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| Evolution as a Creative Process Name: Margaret F Date: 2004-02-18 15:23:00 Link to this Comment: 8270 |
Evolution is a process that has taken billions of years, and will continue for billions more.
It takes hundreds of generations for an evolutionary change to occur, or an impending extinction
to become evident. Humans find it difficult to see themselves evolving due to their longer life
span, and fewer generations over time compared to other species. It has become a common
misconception that humans are finished evolving, and that they have reached the best and most
efficient beings possible. The same misconception can be carried over to art. The main
questions being posed in this paper are: can evolution be viewed as a creative process like the art
world? Can there be anything new in both art and evolution?
In the history of any kind of art, whether visual, musical, or technological there are
patterns that progress from the very simple to the more complex, the more successful forms of art
are then recycled later on. This is much like the evolution of life on earth. The first organisms
were tiny, and relatively simple. As creatures evolved they became more complex, and as
extinctions occurred new creatures evolved, that were different versions of the past creatures.
The first examples of visual art can be found in the Paleolithic era of human evolution. The art
from this time period included cave paintings deep underground in Europe. These paintings
depict hunting scenes, and different animals, on occasion a human, but very rarely. From these
paintings more rock art and sculpture began to appear. Throughout the history of humans art has
evolved, from basic cave art to temples, and sculptures, and murals. In modern history can new
art be created? Art has already become abstract, what other forms can it take? It is difficult to
predict the next step based on past history, the same way it is for humans.
Music began with singing, and human noise, followed by drums, and pipes, and bells.
This continued through until more instruments were created and more complex songs were
written. Harmony started appearing and then choral groups, chanting, symphonies, operas. In
the past century jazz, rock and roll, and rap have all evolved transforming the same sounds that
were used in the past. What is the next step for music? Can any new types of music or
instruments be invented? The piano evolved into the harpsichord, the lute into the guitar. How
can we predict what will come next instrumentally.
Technology is the only art that is still evolving at a rapid pace. The past hundred years
have produced more changes in technology that in the rest of history. The trend originally was
toward bigger, better creations. Huge cars, huge computers, cd players, and cameras. This has
now turned around and everything is being made more compact. Why is this? Is this the next
step in our evolution as humans? All of our technology is now handheld, mini coopers are
becoming increasingly popular, cameras are palm-sized. The creative world of technology is
rapidly changing and evolving.
Looking at evolution through a creative perspective, is it as creative as humans are?
Have other species evolved on our planet as rapidly as human art? What is the next step? Will
there be anything new? What will become extinct, and what will change into a hybrid? These
questions are all pertinent and very interesting. Some of them are answerable, for example,
evolution is much more creative than humans. The variety of species that have existed on the
planet cannot begin to compare to human creations over the past hundred thousand years.
Evolution is so much slower than humans' lives that it is difficult for humans to put it into
perspective. People are so wrapped up in the day to day life, and so focused on a small time
frame that the evolutionary process goes unnoticed to most humans.
If the other species of the planet are studied, there have been many creative changes in the
species of the world comparable to human creativity. The megafauna that used to exist in
America became extinct, and was replaced by much smaller creatures, such as large cats, and
horses, and buffalo. The enormous sharks and sea creatures that existed millions of years ago
with the dinosaurs slowly became much smaller and other fish became much bigger. Evolution
is unpredictable, and random which is its beauty and source of creativity. For example, the
dolphin is more closely related to the wolf, than the shark (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/ ).
Creativity does not have to be a conscious act, it is the end result that is important. A toddler
doodling on a page with crayons can inadvertently create a masterpiece.
It is difficult to see something scientific as creative at the same time. Yet evolution is the
ultimate example of creativity. The gene pool is a palette that can be mixed and changed and
there are infinite possibilities. Much like there will be no end to humans capacity for creativity,
though it may slow down, evolution will continue to change the species on the planet today. As
far as art is concerned, here is always somewhere to go. There is always another niche to fill.
There are infinite possibilities, and as Vincent Desiderio demonstrates in his new painting
"Cockaigne" there are always new ways to be creative, even if it requires reworking the old
(http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/bubbling.html).
Humans will evolve, in what direction, it is not evident. The same is true for any artistic
endeavors. The fact that evolution will continue is concrete both in art and in life, and that in
itself if a proof of its creativity. Evolution's capability to surprise, and change humans' views of
the world makes it the most creative force on our planet, and the most astonishing phenomenon
to occur on Earth.
Bibliography
"A 10-year-long Art History Course"The New York Times, February 1, 2004
http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/bubbling.html
"Change"
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/
| Evolution Is Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2004-02-19 19:57:09 Link to this Comment: 8297 |
Has the narrative of Mayr and his fellow naturalists—those evolutionists who include natural selection in their explanations and who comprise a strong majority of evolutionist voices today—now entered a sort of evolutionary stasis? Not yet.
For example, consider Mayr's central theory of speciation as it applies to a creative species such as humans. There are cultural and creative aspects of our so-called "higher level" species that have the potential to perturb whether and how new species taxa might evolve from homo sapiens: mobility and its effect on isolation, technology applied to environmental and physiological conditions, artificial constraints on reproduction, social cultures, and our creative abilities. Whether our species is better equipped to survive or more likely to accelerate towards extinction may, in part, be determined by these factors and their interactions.
Evolution is. Therefore, we are. The human species is an infinitesimally improbable out-come of countless, unrepeatable iterations of a process that itself is a fluke. To paraphrase the late naturalist Stephen J. Gould, erase the tape, have one player move a few feet to the left for good measure, do a retake, do a trillion trillion retakes, and nothing akin to homo sapiens is likely to emerge. Evolution is not intuitive, nor would any sane gambler bet on its odds. There are no "proofs," no conclusions based upon experimentation and testing. What we know about evolution derives from historical narrative—the evolutionary biologists' reconstruction of what might have happened. Their scenario has also evolved through iterations of accumulating, adapting, and eliminating ideas according to new findings, new observations, and new knowledge. In the process, the narrative's woof and warp have tightened. Gaps narrowed to the point that, in "What Evolution Is," biologist Ernst Mayr could proclaim, "Evolution is not merely an idea, a theory, or a concept, but is the name of a process in nature, the occurrence of which can be documented by mountains of evidence that nobody has been able to refute...It is now actually misleading to refer to evolution as a theory, considering the massive evidence that has been discovered over the last 140 years documenting its existence. Evolution is no longer a theory, it is simply a fact" [Mayr 275].
Central to this "simple fact" is the concept of speciation, which was developed in the 1930s by Dobzhansky and Mayr. According to them, allopatric speciation is contingent upon the spatial and temporal integrity of a population, a species taxon. That population must be isolated from others of its species, either by some geographical barrier or by the establishment of a founder population beyond the reach of its parent. Members of the taxon interbreed freely but in isolation. Over time, selection for phenotype occurs. Some phenotypes are eliminated while others prevail based upon how well they can adapt to changing conditions (selection pressures) in their surroundings. Individuals (and their genes) who cannot adapt are eliminated. If too many indi-viduals succumb, that species will become extinct. Variation and elimination under large-scale pressures can also lead to the creation of new space, new niches that a population may exploit through adaptation—a better chance to thrive. Generational turns of a species do not result in improvement in any directional sense, only in change that is useful for the species to survive or exploit the latest shift in conditions. However, evolution of a species does involve cumulative adaptations, and the number of attributes that can combine to adapt increases with each turn. No sweeping strategies are in play, just short-term, reactive, tactical maneuvers.
But what happens when a species is not isolated, does not allow its members to breed freely, has the wherewithal to re-engineer its surroundings and even itself, is inclined to react and make decisions based upon the beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors established by social groups, and transcends other species in its ability to communicate, imagine, and create? How do these attributes affect speciation, which is central to evolution, which is central to our continuance? Or is it?
Mobility and its affect on isolation: Whether allopatric speciation is dichopatric (geography separates two or more taxa) or peripatric (a smaller founder population becomes isolated), speciation depends upon reproductive isolation. Among members of the humans species there is no such condition. Invention has led to mobility, and humans can now reach everywhere on the planet. Our taxon is our species and we have inadvertently denied ourselves the option of morphing to adapt. Perhaps we could artificially isolate populations, but that is not sociologically feasible. While proximity is a dominant factor in who reproduces with whom, none of us is geographically removed from the opportunity to reproduce with any of the others. At some point, the process of speciation among humans could be compromised by this factor.
Technology applied to environmental and physiological conditions: From bioengineering the body to artificially remediating an ecosystem, material nature no longer exists independent of overt, directed human intervention. Humans are exceedingly clever beings. We can eliminate an increasing number and complexity of selection pressures as they arise in our environment and in our bodies—without the traditional operators of reproduction, inheritance, and elimination. We can prolong, improve, and create life unnaturally. We may even learn how to prolong cellular life indefinitely—and make death a process of elective or artificial selection. Our applied intelligence had already precipitated the rapid, simultaneous extinction of species coexisting in a geographical region, e.g., the rainforests of the Amazon River. According to paleontologist Neil Eldredge who, along with Stephen Gould, developed the idea of stasis and its affect on speciation, "most adaptive evolutionary change occurs in conjunction with speciation...Natural selection shapes most evolutionary adaptive changes nearly simultaneously in genetically independent lineages as speciation is triggered by extinction in "turnover" events...such turnover events have causal roots that are deeply ecological and arise, at base, from large-scale changes in the physical envi-ronment..." Humans manufacture large-scale change. To what degree are our technological "ad-vancements" affecting our own speciation and even the ability for us to evolve via this process?
