Viscount entire again, a period of marvellous happiness would open, but obviously a whole Viscount is not enough to make all the world whole.
Now Pietrochiodo built gibbets no longer, built mills, and Trelawney neglected his will-'o-the-wisps for measles and chickenpox. I, though, amid all this fervor of wholeness, felt myself growing sadder and more lacking. Sometimes one who thinks himself incomplete is merely young.
I had reached the threshold of adolescence and still hid among the roots of the great trees in the wood to tell myself stories. A pine needle could represent a knight, or a lady, or a jester. I made them move before my eyes and enraptured myself in interminable tales about them. Then I would be overcome with shame at these fantasies and would run off.
A day came when Dr. Trelawney left me too. One morning into our bay sailed a fleet of ships flying the British flag and anchored offshore. The whole of Terralba went to the seashore to look at them, except me, who did not know. The gunwales and rigging were full of sailors carrying pineapples and tortoises and waving scrolls with maxims on them in Latin in English. On the quarterdeck, amid officers in tricorn and wig, Captain Cook fixed the shore with his telescope, and as soon as he sighted Dr. Trelawney gave orders for him to be signalled by flag, "Come on board at once, Doctor, as we want to get on with that game of cards."
The doctor bade farewell to all at Terralba and left us. The sailors intoned an anthem, "Oh, Australia!" And the doctor was hitched on board astridea barrel of cancarone. Then the ships drew anchor.
I had seen nothing. I was deep in the wood telling myself stories. When I heard later, I began running towards the seashore crying, "Doctor! Doctor Trelawney! Take me with you! Doctor, you can't leave me here!"
But already the ships were vanishing over the horizon and I was left behind, in this world of ours full of responsibilities and will-'o-the-wisps.'
References
Woodall, K., 2020. Understanding the Induced Psychological Splitting Defence in Children of Divorce and Separation accessed on 25 May 2022 via https://karenwoodall.blog/2020/03/31/understanding-the-induced-psychological-splitting-defence-in-children-of-divorce-and-separation/
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