[lit-ideas] Re: News via the web
- From: Scribe1865@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 Apr 2004 13:48:28 EST
In a message dated 4/2/2004 1:32:57 PM Eastern Standard Time,
phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The more thoughtful we become the better able we are to recognize defining
images that help us
understand the complexity of the world. Without these defining images,
the world is an undifferentiated blur of actions. What effective
defining images do is orient states of affairs in the world so that
knowledge and understanding are possible. To say that we are better off
without defining images is akin to saying that we are better off without maps.
I didn't say we were better off without defining images, as if we could
suddenly shed them, but they are a means of shielding us from the complexity of
life.
For example, when Phil writes, "the more thoughtful we become," he is
summoning a defining image of "thoughtfulness." This image of "thoughtfulness"
shields us from the truly complex nature of thoughtfulness--that it is NOT a
durational state, but a quality we enter into as though it were a room in our
house.
True, these images orient us by creating frames of identity. But they also
simplify. Like maps, they are static but the world is not. Just when we think
we
are "thoughtful," we discover we are not thoughtful at all, just reflexively
ideological or blinkered in a new way.
For example, why do people with opposing political views ultimately want to
destroy each other's point of view? Because they see the other person, not as a
person, but as symbolic opponent to their defining image.
Eric
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