Artificial constraints on reproduction: So far, evolutionary change depends upon heritable variation. For a vast majority of humans, society, religion, and/or law governs mating. In many societies, close relatives are not permitted to reproduce, thereby removing the powerful genetic effects of inbreeding from the process and biasing the gene pool. Each human has two copies of any given gene (two alleles at each locus)—one from each parent. If the parents are related, the alleles have a higher probability of being identical. Therefore, inbreeding tends to amplify both beneficial and detrimental traits. At what point is speciation—which depends upon random inbreeding and out-crossing—compromised by cultural constraints regarding sex and marriage? If variability is damped because of regulation that takes place within human genomes, then the lack of in-breeding might skew inheritance even more dramatically.
Social culture: In the article "The Objects of Selection," Ernst Mayr wrote: "There is, how-ever, also a second kind of selection... better referred to as "selection for reproductive success." It includes such phenomena as parent-offspring conflict, sibling rivalry, unequal parental investment, unequal rates of division of prokaryotes, and many of the phenomena studied by sociobiology. In all cases, genuine selection is involved, unlike survival selection. Considering how many new kinds of selection for reproductive success are discovered year after year, I am beginning to wonder whether it is not even more important than survival selection, at least in certain higher organisms." Mayr's conclusion is not trivial. The two phenomena of biological evolution and cultural evolution co-evolve us. If sociologically driven selection criteria that are to some degree under our control can have more influence over our evolution, then what is the relative future impact of speciation?
Creativity: Our evolution and the process of evoltion may be co-dependent, even recursive. According to neuro-biologist William H. Calvin, "We have achieved an extraordinary ability to pretend, fantasize, lie, deceive, contrast alternatives, and simulate. Our minds can operate on the unreal, and the formation of unreal, blended spaces says a lot about our creativity." Add to that that humans can communicate with words, teach each other (and other species), and learn in social groups. These creativity factors separate our species from all others. Manifested as cultural variation and in the creation and exchange of knowledge, what effect do these traits have on human speciation and the future impact of the evolutionary process?
All of these modern human characteristics—mobility, technology, sexual selection, culture, creativity—appear to have the potential to significantly impact speciation opportunities for our species. On the other hand, if all species begin with speciation followed by stasis and at some point thereafter, abrupt descent to extinction, perhaps we are creating our own advantage.
Evolution is. Therefore, we are, but will we go on because of evolution's protocols ac-cording to Darwin and Mayr or in spite of them? Just as Napoleon took the crown from the hands of the Pope and crowned himself emperor—and with the risk that our sense of control and prowess may be equally delusional—as we evolve, we are taking evolution into our own hands.
Works Cited
Calvin, William H. "Why Create a Brain?" 2003. http://williamcalvin.com/2003/Why%20a%20creative%20brain.htm
Eldredge, Neil. "Species, Speciation and the Environment." 2000. ActionBioscience.org. http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/eldredge.html
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York. Basic Books. 2001.
Mayr, Ernst. "The Objects of Selection." 1997. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. March 18; 94 (6): 2091–2094. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=33654
| Transcending Evolution: The Human Consciousness, o Name: Student Contributor Date: 2004-02-20 00:26:40 Link to this Comment: 8302 |
In 1838 Charles Darwin wrote in his journal "Man in his arrogance thinks himself a great work worthy the interposition of a deity. More humble and I think truer to consider him created from animals". (Rachels, 1990) Daniel C. Dennett refers to Darwin's theory of evolution as a universal acid, a theory so powerful it seeps through every traditional concept and leaves behind a revolutionized world-view, resulting not only in a fundamental shift in the way in which we perceive ourselves as human beings, but more importantly, in the death of God. (Dennett, 1996) The moral implications of evolution are devastating: to reduce man to a by-product of an algorithmic process is to say that man is nothing more than an offspring of the Earth when man was quite content to think of himself as an offspring of something much more celestial. Evolution appeared and threatened to downgrade man to a modified version of ape, and rather than throw up its hands and surrender to its earthly existence, man decided to unleash its only weapon against evolution: and what of consciousness? How does evolution explain the phenomenon of consciousness? This paper will argue that consciousness is capable of existing outside of evolution and, using the Quran as the primary religious text, set the stage for a potential rebirth of God.
There exists startling anatomical, molecular, and fossil evidence supporting the theory of the descent of man from primates, more specifically from apes. For example, certain enzymes and other proteins, such as hemoglobin, are virtually identical in both humans and chimpanzees. (Mayr, 2001) It is thought that the most important event in human history occurred in the step from the Australopithecus apelike stage to the Homo stage. The descent of Homo from Australopithecus is still not fully understood, but what is understood is that brain size doubled in Homo erectus from what it had been in Australopithecus. (Mayr, 2001) Ernst Mayr, in his book What Evolution Is, argues that evolution of consciousness began in the Australopithecus species. These populations survived by using their intellect to invent successful defense mechanisms against predators for they were no longer capable of climbing up trees to escape being hunted. Subsequently, H. erectus inherited this need to rely on their inventiveness to cope with their defenseless position in the highly predatory environment. (Mayr, 2001) It is unknown how the basic necessity of self defense transformed itself into a highly developed intellect as seen in Homo sapiens today. The only thing that is known is that the H. sapiens species was better adapted to the environment than the other Homo subspecies since they are the surviving species. However if we are to believe that the basic necessity of self defense has the potential to develop into a highly complex intellect, then why is it that other species, such as deer and rabbits who are forced to rely on their wits to invent successful defense mechanisms, since they too can not climb up trees, do not develop a highly complex intellect?
Mayr argues that it is the brain that makes us different from other animals, that it is the brain that makes us human. The brain contains 30 billion nerve cells, and while the electrophysiology of neurons is mostly understood, their mental functions are not. It is these very same mental functions that are believed to be responsible for the ability of consciousness. Interestingly enough, the brain has not seemed to have changed significantly since the first appearance of H. sapiens some 150,000 years ago. (Mayr, 2001) This implies that the cultural rise of the H. sapiens from barbaric hunter to city civilizations was independent of brain size. If not brain size, then what was responsible for this change? Mayr fails to give convincing evidence for the evolution of consciousness, which leaves the reader skeptical about evolution's involvement with the birth of self-awareness. This paper proposes that other phenomena, namely celestial phenomena, are what are responsible for human consciousness. That human consciousness transcends the human body and is independent of all earthly matter.
Russel Wallace, a biologist of Darwin's era, agreed that the human consciousness should be exempted from the iron rule of evolution, in which Darwin responded in a letter written to Wallace, "I hope you have not murdered too completely your own and my child". Darwin believed that human consciousness was very much a part of evolution, thus dissolving any illusion of man's authorship, creativity, or understanding, and yet no convincing evidence has ever been offered to support this notion. (Dennit, 1996) Is it so radical to believe that human consciousness exists independently of descent with modification? As stated in the Quran, Adam and Eve were created in heaven and after disobeying God were expelled down to Earth. The Quran does not explicitly state when this happened or if an actual physical transportation occurred. In light of evolution, many Islamic scholars are interpreting the expulsion of Adam and Eve not as an expulsion of human life forms, but as an expulsion of souls into already living H. sapiens on Earth. This would explain why brain size did not seem to have an effect in early H. sapiens 150,000 years ago; it is not the brain that is responsible for self-awareness, according to the Quran, but the soul which was created by God in heaven. Of course this is only an interpretation and it is important to note that many Muslims completely reject the theory of evolution.
It reads in the Quran: "Thy Lord is Self-Sufficient, Full of Mercy: if it were his Will, He could destroy you and in your place appoint whom He will as your successor, even as He raised you forth, from the descendents of others". (Quran 6:133) This notion of descent with modification as God's intention, as his master Design, conflicts with the belief of randomness that characterizes evolution, but supports the notion of evolution and God existing side by side. However this paper's intention is not to superimpose Quranic interpretation onto Darwin's theory of evolution, but to provide an alternative reading of the evolution of human consciousness, namely that there was no evolution taking place, and that human consciousness appeared in H. sapiens because of the introduction of soul. The phenomenon of self-awareness (which this paper uses synonymously with soul) is still an observation that is not completely understood.
The production of clones, the transfer of DNA from one organism to another and replicated by genetic engineering techniques, has not yet been attempted in humans because, apart from ethical considerations, mental development is not completely understood. It is acceptable to clone, say, sheep (such as Dolly) because mental development is not such an issue namely because sheep are not known to possess a soul. It would be interesting to discover if humans can be cloned – if so, then consciousness would undoubtedly be a product of nervous synaptic transmission, and if not, then consciousness is of a different matter, an unearthly matter. "There is no sacred myth," writes Dennett in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, but the Quran would beg to differ: "They ask thee concerning The Spirit. Say: The Spirit cometh by command of my Lord: The knowledge of which only little is communicated to you". (Quran 17:85) Accepting that the spirit, or the soul, is of divine creation and therefore impossible to understand with Earthly intelligence does not counteract the fundamental principles of evolution, namely descent with modification. It only widens the biosphere to include God and his kingdom of heaven.
