Yesterday, I had lunch with Joe Feeney, a Jesuit priest who has just published The Playfulness of Gerard Manley Hopkins. He told that Hopkins thought that if you look at something with attention and care you will sense that it is looking back.
I recently wrote a piece, which I fear may never see the light of print - about T.H. White's The Goshawk and J.A. Baker's The Peregrine - in which I make the point that, more and more, we allow our experiences to be mediated for us, clapping on headphones to go through an art exhibition rather than just using our eyes to look at the paintings. I am often amazed at how much people think they know about nature because of what they read about it - as opposed to actually experiencing and observing it.
Here, here.
ReplyDeleteIt's also the difference between virtual and actual experience. Not all technological mediation is an improvement over life. I still love to be out in storms, rather than just watch the Weather Channel, although the Weather Channel is a great source of information.
Interestingly enough, if your prior post, Frank, on Being is Seeing (perception is "...active, not passive. It is like a hand reaching out and grabbing things, not just a searchlight.") is applied here and a virtual or descriptive experience is poorer than a real one, then one would be failing to grasp all that one could, all that one's hand could reach out and grasp, by settling for the virtual experience.
ReplyDeleteKind of like the difference between dealing with a caricature of someone (say, someone who you have known for a long time and no longer see with fresh eyes) and the instant reality of someone that forces you to look with fresh eyes -- you are more engaged and get more out of the interaction with the "real" person than the charicature.
So we all agree that, while virtual experience may have its uses, it no substitute for the real thing. What I was trying to get at in particular, though, is - what is it? timidity? insecurity? This unwillingness to engage on our own, this need to have someone walk us through things, this reliance on what some expert tells us as opposed to going and finding out for ourselves?
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, you're right, Anonymous. Having the intellect reach out to a second-hand experience is poorer than having reach out for a direct one.
I don't know if generalization re: unwillingness is possible regarding virtual experience. Consider:
ReplyDelete- reading an book or article about travel is virtual, but one might be legitimately seeking insight from the author as much as, if not more, than the "real" experience;
- listening to a tape about art is virtual, and since most "art" produced today seems rather "weak" perhaps listening is a legitimate search for some meaning that might be in the work;
- victims all, we are told that experts should mediate for us in all sorts of arenas (e.g., gov't, to make life safer) Virtualization continues that victimization -- how to think and feel about something -- which I believe was a theme in 1984 (and the Orgasmatron in Sleeper.
The last example, linking virtualization and victimization, seems to be your example and an illegitimate use of virtualization, as it encourages minimalizing the encounter because the person is weak and needs sheltering. The first two examples, though, seek to maximize the encounter because the individual is looking for greater insight or knowledge about the experience.
If a painting cannot be appreciated on its own terms as visual art and needs to be explained, it isn't worth looking at.
ReplyDeleteReading is a little different. It can supplement experience, but it also involves activity on one's own part. The reader actuates the potency of what he is reading.
I have no objection to learning more about something you have experienced. I am objecting to having your experience pre-filtered for you. I guess there is something in people - at least many people - that drives them to want to have their experiences and views validated by someone in authority. I don't have that problem.