[percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism.
Tommy Armstrong
tfa at brickengraver.com
Thu Mar 27 20:41:50 EDT 2008
I am not by any stretch of the imagination a "deep old file" as Patrick
O'Brian -my equally favourite novelist with WP-described Stephen Maturin in
his Aubrey Maturin Series. POB was also a Roman Catholic and Stephen was
one also . I am not sure why my two favourite authors are RC when I am a
pretty confirmed Protestant. Anyway a comparison between the two would make
for a good dissertation or two for an academic type.
What I would like to discuss is the theory of a very learned professor I had
when I went back to school to finally get my degree, a one David Greene. I
am wondering if in this learned group anyone else has seen this theory
published or thought about it. I took a strange course called Beethoven and
Revolution in which we studied among other things, Renaissance painting and
sculpture and the subsequent Enlightenment, Beethoven symphonies and
quartets and Napoleons' influences on their structure, Chinese philosophy
and Chinese scroll painting, Matisse, and Sartre, and a smattering of
Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, if I remember correctly.
The theme that brought them all together was perspective. Specifically the
discovery or invention of single point perspective by Filippo Brunelleschi
in the year 1415. It was with this discovery of linear perspective that
science and essentially "Western" thought as we know it began. For when on
sees in perspective, one can visualize "complex" systems that can be
measured, it made possible Newton's calculus and Decartes coordinate system
and his vision of the world. It changed imagery as we knew it forever. And
within 200 years was so engrained into the Western mind that it was
considered to be the "normal and natural way" of seeing the world. Egyptian,
Chinese and African art was now considered to be "primitive". Plotting the
orbits of the planets was now possible with this new way of seeing. The
novel itself was born, being a linear invention as was the symphony, with a
beginning, middle and end. We in the Western world became "linear". Cause
and effect is a linear or what I think of as a dyadic concept.
The problem is that human beings do not see in this manner. It is artificial
for us-an invention. We do not see as the camera sees, but rather from ever
changing points of view and we do this unconsciously. Think about the simple
act of walking into a room-and see how many times one changes not only the
angle of view but the focus. Think about the difference of scanning a
picture of a room and actually scanning the room. It is pretty evident that
we do not see as the camera does. But not only is our seeing but our
thinking is not linear-except when with exertion we try and force it to be.
When man begins, according to this theory, to treat himself from this linear
point of view which we think endemic in our thought processes-but is really
not, one loses what Dr. Green referred to as "My Ownness"-The so called
Cartesian Dualism is only made possible and can only be explained through
linear thinking. Much like what I think of Percy railing against the giving
away of ones self to the "experts". When one essentially delegates his life
to the so called experts, one loses "My Ownness". A particular state brought
on by using an artificial perspective and particular perhaps to a Post
Renaissance Western culture. That is of course until Post Reanissance
Western Culture became the de facto world culture.
Matisse for example understood this and came up with a "new" but really an
old way of looking at the world-a world where ones view was not constrained
from a single point but from a multiplicity of view points all at once and
in no linear progression. Matisse saw the constraining nature that art had
taken on and wanted to create a new are more in tune with human perceptions
and therefore one that did not delete the My Ownness of the viewer. Stream
of consciousness writing was a reaction to this constraining system.
Picasso tried to depict the world from multiple points of view on a single
two dimensional canvas. Sartre and existentialism is a reaction to the
Cartesian world view.
When we got to China and Chinese Scroll painting we found an art that was
multipoint perspective-for the viewpoint of the viewer was constantly moving
as the scroll was unrolled. One did not lose his "myowness" in the viewing
because he was not being directed by the mathematical Cartesian constraining
laws. In many ways a much more humanly way of depicting the world. But a
viewpoint that did not give rise to calculus, high technology, etc. But did
give us Lao Tzu.
Perhaps what I am trying to get at is that perhaps our perspective is
clouding reality. We are so engrained with this perspective of things that
we believe it to be correct. But it has only existed in human consciousness
and culture for a fraction of our existence on the earth. It brings a
certain kind of reality into focus, but only a single type-and to try to
interpret human beings with this perspective is patently flawed-even in
trying to interpret pre-perspective art and writing one must be cognizant of
this viewpoint. Kind of like the Uncertainty principle-where the presence of
the viewer makes it impossible to actually view the subject being studied.
Film-an invention of the past century-in many ways is multipoint and
perhaps is the reason for it being the popular art form of today-Why was
Binx such a moviegoer?
This is of course a bit of a disjointed and perhaps flawed view, but I throw
it out for discussion.
Tommy Armstrong
PO Box 484
Lillington, NC 27546
www.brickengraver.com
"If you are a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come
down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to
rescue you"
Walker Percy
From: percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:percy-l-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Nikkibar at aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 5:10 PM
To: percy-l at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Chimps, Yorkies, words and autism.
Dear Rhonda,
At the time of our conversations about animal communication we were not
focused on CSP and his triadic/dyadic distinctions. Just words. Nor did we
ever discuss animals' abilities to understand words (you should see what my
Yorkie does at the mention of steak!) as opposed to their abilities to
communicate back ( surely his response is of a positive nature at that
mention of steak). My impression is that WP would be negative on both issues
-- or would have been then. It would be interesting to hear his response to
Temple Grandin's Animals in Translation and Thinking in Pictures, neither of
which had been published in his lifetime. For that matter, it would be
interesting to hear his reflection on CSP's views and the problems of deep
autism generally...
Nikki
_____
Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch
<http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15?ncid=aolhom0
0030000000001> the video on AOL Home.
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