It seems rather fruitless (although, for some it is enough) to believe that our consciousness is a result of an algorithmic process completely controlled by the randomness of chance. The answers to our existence may not always be out of reach, but in the meantime, it can not hurt to tell stories of our creation and hope that these stories are sufficient enough to satisfy our hunger for purpose.
Citations
The Holy Quran: Translation and Commentary. Edited by A. Yusuf Ali. Ouloom AlQur'an Est.: Damascus, 1934
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon & Schuster: New York, 1995
Macphail, Euan M. The Evolution of Consciousness. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1998
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. Basic Book: New York, 2001
"Origin of Man in Islam: Creation or Evolution." Available On-line at: http://www.geocites.com/speed_of_light_quran/islam_creation_evolution.htm
Rachels, James. Created From Animals: The Moral Implications of Darwinians. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1990
| A Search For An Excuse Name: orah minde Date: 2004-02-20 10:53:49 Link to this Comment: 8311 |
In Layman's terms the first and second laws of Thermodynamics state that there is a finite amount of energy in the universe and as this energy is always reorganizing itself a certain amount always becomes less organized. Therefore, the rate of disorganization is always greater than the rate of organization. The universe is constantly becoming less and less organized. At this rate the dissipation, the disorganization of all energy is inevitable. Though these laws ensure our bodily death the eternity of our energy is also guaranteed. But this guarantee does not comfort humans who crave the organization of matter. This obsession with organization originates in an obsession with a search for meaning. Humans tell stories of the end existence, as we know it, in an attempt to find a pattern of organization to the universe. Behind every story of existence is a desire to separate the human, to find the meaning of humanity.
It seems an innate quality of all forms of life to desire to maintain bodily life. For the conscious human mind this desire is translated into the desire for immortality. The only form of life that humans know is through contained energy: the physical body. So we cling to this body as if its death ensures the death of our whole being, energy included. But, as the first and second laws of thermodynamics teach, there is a certain amount of energy in the world that is always changing form, but never changing in quantity. This seems to ensure an existence after the body perishes. But still, humans dread death. This fear seems too great to be a result of a fear of the unknown. More deeply, this fear of death is a fear of disorganization: the dispersion of our selves, a lack of meaning to the self. In death, our conscious selves are not organized in a condensed, formed matter. It is near impossible to assign meaning to that which is dispersed, everywhere.
Humans think of meaning as a quality that one form has over another. To humans, something is meaningful if it is not ordinary. The problem with finding meaning in death is that if an essence is completely dispersed in death then it is in everything, and cannot be set aside, cannot be out of the ordinary, cannot embody something that is more qualitative than another something. The Random House Dictionary defines meaning as, " (1) what is intended to be expressed or indicated. (2) The end or purpose of something." The desire for meaning is, therefore, a desire for specification, a narrowing of possibilities, a pinpointing. This pinpointing is exactly what is disallowed in the dispersion of matter thus frustrating the human search for meaning.
Another problematic aspect of the act of pinpointing something is the essential act of containment in the pinpointing. In order to assign meaning something must be contained. Scientist today, search for theories about the way in which the universe will end. They try to contain this terrifying premonition in their minds by searching for this future event. On Tuesday February 12, 2004 the New York Times featured an article called, "From Space, A New View Of Doomsday: How Mysterious Dark Energy Might Blast the Universe Apart" by Dennis Overbye. The article talks about a new theory about the end of the universe called 'the Big Rip.' The article describes a mysterious force that, theorists say, will propel this 'big rip.' This force is referred to as 'dark energy.' The article states that, "it has a name, but that bellies the fact that nobody really knows what dark energy is." Scientists have attempted to contain this horrifying entity with the taming name: 'dark energy.' Despite the misleading act of assigning a name, this force is, as of now, far beyond the control of the human mind.
The article explains that dark energy is an antigravitational force that "has retarded the growth of conglomerations of matter like galaxies." Not only is this force slowing the expansion of the universe "but theorists have long known that certain energy fields would exert negative pressure that would in turn, according to Einstein's equations, produce negative gravity." The projected end of this theory is the ultimate dissipation of everything: even the smallest particles. As a result of this antigravitational force, referred to as 'dark energy,' "objects like atoms would be able to lose energy by speeding up." So, as the rate of the expansion of the universe is slowing, simultaneously, the particles of matter itself are coming apart.
This article seems to be suggesting that the actual energy in the world will not be lost (which would be a direct contradiction to the first law of thermodynamics), but rather, matter will become stagnant because of a lack of concentrated energy. This ultimate stillness is projected by some scientists to be the end of what we know as reality. But, dark energy is not only the force of utter destruction, but also the possible force that instigated the Big Bang. The article states, "Indeed, some kind of brief and violent antigravitational boost, called inflation, is thought by theorists to have fueled the Big Bang." This mysterious form of energy is both the great destroyer of worlds and the great creator of worlds.
This unknown entity, the ultimate force behind life and death, for which scientists are trying to find meaning is that for which all humanity seeks. Like the evolving story of 'the big rip,' people have written stories attempting to explain, find meaning, for that which is observed. People look back in an attempt to find a story about why the present is as it is. People look forward in an attempt to find a story about where reality is going. All people tell these stories in an attempt to give meaning, to contain, to control, to pinpoint, to organize the reality that we know. Fueling the inspiration to write these stories is the human desire to find the meaning of humanity. All stories attempt to answer the questions: why are we here? And where are we going? Behind these questions is the desperate hope that we are separate, possibly excused from the destruction of the big rip. In this unknown meaning of life lies the comfort of separateness that humanity craves.
| Niches of the Mind; Language and the Brain Name: Becky Rich Date: 2004-02-20 12:21:20 Link to this Comment: 8312 |
As the story goes, creation is characterized by expansion and contraction, disorder and order, random change and selection. It is observed in evolution how random change and disorder have brought about, from the scraps floating in a puddle on early earth, the fantastic diversity and incomprehensible complexity of life. The counterpart to this is death, making space for the new and guiding changes in the old through selection. What can this story tell us about the evolution of humans, and our most distinguishing trait; our ability to tell stories?
The human intellect is widely understood to be that which distinguishes us from other animals. Mayr tells us that the rapid brain expansion that took place in Australopithecines and early Homo is correlated with two factors; a change in hominids niche, moving from the trees to bush savanna, and the development of speech. (p 252) This essay attempts to summarize some current explanations of the relationships between language and the brain in human evolution, and relate them to another characteristic of humans correlated with the human intellect- our social complexity.
Symbolic communication is by no means limited to humans, or, for that matter, to the most complex organisms. Most fairly social animals have a range of about fifteen to thirty-five physical displays or calls. "As far as we know, cuttlefish, related to squids, have about the same size repertoire size as non-human primates do." (class notes Ling. 101) The evolution of animal communication is thought to have occurred through "ritualization of previously existing behavior" (class notes Ling. 101) In most animals, communicative displays are innate, that is, genetically determined. This is not at all the case in humans; human language is learned. Yet a few of the main things that distinguish human language from other animal communication, namely grammar and syntax, are argued by some linguists to be instinctive. (Pinker)
In addition to the lack of syntax, grammar, and a large lexicon, other animals, including higher-order primates, lack a highly developed theory of mind; the ability to conceptualize others' "knowledge, beliefs, intentions and goals" (class notes Ling. 101) For a long time the increase in brain size was seen as being correlated with the increasing complexity of tool technology in Australopithecines and early Homo. This theory is loosing popularity due to the observance of widespread tool use in other primates, and is giving way to theories in which the main thrust is rising social complexity. (Lewin 198) " 'The role of language in communication first evolved as a side effect of its basic role in the construction of reality' argues Harry Johnson 'We can think of language as being an expression of another neural contribution to the construction of mental imagery...We need language more to tell stories than to direct actions.' {as in tool making}" (Lewin 198) So language evolved so that we could tell each other stories? And some how it was essential to these stories that the teller not only understand her story and simply send it out, but also understand that her listener now also internalized that story?
A few current theories of why the brain and language evolved postulate that they were both necessitated by increasing group size among hominids. The increasing social complexity and the need to keep track of all the individuals (through language?) are hypothesized to be correlated with increasing brain size. To find a reason for hominid's increasing group size, one might look back to Mayr's statement that the shift from tree savanna to bush savanna was "the most fundamental one in all of hominid history." (p245) Mayr claims that the new environmental threats Australopithecines faced in the bush savanna; predation by "lions, leopards, hyenas, and wild dogs, all of whom could run faster than they" (p244), and the absence of trees for protection, created intense selective pressure for intelligence. This is as good an explanation as any for increased brain size, but as often is the case in large questions such as this it helps to combine it with others. "... primates in general exhibit two responses to increased predation: they grow physically bigger and the increase the size of their groups. Our ancestors have done both." (Dunbar, p110) An increase in body size would inevitably create a proportionate increase in brain size. Other theories explaining increase in brain size are that there was also a direct threat from other hominids, in the form of raiding, for example. Or it may stem from hominid populations becoming more and more nomadic, and in the face of not knowing where the groups next food resources would be coming from, developed alliances with other groups and thus group size increased by creating networks.
