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Commentary week 7
31 March 2009
So What!
I guess at some point during the semester, I must put an article down and exclaim, “so what!” Well, this semester, the article causing me to wish I had not wasted my time is “The Loss of the Creature” by Walker Percy.
I will admit, he makes some points (to most of which I rolled my eyes). “The sightseer measures his degree of satisfaction by the degree to which the canyon conforms to the preformed complex” (47). The sightseer is a human being controlled by strong psychological tendencies. Humans have wants and desires. They have the ability to interpret and expect. So, if the Grand Canyon measures up to the sightseers “preformed complex,” how is this any less of a genuine experience than the experience of one who stumbles upon the canyon with no prior knowledge of its existence? Percy fails to explain this. He also fails to truly prove that these two experiences are indeed different.
Percy moves on to a vacation couple in Mexico. This couple wishes a friend were with them as they experienced the village. Percy believes that the couple wants their friend along “not to share their experience, but o certify their experience as genuine” (53). I have examined Percy’s idea in light of my own thoughts and experience. I too on occasion have wished a friend were present to share in my experience. I analyzed my motives and asked myself this question, “Did I too just want validation of my experience?” The answer was “no.” I came up with two motives for my behavior. One is quite selfish. I believe that having he friend present would have enhanced my experience. The other motive is that I simply believe my friend would enjoy the experience. I know that I was not attempting to certify my experience as genuine since there have been occasions when my friend and I did not share the same experience. This did not change the genuineness of my own experience.
I don’t believe that Percy gives human beings enough credit. He believes that it is only the strong student who can “wrest control of it (a sonnet or a dogfish) from the educator” (60). He believes that we “recognize the priority of title of the expert” (54), and do not even realize we are impoverished. Yet, Percy offers no proof for his claim. I have only to open my morning newspaper to see the fallacy in his idea. I can read page after page in which experts and educators are challenged. We have not “surrendered the title” (54).
Although there are many more examples, I would like to discuss one more which left me befuddled. Percy believes once the archeologist relinquishes his find to the museum, no one nut the archeologist can see it. Everyone’s view of the find is now the curator’s. Percy believes the archeologist would have been better to keep the item “in his pocket and show it now and then to strangers” (62). By Percy’s own admission, the strangers will not be able to see it either. Yet, if we asked these strangers, I believe they would state that they “saw” the find.
So although Percy makes some intriguing points in his article, he offers not proof. He has not included a single interview with the sightseer, the stumbler, the vacationing couple, nor the archeologist. He only offers his own theory. And according to his own theory, it is not a genuine experience.
Good point Tina. At first I thought exactly as you did. Then I started to look at teaching in general and extrapolate what he was saying. Percy is saying that we need to constantly reflect on our teaching and involve students in the learning experience. Then students have a “claim” in their education.
I too get your point, but Percy was writing a philosophical argument using allegories, to make the point that all that we see and experience is constructed out of all that we have seen and experienced. Philosophical arguments, unlike strictly rhetorical ones do not require “proof” of anything, they are simply “begging the question” most of the time. I would suggest that he is trying to get us to think about our experiences in a non traditional way. To actually “question authority” wherever and whenever it presents itself. Also, you seem to be a person of strong character, though I do not know you very well, and if that is the case, you would be more likely to “sieze the moment” in your own way than most people. You can’t tell me that you don’t know anyone who just swallows what they are told, can you? Fanatics, and fundamentalists, and many cheerleaders for many dubious causes do that every day, and I look at them, and hear their words, and read what they write, and wonder where they keep their minds–in their hip pockets? Hmmm…I just don’t think you are safe taking this essay lightly, it has layers upon layers, I have been thinking about it for nine years, and I’m still not sure I completely understand it, but then I have been reading Nietzsche for twenty, and I am still not completely sure get him either…but I know that what he had to say is important.
I liked the Percy article, about the fact that we have to start relying on our own senses rather than interpretations by experts. However, I remember spending 2 years in Italy when I was barely out of high school. So much great art. I didn’t know what any of it meant. Neither did anyone else. Our favorite thing to do was to stand by some incredible piece of art like the Trevi fountain in Rome and say, “What the hell is it?” to which our partner in crime would respond, “I don’t know. Just take my picture.” After studying art in college, I wished that I had at least a few nuggets from the experts to help me understand what I was seeing…and yes, maybe even experiencing.
I really disliked this article as well.