attention

Energy and true wealth; the capturable force by which imagination can be focused into a reality.

Jiang treats attention as the real energy or wealth that elites seek to capture beneath surface economic systems.

The basic human capacity Jiang says the young generation is losing and the control system wants to capture.

In contrast, Jiang implies that Dante's love starts by praise, attention, and getting to know the other person rather than immediately trying to own them.

The quoted passage frames Dante's problem as divided attention: when one thought crowds out another, the goal recedes and ascent slows.

The resumed reading shows that the fame dynamic has a textual basis: more souls interrupt their song once they notice Dante's shadowed body.

Jiang says the souls' fascination with Dante shows a disordered desire: even while committed to God, they find the spectacle of the living pilgrim more interesting than God.

This stretch of the class is less about final interpretation than about disciplining attention: Jiang wants the students to stop psychologizing too fast and to track the visible detail that excites Dante.

The best answer offered in the packet is that the new shadow means Dante is finally seeing something other than only himself, which is why Jiang keeps pressing the class to visualize what the shadow falls upon.

Jiang generalizes Dante's condition into a modern celebrity model: influencers become trapped by metrics, subscriptions, and ratings, forever chasing more attention.

Jiang treats sustained attention to a painting such as the Last Supper as a transformative exercise: if you sit with the work long enough, it changes you as a person and can make you more virtuous.