The main thrust of Dunbar,s "gossip" theory, however, is that as groups size increased, grooming, a major factor in maintaining social bonds among primates, was no longer sufficient. It simply took too much time. In a group of 150, for example, 40% of the day would be spent picking nits. (Ling. 101, class notes) Developing language, or gossiping, enabled our ancestors to maintain their social relationships and do other useful activities at the same time. Another theory on brain expansion dealing with social relationships proposed by Terrence Deacon in is that "hominid brains and human language have co-evolved over the pas two million years, driven by a 'reproductive problem that only symbols could solve: the imperative of representing a social contract," which in turn was required to take efficient advantage of the resources available via systematic hunting and scavenging for meat" (class notes Ling. 101) Social contracts would also be of use in mating patterns.
Perhaps the contraction/order/selection side of the creation coin, as we have discussed it so far, asks for one more explanation; co-operation. The random creation and expansion of prokaryotes was never curtailed, at least not completely, by selection, since prokaryotes still constitute the bulk of the earth's biomass. The cell, a new order made by many organisms contracting to form one, came about through a sort of "co-operation". The co-operating prokaryotes in question were of course by no means motivated by good will towards one another, but as the story goes they did combine, allocating certain functions to each participant and thereby making organelles. A very similar explanation can be made for the creation of multicellular organisms.
The same story of co-operation can be used to explain the origins of human language and the expansion of the human brain. Perhaps they came about through more individuals contracting and organizing in to groups. Ultimately the result of hominid brain expansion and the development of language is that human societies function in extremely complex units and networks of those units. Certainly conflict in and between groups exists, but groups do work together and allocate responsibilities in order to function and thrive.
As certain organisms bodies provide a niche for other organism, as creation begets creation, (P. Grobstein, class notes) the advancement of the human mind opens up an entirely new plane of existence; culture. It is a niche for our own creations of the imagination, for telling stories about ourselves and others at this moment, for the retelling of the past, and for the formulation of a future.
Bibliography
Dunbar, Robin. "Up through the Mists of Time", chapter 6 of Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Harvard University Press, 1996.
Lewin, Roger. Human Evolution. Mass., Blackwell Science, 1999.
Linguistics 101. University of Pennsylvania. Spring semester 2003, Professor Gene Buckley.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York; Basic Books, 2001.
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct; How the Mind Creates Language. New York; Harper Collins, 1994.
| The Evolution of Anthropocentrism Name: Reeve Baso Date: 2004-02-20 13:17:27 Link to this Comment: 8313 |
Evolutionary theory throws humans into a tizzy. Driven by the need to amass knowledge, we find ourselves surging forward into the exploration of a story where the more we know, the less we can feature ourselves. Eminent evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr contends that anthropocentrism and belief in evolution by natural selection are mutually exclusive (Mayr 1972). In other words, the Darwinian story of biological evolution rejects the notion of progress and replaces it with directionless change, thereby subverting the conception of human superiority on a biological scale toward perfection. Evolution by natural selection undermines the idea that humans are the culmination and ultimate beneficiaries of all nature. However, to say that anthropocentrism necessarily dissolves in the rising tide of evolutionary theory is to ignore the ways in which human centered humanness plays an intriguing role in evolution.
In his article, "Anthropocentrism: A Modern Version," W.H. Murdy integrates these two conflicting phenomena by tracking the evolution of anthropocentrism itself and proposing that Darwinian theory marks the shift from an old version of anthropocentrism to a new, modern version. This modern reconceptualization is able to situate human centered thinking within the story of evolution, but it also elucidates a complex and uniquely human crisis in which anthropocentrism becomes self-destructive.
The biological species concept is crucial to understanding both the reason why outmoded anthropocentrism is completely invalidated by Darwinian evolution and why Murdy's modern version is not only compatible with evolutionary theory but is an inevitable evolutionary phenomenon. It is important to note that the biological species concept was not initially articulated by Darwin, but has arisen more recently to become the most widely accepted way of defining a species. The crux of the biological species concept is the maintenance of a distinct gene pool through reproductive isolation from other species (Mayr 1996). This means that a species is defined by its ability to maintain itself, or, as Murdy asserts, "species exist as ends in themselves." Therefore, nothing evolves solely for the benefit of another species and anthropocentrism, in the sense of nature existing to serve the purposes of humans, must be abandoned. Indeed this conceptual dismantling has been successful and widespread. However, using this same line of reasoning that stems from Darwinian evolution and the biological species concept we find that as an end in itself, "the purpose of a species is to survive to reproduce" (Murdy 1975). In this sense, every species is necessarily centered on its own survival. This then, becomes Murdy's modern version of anthropocentrism when applied to the human species. Understanding nature in terms of how it affects us is a biological mandate and anthropocentric, but it is not the same as thinking nature exists entirely to fulfill human needs.
Of course, the human species is unique in that its centrism is interpretive and elaborated through culture. The result is a pair of expansions, the first toward an ever greater knowledge of our fundamental ecological niche as humans and the second toward a more and more expansive actual niche. In other words, like all species, humans exploit their environment in order to survive, but understanding the effects of our exploitation lags behind our ability to exploit (Murdy 1975). Murdy proposes that the anthropocentric exploitation of nature to increase reproductive success is "anti-anthropocentric" when the exploitation reaches unsustainable levels. Culture, understood as systems of knowledge, allows humans to manipulate their interactions with the environment to such an extent that, "man is the first living species, animal or plant, on this planet that has ever been threatened by its own reproductive success" (Murdy 1975).
At this point in the conceptualization of modern, or what I will call biological, anthropocentrism, Murdy makes a leap to the conclusion that, "nature outside of man will not act to preserve human values; it is our responsibility alone." Culture is clearly a complex combination of beneficial and detrimental forces and we have seen how the adaptive anthropocentricities of culture are not keeping pace with the unsustainable, over-exploitive anthropocentrism gone bad. But to what extent can we disengage culture from biology? Although culture itself is not coded for within the gene pool that we maintain as a biological species, is it possible that survival/biological centricity could manifest itself as anything other than culture in humans?
Despite the fact that cultural change and biological evolution operate on distinctly different time scales, there are compelling arguments for the applicability of natural selection to cultural evolution (Dennet 1995). However, by concerning ourselves with the role of anthropocentrism in the definition and survival of the human species, we seek to understand the extent to which culture, driving a set of counterbalancing but out of synch trends/expansions, is both the necessary condition for and ultimate threat to human species survival.
As a biological species, humans are equipped with the ability to create culture- an ability that infuses our struggle for survival through reproductive success with unique potential. Systems of knowledge are a means of exploiting nature to our reproductive advantage, but they are also a means of destabilizing our relationship with nature. Suppose humans reach a level of cultural evolution where accumulated knowledge illuminates a clear boundary at which anthropocentrism becomes anti-anthropocentrism. Will we be able to abandon Murdy's version of anthropocentrism and embrace a third incarnation of the phenomenon in which stewardship of our ecological support system becomes the human priority? Whereas other species are unable to step outside of the immediate ways in which they interact with the environment, culture allows humans to interpret these interactions and potentially to ensure reproductive success through protection of the support system rather than through an increasing capacity to exploit the system. Only a species with culture can achieve this systems level approach to survival, yet cultural inertia also continues to drive the unsustainable expansion of exploitation.
Ultimately, probing these dynamics is not a means of clarifying the relationship between biology and culture but rather succeeds in moving away from a complete dichotomy in order to pursue an understanding of their complex implications for one another. Given their drastically different time scales, we must be careful not to conflate cultural evolution with biological evolution, but a brand of anthropocentrism that will not backfire must negotiate a careful course through both biology and culture.
Works Cited
Dennet, Daniel
1995 Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Mayr, Ernst
1972 "The Nature of the Darwinian Revolution." Science, New Series,
Vol. 176, no. 4038: 981-989.
1996 "What Is a Species, and What Is Not?" Philosophy of Science, Vol. 63, No. 2: 262-277.
Murdy, W.H.
1975 "Anthropocentrism: A Modern Version." Science, New Series, Vol.
187, no. 4182: 1168-1172.
Additional Sources
Dare, Ron J., J.S. Rowe, Robert L. Olson, W.H. Murdy
1975 "Anthropocentrism and Evolution" (in Letters) Science, New Series,
Vol. 189, no. 4203: 593-96.
| Evolution Embedded in Symbols, Symbols of Evolutio Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-02-20 13:40:57 Link to this Comment: 8314 |
Two billion years ago two prokaryotes bumped into each other and formed the first multi-cellular organism. 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and dinosaurs became extinct. Three days ago, in your notebook you drew a mess of squiggles which to you represented Jackson Pollock's painting, Number 1, 1948. You wrote the word entropy on the upper left hand corner of the page. On the bottom right hand side you wrote, Creativity is based on randomness and chance.
This paper is, in part, an exploration of the pictures and words that we place in notebooks; it is an investigation of the human fixation with the creation of symbols via art and writing. But is also about how the symbols drawn in one's notebook are just as relevant as the development of multi-cellular organisms and the extinction of the dinosaurs. Indeed human symbol-making relates to the entire spectrum of evolutionary processes.
If human recorded history only represents 10,000 years of a universe which has been evolving for 15 billion years, then how can such relatively recent human cultural practices as writing and art tell us anything about evolution? I would like to suggest that if we look at artifacts of human visual and written culture, we can find evidence of a human quest to understand biological evolution. Indeed, it seems that symbol-making allows humans to reconnect to their biological roots. It allows people to reenact and represent the biological principles of evolution. Ultimately, this paper will look at the way in which the brain allows for this symbol-making. It will discuss the way the brain itself is an evolutionary object, an emergent system capable not only of evolving but of representing evolution. But before going into an explicit discussion of the biological causation for the evolutionary processes imbedded in symbol-making, let us look at some of the inherent properties of art and writing which parallel the evolutionary process.
In her book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry states that "beauty incites replication" (4). Like a history of evolution, a history of human symbolic representation is heavily dependent on the act of reproduction. This reproduction has manifested itself quite literally. For example, when a painter finds something in nature to be beautiful, she can reproduce it on the canvas and when a writer finds a moment to be inspiring, she can transcribe the moment into "a set of instructions [i.e. words] about how [a reader] can imagine or construct [that moment]" (Dreaming by the Book, Scarry, 6). Like sexual reproduction which allows organisms to share their genetic material in order to continue species and to create new organisms, pictures and words help with a lateral transfer of cultural information, its continuance and recombination. To create a symbol of something with a string of words or with an art material is to perpetuate that which is beautiful for future generations.
According to Dennett, "before there were words, there were no word meanings, even if there were other sorts of meanings." (402) Dennett's hypothesis reminds us, at the most basic level that symbols mean something. To say that there are only a couple of meanings behind all artwork and writing would be to deny the complexity of the human symbol-making and meaning-reading processes. However, one commonality in meaning is derived from a shared subject matter of a great variety of artworks. Feminist Art Historians such as Lynda Nead in her book, The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, Sexuality talk about the fact that a large majority of the history of art involves the representations of nude women. Such examples span across art historical periods. Examples include Venus of Willendorf, a female fertility sculpture dating back to 24,000 b.c.e, Praxiteles' sculpture, Cnidian Venus from the Classical period, Valazquez's The Toilet of Venus from the Spanish Baroque period and Manet's Olympia from the Impressionist period. Today installation and performance art pieces often feature an actual nude female body in the midst of other symbolic objects. Thus, one main thread of much artistic representation is once again, the idea of reproduction. But this time, reproduction is meant in a sexual sense. This is to say that females are represented because of their capacity for reproduction. It is interesting to note that while it is the uniqueness of human consciousness which allows us to make artistic symbols in the first place, the symbols which people make affirm our connection with the rest of the evolutionary process. That is, we are making symbols about what is needed in order for humans to continue evolving, symbols which somehow indicate and promote our need for sexual reproduction.
The final consideration in terms of the parallel between art and the reproductive process involves the formal properties of words and images. Elaine Scarry quotes Aristotle saying that "images are like sensuous content, except they contain no matter." (Scarry, 6). Images do, however, allow the matter that existed in the real world to be represented in the imagination. This imaginative excitement begins an internal creative process which has sometimes been described as sexual in and of itself. For example, in a recent lecture at Haveford College, writer Lynda Barry spoke about her desire to kiss a good book after reading it. Additionally, the myth of Pygmalion is about an artist who falls in love with the sculpture of a nude woman which he is creating. Symbolic arts themselves are sensuous because the materials used to create them are often intimate and messy. A brushstroke is a representation of intimacy between artist and canvas. A handwritten word on a page is the representation of intimacy between the writer and the paper. These gestures which were originally intimate are then made accessible to the viewer's imagination.
Let us now look more explicitly at how images within a history of art reveal a type of reenactment of the evolutionary process. To do this one could start with the origin of the first image and the stories that this image told, focusing on the instructional nature of for example, the earliest cave painting and then moving to the religious stories being conveyed in Medieval art. One could follow up by talking about the "evolution" of the quality of image during the Renaissance when artists became interested in accurately depicting ideal forms. One could then talk about the ornate quality of baroque images and continue by discussing the gradual dissolving of depth of field as evidenced in impressionism. A comprehensive account about how each art movement mirrors some evolutionary process could indeed be created. In his book entitled What Evolution Is, Ernst Mayr states that "one must always remember that adaptation is not a teleological process" (149). Similarly the history of art is not teleological. Therefore to illustrate how the symbol-making process of art resembles the process of evolution, one does not have to move chronologically throughout all of art history. A key moment in the evolution of art can illustrate key patterns in symbolic parallelism between image-making and the biological process of evolution.
The connection between evolution and art can be illustrated by turning to a moment when art was radically changed, the abstract expressionist movement. In fact, if the history of art were seen as a teleological process, this particular movement could be seen as a sort of "de-evolution" in the trajectory of art. Let us look at the abstract expressionist art movement using the work of Jackson Pollock as a representative example of how art represents evolution. Mayr states that "quite different from steady extinction of individual species [were] the so called mass extinctions during which a large proportion of the biota [was] exterminated in a very short time on the geological timescale." (201) The abstract expressionist movement represented a sort of mass extinction in the subject matter and methodology of art. Rather than focusing on reproducing that which was beautiful, the artist's job became to use the canvas as a place for action and the subject of the symbolic representation became the paint itself. (Rosenberg) Indeed, Pollock was not afraid of doing anything to the picture plane, even destroying it or cutting it up. For example, Pollock cut out an abstract figurative shape from one canvas and affixed this shape to another canvas in two of his untitled works. Supporting the metaphor that the abstract expressionist movement was a mass extinction of what notions of art were in the past is the fact that during the period when this abstract art was being produced (that is, during the process of extinction of certain art ideologies) there was a relatively small amount of artistic speciation (forms of art that were not predominately expressionistic). The abstract expressionist movement dominated the artistic playing field in that the art produced was most often created through some sort of random chance process, most often manifesting itself in abstraction. The type of random chance manifested in most art of this period seemed to set the stage for the varying ideological threads in later art movements like Pop Art and Minimalism.
But although there is a lack of concrete symbolic reference in Pollock's paintings, the paintings have meaning. The meaning centers on the representation of a human unconscious preoccupation with the mysteries of the universe. This is evoked by the energy of spontaneity and chance in Jackson Pollock's work. In an article entitled Open Ended Conclusions about Jackson Pollock, Kirk Varnedoe states that "the high moment of modernism comes when the physical limits of painting are subsumed in a wild metaphysical dance" (311) Varnedoe compares the "lines hurtling across the picture surface" to comets and shooting stars. (311) In addition to the spontaneity in Pollock's work representing phenomena of the universe, the spontaneous nature of the work also seems to model a fact about human evolution, the second law of thermodynamics. This law stipulates that disorder (energy) creates order and that disorder in the universe exceeds the amount of order that exists. In his painting, Pollock showcases disorder and randomness. It is as if each of Pollock's brush strokes are intimately connected with one another but no one stroke is entirely comprehensible. The energy within the painting is barely containable by the closed system of the canvas. According to Mayr, "evolution is subject to a large number of interactions [based upon] genotypes within a single population responding differently [to different environmental factors]" (277) Each of Pollock's brushstrokes are also different and respond and enhance the visual plane of the canvas in a different way. Thus Pollock's paintings seem to indicate or mirror the unpredictability of evolution.
The second law of thermodynamics also stipulates that eventually the amount of disorder will increase so much that all of the world's energy will be used up and life will cease to exist. Pollock's system of symbolic representation shows the disorder and messiness in the universe and seems to predict this upcoming change in the history of evolution. This moment in the history of art shows a symbol-maker and symbol-viewer's unconscious preoccupation with what will eventually happen to humans in the evolutionary process.
In an article about the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin, Caroline Webb writes that "as psychic power, even the highly elementary psychic power of such basic things as molecules or prokaryotes, increases so the spontaneity or what we could recognize as creativity increases" (Caroline Webb) Just as a greater amount of spontaneous energy within organisms gave these organisms the ability to combine and form new organisms, the spontaneity in Pollock's work opened up the possibility for other creative and symbolic recombination and reduction in the rest of artwork. For example, after Pollock, pop artists like Warhol created multiple reproductions of a similar image onto a single canvas, artists like Jasper Johns made art out of casting beer cans and Frank Stella changed the shapes of canvas. In fact just as when the dinosaurs became extinct and other organisms which had previously not been able to survive had the chance to come to the evolutionary forefront, once Pollock destroyed the notions of what should occur on an artistic canvas, distinct art forms based on repetition, messiness and even hybridization could occur.
What does the production of this artwork say about the biological nature of the workings of the human brain? In a book entitled Why a Creative Brain?, William H. Calvin states that "the bootstrapping of new ideas works like the evolution of a new animal species- except that the neocortical brain circuitry can turn the Darwinian crank a lot faster, on the time scale of thought and action." Thus, if the brain is programmed to imagine and be creative in a way that parallels the Darwinian concepts of evolution (chance variation, spontaneity, and reproduction) it is only natural that symbols that humans create seem to have an evolutionary process embedded within them. It is only natural to show a fixation with the process of evolution itself.
Because of technology, (specifically the internet) there are a wide variety of ways that humans can interact. Online forums, e mail and web based interactive projects all allow for the exchanging of people's stories, a greater potential for the lateral transfer of the symbols which we make. To conclude, let us look at one very recent art project which seems to illustrate the way humans have used technology to express the evolutionary process. An art project on the web entitled Life Spacies allows everyone who enters the web site to type an e mail message. It is this individual words and letters of the e mail which create the genetic coding for a virtual creature to emerge. This creature then becomes part of a living system which is "based upon the human observer, his or her consciousness and the evolutionary dynamic and complex image processes of the work, which themselves are based upon principles of artificial life, evolution and dynamic non-local interrelations." (Life Spacies web page)
In addition to consciousness and imagination which distinguish us as humans, the ability to transfer cultural information to offspring becomes important once that offspring is born. Mayr points out that "in most invertebrates the parents die before their offspring hatch from the egg." (253) Thus, for many animals, a dissemination of information from parent to child via observed action and symbolic representation is simply not possible. However, it is a well known fact that even in humans, the words and symbols that a person makes in his or her lifetime are in no way transferrable into the genetic makeup of the child. This emergent web project is interesting because it suggests a possibility for the words to provide the genetic make-up of an organism. What if, through the continual sharing of symbolic information, the symbol systems which humans create became part of the genetic makeup of future generations? This would allow for a merging of the symbol making and purely biological parts of the human brain. It would represent a merging of a system which humans use to represent evolution with the evolutionary process itself.
Bibliography:
Barry, Lynda. Haverford College. 31 Oct. 2003.
Burke, Tim. "Something to do with Emergent Art." Emergent Systems Working Group. 9 April, 2003.
Calvin, William H. "Why a creative brain?" Book chapter in draft (2003).
Dalke, Anne. "The Ramifications of Being Easily Distracted, or An Account of a Journey from Metaphor and Metonomy to Trees and Rhizomes."
Grobstein, Paul. "Emerging Emergence, A Report on Progress (October 2002- present): From the Active Inanimate to Models to Stories to Agency (and Back Again)." 29. Jan. 2003.
Grobstein, Paul. "From the Head to the Heart: Some thoughts on similarities between brain function and morphogenesis and on their significance for research
Nead, Lynda. The Female Nude: Art Obscenity and Sexuality. New York and London: Rutledge. 1992.
Rosenberg, Harold. "The American Action Painters." The Tradition of the New. New York: Da Capo Press. 1960.
Scarry, Elaine. Dreaming by the Book. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1999.
Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. 1999.
Sommerer Christa, and Laurent Migninmeau. Life Spacies. 1997
Varnadoe, Kirk. "Open-Ended Conclusions about Jackson Pollock." In Jackson Pollock: New Approaches. New York: Museum of Modern Art. 1999.
Webb, Caroline. "Evolution, Creativity, Consciousness: A response to the work of Teilhard de Chardin with reference to various critics." May 2002.
methodology and biological theory." Emergent Systems Working Group. 28 May. 2003
| The Only Lasting Truth is Change Name: Diane Scar Date: 2004-02-20 14:46:34 Link to this Comment: 8315 |
The evolution of art mimics biological evolution. For this reason art history and biology are comparable in many ways. Works of art are stories. Each work of art relates to and influences other stories, or pieces of art. Ernst Mayr uses the phrase "descent with variance" throughout his book to describe biological evolution. Art behaves similarly. In addition, like biological evolution there are serious ramifications for the production of art. Because it is possible to view art from an evolutionary perspective it is also possible to look at evolution from an artistic perspective.
In the beginning there were simple cells called prokaryotes. After the prokaryotes came eukaryotes and then multicellular organisms (Mayr, 44-50). Similarly, artistic style evolves in complexity as time progresses. Take, for instance, classical art. Fifth century Greece is known for the invention of columns. These columns, which characterize the architecture of this time, are comparable to cells in that they are both basic units upon which both fields build. The earliest style is the Doric column which is plain and without much detail. After the Doric column came the Ionic column. This is a noticeably more ornate structure. Either side of the column has serpentine circles resembling eyes. Lastly, the Corinthian column is the most decadent and resembles leaves growing up at either end (Hyman and Trachtenberg, 102). The Doric column represents the simple celled prokaryote whereas the Corinthian represents multicellular organisms. Without the progression from Doric to Ionic the Corinthian would not have been possible. The Corinthian column builds from the earlier two models. However, this is not to imply that the Corinthian is the best model, although some would argue that the skillful technique exhibited in this style commands a higher status. Rather, the Corinthian is simply more complex, just as multicellular organisms are more complex than prokaryotes (Mayr, 49). The latter and more elaborate relies on the earlier. In addition, the simple cells coexist with the more complex cells similar to the way in which the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian all coexist.
Evolution requires change. In biology this gradual change of form is known as anagenesis. Anagenesis ultimately allows for a splitting, or the production of diversity. This diversification is known as cladogenesis (Mayr, 11). Similarly, periods of art are marked by drastic stylistic changes. The classical tradition progressed to medieval art which in turn ushered in renaissance art. We can identify this diversity retrospectively by classifying stylistic trends and technique. In more modern art we even see different schools operating simultaneously, such as Dadaism and abstract expressionism. This process of diversification is unending. However, as we know from biological evolution, there is ample space for new organisms because each living thing creates its own niche (Mayr, 152). In art each niche can be identified by stylistic variance. It has already been noted that there is evidence of this change in classical columns. The evolution of the history of art is therefore creative in the same way that biological evolution is creative. Both art and biology are productive.
Production, whether it involves life or art, is not without consequence. The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that as one thing becomes ordered a proportionally larger set of other things become disordered. In short, it is inevitable for things to become disordered. This process of entropy is irreversible (Class notes). Science is famous for this trade off, but it is a rule that is so far reaching that it is equally suitable to describe the state of the observable world. Let us return to classical art. Athens is characterized by symmetry and proportion. Classical art is ruled by a strict system of measurement. Evidence for this system ranges from Greece's architecture to its nude statues (Clark, 11-13). However, 5th century Greece was not an ideal time to live. Eva Keuls asserts that it was a "society dominated by men who sequester their wives and daughters, denigrate the female role of reproduction, erect monuments to the male genitalia, have sex with the sons of their peers, sponsor public whorehouses, create a mythology of rape, and engage in rampant saber-rattling (1)." From a scientific perspective the chaotic state of Athens, therefore, is the disordered price that the culture paid for the elaborate sculpture and architecture it produced. It is as if the art caused the chaos. In this example the disorder observably manifests itself in society. The effect of art on society is probably why art remains so controversial. In contrast, an ordered state is less probable than a disordered state, which may be why art is cherished by all cultures (Class notes). In this way art is capable of triggering the sort of immense emotional response that the theory of evolution does.
Evolution is an evocative story. It is wrong to assume that this story only effects life on a microscopic level. The history of art is an observable way to track evolutionary trends. Moreover, the evolution of art history functions as a metaphor for biological processes that are not easily accessible. In summary, art is a reminder of the interconnectedness of our planet and that the laws that govern earth are inescapable at all levels. For this reason biology and art are not mutually exclusive. It is important to recognize the qualities that these disciplines share. It is impossible to study one without gaining a profound appreciation for the other. This revelation demands that society reconsider the definition of art. Art's affect on Greek society also demands us to decide whether we value art enough to risk our own undoing.
* Quote borrowed from Octavia Butler
Bibliography
1. Clark, Kenneth, The Nude, "The Naked and the Nude"
2. Class notes
3. Hyman, Isabelle, Trachtenberg, Marvin, Architecture: From Prehistory to Post-Modernism
4. Keuls, Eva C., The Reign of the Phallus: Sexual Politics in Ancient Athens, New York
5. Mayr, Ernst, What Evolution Is, New York, 2001
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| Quirks Name: Daniela Mi Date: 2004-02-20 15:17:09 Link to this Comment: 8316 |
"Nothing succeeds if prankishness has no part in it"
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Bible contends that God created the extant world, imposing order on the preexisting chaos. Darwin's theory of evolution introduced another notion of the world, posing a great challenge to the Christian tenets. According to it, all organisms are not the creations of a supreme being, but have descended from a simple unicellular organism that somehow developed a lipid membrane, could store its genetic information and transcribe it when necessary. Darwin dared suggest that the extant world is by far not perfect or stable as depicted in the Bible, but is constantly changing. Summarizing the major points of Darwin's story, Mayr does not tell a new one. So, what is the aim of "What Evolution Is" then?
Darwin's theory of evolution defines movement as an attribute of life. Owing to changes in the surrounding environment, the species constantly respond by following suit. But what determines these changes? Drawing on Darwin's story, Mayr implies that chance shapes reality. Subtly analyzing this aspect of the theory of evolution, he challenges our notions of the surrounding world.
Chance determines ontogeny. The fertilization of the egg and, hence, the subsequent formation of the individual's genotype, are random events independent of logic or rationality. Moreover, all of a sudden a mutation may occur in the species' genetic information, resulting in a completely new feature. Whether it will be preserved and transmitted to the offspring cannot be predicted. Depending on the specific environmental conditions, it may give the species some advantage, thus inducing natural selection to act in its favour. Therefore, natural selection is guided by chance.
Random events account for the changes on the population level as well. Some millions years ago, for example, an asteroid suddenly hit the Earth, obliterating most of the animal species dominating the Tertiary scenery. Because niches were freed, new animal species began propagating trying to utilize the available space. In the due course of time, the species gave rise to other species and reshaped the planet, imposing an entirely new order. So, chance eventually creates order characterized by certain patterns of life. Like changes in the environment, the emergence of the specific patterns cannot be predicted.
Examining various factors that influence populations, Mayr deduces that evolution itself depends on chance. His implications of the role of chance in the shaping of life make us reconsider our notions of knowledge of the surrounding world. If it is constantly transforming itself due to random events, can we get to know reality? Our inability to predict and forestall events undermines our confidence and feeling of safety. A fear of the unknown then emerges. Will we be able to adapt in response to the change in the environment? Will we muster enough courage to part with the past? Should we happen to fail, natural selection may act against us.
The role of randomness challenges our moral beliefs as well. According to Mayr's account of Darwin's theory, no species are superb to others. Because the ultimate goal of organisms is to survive and successfully reproduce, spreading their genetic material, they try to utilize more space to increase their chances. Whether species will become more complex depends on the environment that happens to surround it. In order to become more adapted to certain living conditions, they might lose or gain traits. So, complexity does not necessarily designate more advanced in development. Having once anchored themselves to a specific environment, species will try to develop new structures that will help them become better adapted to living under the given conditions. If it is the environment and subsequent adaptations that ensure a species' well-being, then is our re-shaping the environment by cutting forests, exterminating species, polluting, building plants etc an attempt to adapt to it? Is such adaptation morally justified?
The unpredictability that dominates the world according to Mayr questions the role of religion. Not a supreme logic but chance is shaping the extant world. So, can a belief in a supreme being peacefully co-exist with Mayr's implications? From Mayr's account it can be inferred that a god as somebody who is able to play with living organisms, experiment, and challenge them by changing the environment. Hence, the book implies the image of a God as a player and the universe as His game.
Such definition of a Supreme Being gives rise to the new ideal. Trying to emulate such a God, we should experiment and play, in order to be able to survive and succeed in life. And curiosity is the prerequisite for it. Mayr starts his account of Darwin's theory with an analysis of the qualities that made Darwin "such a great scientist and intellectual innovator" (10). Urged by curiosity, Darwin gathered facts and intertwined certain logic around them to produce a coherent unit. Experimenting, he put facts together and culled those that did not fit. Succumbing to that playful impulse, he was not stymied by a fear of failure or of the unknown.
To prove the importance of the playful impulse in understanding the world, Mayr himself plays with notions and ideas throughout the book. He never gives his explanation of the word "perfection" he uses to describe the ultimate goal of evolution. Does it mean that the species at the top of the evolutionary tree are superb to those at the bottom? Or does he use it simply to designate better adaptedness to the environment? Likewise, he never clarifies what he means by describing certain behavioral traits of animals as "human emotions" (256). Humans are the only species that have developed the ability to communicate by means of languages structured by grammar and syntax. Thus, they can articulate their perceptions of the surrounding world into certain ideas and notions. If animals have only systems of giving and receiving signals, can they have ideas to express through emotions? Is it indeed happiness or depression that animals show? Maybe, animal behaviour is simply reminiscent of those human emotions. Devoid of corresponding notions to account for them, humans tend to impose their own ones on animals. The formation of certain notions describe reality to a large degree depends on the individual's way of thinking and experience. Therefore, using somewhat ambiguous vocabulary, Mayr affirms the role of the observer in the formation and interpretation of the theory of evolution. Consequently, the observer and the observed cannot be separated. Such realization that reality is partly what people make of it encourages us to play and experiment with life.
In his account of Darwin's theory, Mayr uses the principles of evolution to account for phenomena in human societies and culture. Reinforcing the significance if chance in the formation of reality, Mayr challenges us to redefine our values and identify the factors that stump our development. Analyzing the aspects of the theory of evolution, he suggests a new way of thinking that empowers humans to cast off the fear that thwarts their ability to play and experiment with reality. Much stamina on the part of people will this entail. Are humans prepared to answer such a challenge?
Reference:
Ernst Mayr, What Evolution Is (New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2001)
| Sex and Chance: Strange Bedfellows? Name: E.J. Madse Date: 2004-02-20 15:17:41 Link to this Comment: 8317 |
History was sex, French was sex, art was sex, the Bible... everything was sex except biology which was obviously sex but not really sex, not the one that was secret and ecstatic and wicked and a sacrament and all the things it was supposed to be but couldn't be at one and the same time-- I got that in the boiler room and it turned out to be biology after all. (Stoppard, 218)
I'll admit it. I'm fascinated by sex. After all, it is the reason that we are all here, isn't it? And not just thanks to our parents: for years and years and years, sex has been the motor driving the evolutionary process. I don't think people give sex enough credit for its role in the evolutionary process. Call evolution "survival of the fittest", call it random chance, call it whatever you want-- in the end, whoever's left alive is just searching for another body in which to find comfort.
I have not always been fascinated by sex. An infamous family story records my disgust when I first learned about "the birds and the bees". Apparently, I turned around in the car seat to look at my baby brother: "You mean you did it twice??" Part of my growing fascination has been a result of the evolving story I have been told/am telling myself about sex. In class, Professor Grobstein taught us about "lateral transfer", and Elizabeth dubbed sex "the transfer of genetic material". I don't like to think about sex in purely clinical terms, however. It's not just my status as a "hopeless romantic", it's also my belief that sex is bigger than the box of words it is often put into. Sex is a growing, changing thing that is going through its own evolution. Not that the process itself has changed much; it's human interpretation and response to sex that continues to evolve. Also , if sex is allowed leeway to expand beyond the clinical level, it gains greater implications (not that birth isn't a great implication by any means). As Stoppard puts it: "Einstein- relativity and sex. Chippendale- sex and furniture. Galileo- 'Did the earth move?'" (Stoppard, 90).
In this sense, everything we do is linked inextricably to sex. (Upon writing this previous sentence, I realized that I have picked a topic which is quite beyond the scope of this paper, and would require many many years of research. However, I hope to make a few concise points before the implications of this opening hit and I have to scramble around to tie things up.)
Take for example birth control. Birth control can be considered an isolating mechanism because "copulation [is] attempted but no transfer of sperm takes place." (Mayr, 171). Mayr says, "The isolating mechanisms of species are devices to protect the integrity of well-balanced , harmonious genotypes." (Mayr, 170). How does birth control protect the "integrity" of the human genotype? I would argue that since birth control has become a self-imposed isolating mechanism, it actually does little towards protecting against anything besides unwanted pregnancies. Every instant of conception remains equally fraught with that wonderful element of "chance" which Mayr explains to us. If there are fewer chances for conception, that does not mean that there will be any less "chance" involved in any individual exchange.
However, human response to birth control remains mixed at best. I know a family with several children who have remarked, "We'll have as many as god gives us." Birth control is less acceptable to those who view sex as solely a means for reproduction. Birth control interferes with the natural course of events: they might call it god, but Mayr would just as easily name it chance. These people have their story about birth control. However, I also know a number of women who are quite pleased with their daily pills. Their story is different: taking chance out of sex allows them to enjoy sex as another avenue for human contact, minus the more sobering repercussions.
It is not just birth control that we use to write sex into a box. Other factors, including sexuality and gender roles, play major roles in defining sex. I would like to propose that the repression of female sexuality could also be considered a self-imposed isolating mechanism. What I'd ultimately like to know is if these isolating mechanisms were self-imposed for conscious or subconscious reasons. Dennett remarks that once a population has reproduced to the extent where there are not enough resources to support it, the population will decline as those who are unable to feed themselves die off. Could birth control and other methods of defining and limiting sex be the human-invented way to prevent such an occurrence?
There are a few dangers I discovered in considering this final question. The first is that the idea of population control furthers the viewpoint that humans are here to stay. In becoming self-regulating, it is easy to assume that we will have a greater longevity as a race. However, this does not allow for the ever-present element of chance in our lives. At any point, a catastrophe could happen, and we'd all be dust like the dinosaurs. Chance is an important idea that should remain central to our lives. Chance keeps us humble, if that seems possible.
So this brings us back to chance after all. Chance and sex, sex and chance. If sex is the motor driving evolution, then chance is the oil without which this motor could not run.
Sources Used:
Mayr, Ernst. "What Evolution Is." Basic Books, New York, NY, U. S. A. 2001.
Stoppard, Tom. "Tom Stoppard: Plays 5". Faber and Faber Limited, London. 1999.
| Can Neo-Creationism Stand up to Evolution by Natur Name: Emily Sene Date: 2004-02-20 15:17:50 Link to this Comment: 8318 |
I do not consider myself a religious person and do not look to Genesis for an explanation of how the world came into being. Yet our discussion of Darwinian evolution over the past few weeks has led me to believe that there is little room for spirituality of any kind in a truly rigorous scientific theory of the origin of life. This is disconcerting, to say the least. Obviously we have outgrown a strictly creationist lens, but has religion become completely obsolete? Does spirituality have a real place amongst the scientific tenets of evolutionary theory, or is it merely a crutch that we lean on? Can God and Darwin co-exist?
The constantly mounting collection of evidence for evolution by natural selection is almost impossible to ignore. However, there is a neo-creationist school of thought, called "intelligent design," attempting to modernize the concept of a God to fit the challenge presented by a Darwinian explanation of life. Proponents of this theory, such as Michael Behe, claim that the cellular structures and pathways in living organisms possess "irreducible complexity," meaning that minus any one component, they become functionless. This implies that these components could not have evolved in a step-by-step process, but would all have to be present simultaneously. Cilia and blood-clotting are commonly cited examples. Taken a step further, irreducible complexity can also be applied to complex organs, such as the eye, and complex behaviors, such as flying. How could they have evolved in gradual increments, with each one providing an adaptive advantage? Evolutionary theory according to Darwin is certainly not a complete and irrefutable account of the origin of life. In many instances, the door has been left open and the explanation remains unresolved. Additionally, the claims of Behe, and other natural theologists, are not just religious superstition anymore. Their interpretations of many trends can be supported scientifically.
Naturally, Behe's hypothesis of irreducible complexity provoked a reaction from evolutionary scientists. Are the gaps in our knowledge of the origin of species large enough to allow for intelligent design? Despite several inconsistencies, the facts seem inescapably stacked in favor of natural selection. The fossil record is a good example. Though it is incomplete, the various geographic strata contain a wealth of extinct organisms which exhibit distinct evolutionary trends. These include morphological similarities between older species and those that exist today, in both adult and embryo forms.
The implications of this analysis of the fossil record are not good for creationism. The species that exist today were not simply placed on Earth in their current condition, but have come to be over hundreds of millions of years of adaptation. Ernst Mayr states that "embryonic similarities, recapitulation, and vestigial structures raise insurmountable difficulties for a creationist explanation, but are fully compatible with an evolutionary explanation based on common descent, variation, and selection." (31) Mayr is unrelenting in his support of evolution by natural selection, as are the majority of scientists and anthropologists.
Critics of intelligent design argue that any creationist explanation cannot be purely scientific because it is necessary to consider the likelihood of the existence of a higher Intelligence. In other words, until it is proven that there is a God, these theories leave something to be desired. Intelligent design provides one explanation for an evolutionary anomaly, but it is not necessarily the most elegant or practical solution.
Since the publication of The Origin of Species, evolutionists and creationists have been embroiled in one of the most legendary debates in scientific history. A consensus may never be established between them, as it is impossible to prove or disprove the existence of God. From a scientific perspective, it seems ludicrous to attribute every natural phenomenon to some unknown higher power when there are explanations to be found here on Earth. However, Darwin's theory alone seems to be an inadequate interpretation of the entire scope of life.
My thoughts on religion changed significantly as I researched the creationist perspective on evolution. I am not at all convinced by the intelligent design hypothesis, despite the fact that natural theology has become a great deal more sophisticated since Genesis. In a way, I agree with evolutionists who claim that until the existence of God can be proven, no creationist theory will hold water against Darwin. It's frightening to abandon the idea of a higher power, but after reading several creationist texts, I question His place in the scientific community.
1.) Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
2.) Pennock, Robert T. "Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics." Endeavour 26 (2002): 118-119.
| Keep Evolution in Our Schools Name: Rosalyn Sc Date: 2004-02-20 16:03:32 Link to this Comment: 8320 |
| The Myths Created by Stories Name: Erin Daly Date: 2004-02-20 16:38:18 Link to this Comment: 8321 |
_¡°Life as it now exists on Earth, including the simplest bacteria, was obviously derived from a single origin (Mayr, 40).¡± This idea of a ¡°single origin¡± has been the instigating factor for the split and ongoing battle between the creationists and the evolutionists, between those who believe God created mankind, and those who believe in the pure science of evolution. It is as if believing in a single source will validate either one of the schools of thought; superiority will come when one side finally convinces the other side of their argument.
_I was raised Catholic. I do not remember being told any sort of evolution story. Whether this was a purposeful exclusion or a matter of forgetfulness is to be determined. I learned that in seven days God created the earth and made man. That was the story presented, and it seemed reasonable. As I grew up, it seemed more like the story of Santa Clause or the tooth fairy, something that was told to me, something I took to heart, and was years later informed of its falsity, all as a matter of forcing me into a sense of maturity. Third graders could not believe in Santa Clause. I held onto the myth because it felt good, and I received presents, and no one can argue with the positive of receiving presents.
_Eventually, maturity replaces the myth, and we move forward. Forgetting the stories of our childhood, or at least revising them, leads us to a forward motion, to a more adult way of being. I suppose this is what happened with my religious beliefs. I am revising them to adapt to my newfound adult way of being. To believe without fully understanding is not to completely believe, and trying to understand evolution as it is presented is difficult with the implication that it may be just another myth I will later have to come to terms with and revise. The idea of understanding is an on-going process, as the story of evolution is also an on-going process. Stories are meant to be revised. They are also meant to have a beginning, middle, and an end. The story of evolution conflicts with the concept of storytelling, of writing stories, yet it is still a story that has survived and will continue to survive.
_It appeals because it does not have an end. It will not until life itself ceases to exist. Our concept of time invites us to enjoy evolution without the concept of it having an ending significant to our life span. I want to explore this idea of evolution as a story with no end by specifically citing the example of the chimpanzees. I was embracing the notion earlier that the chimpanzees will evolve further, and as I considered this more, it became an object of apprehension. ¡°If the chimpanzee is allowed to continue living he, too, might suddenly produce a race of chimp super brains and evolve an entirely new tool-culture (Goodall, 241).¡± I was trying to imagine this race of chimp super brains.
_Our culture has already imagined it. In the 1968 film Planet of the Apes, chimps can talk and civilization as we know it is endangered. The chimps are portrayed as violent creatures that are bestowing revenge upon the humans for all the savage treatment the humans had bestowed upon them. This same story was re-told in a 2001 production of Planet of the Apes. This must mean that there is some fascination on the subject. I have not seen either of the two movies, but they are categorized as science fiction, which means ultimately they sacrifice a portion of credibility simply by the nature of their narratives. The statement Goodall makes is interesting because of its rhetoric. It insinuates that there is a possibility for the chimpanzee to stop living; she states, ¡°If the chimpanzee is allowed to continue living,¡± but whom does she suggest will bring the life of the chimpanzee to a halt? It comes back to this idea of a ¡°single origin¡± which we use to make sense of our chaos, to make meaning of our existence.
_An interpretation of this statement could result in one of two possibilities: 1) that there is indeed a God who determines our existence and our extinction, and that the elements of evolution will eventually lead to an elimination of the chimpanzee as a species or 2) that humans will be responsible for the extinction of the chimpanzees because of our need to dominate (Mayr, 2001). The Planet of the Apes illustrates an envisioning of a violent ordeal between the apes and the humans; they fight for dominance. Is this a consensus? That if we were reduced to sharing superiority with the chimpanzees, it would become violent, and only one species could inevitably be on the top of the heap? Is it difficult for us to abandon this idea that our culture is the better one, the one that has accomplished more, achieved more, and will be exclusively in control of the environment? Or is this just a myth that needs revision? There is another thought to the theory that creating the narrative of evolution instinctively establishes distrust, an opinion that it could be a dischargeable myth. It is the Gaia hypothesis, which is described as ¡°Earth¡¯s inanimate and living worlds together form a well-balanced and programmed system (Mayr, 42).¡± The world we live in is full of conflicts and contradictions, causes and effects.
I view this in the details of how we exist together. If two skinny people are sitting on a bed and another overweight person jumps on the bed, the two skinny people will be lifted off the bed and will bounce. If one person runs a red light, another car will suffer the consequences. If a light bulb is left on for weeks, it will burn out.
_These are things that cannot be argued; they are physical occurrences that occur because something has happened to make them occur. This is how I interpret the story of the Gaia hypothesis. If a person punches someone else, that someone else will experience pain. These cause/effect actions lie at the basis of life, but the question remains: what is the original source of all things? If there has to be an inherent ¡°because¡± to every action, then what caused life? The Gaia hypothesis, put into perspective with the case of the chimpanzees, shows there is potential for a direct cause/effect state of living between the chimpanzees and the humans. One day, the ¡°inanimate and living worlds¡± which are ¡°well-programmed¡± will become programmed in such a way that the accepted nature of our culture, society and civilization will be challenged, perhaps in order to have a new order of species which dominates, perhaps with new concepts of what it means to be civilized. It is the obsession with the mysterious concept of a ¡°single origin¡± that presents us with the dilemma of the singularity of our world. Instead of thinking in terms of cause/effect, instead of thinking within in a framework of being in a ¡°well-programmed system¡± which is affected by our simplest of actions, we think in terms of how it happened and who made it happen and we argue about which one is the better myth.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Goodall, Jane. In the Shadow of Man. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston, MA. 1971.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution is. Basic Books. New York, NY. 2001.
| "Evolution": What's in a word? Name: Jen Sheeha Date: 2004-02-20 18:07:32 Link to this Comment: 8322 |
Jen Sheehan
2/19/04
Evolution/Stories
Whenever various debates have taken place in parts of the country regarding whether
evolution should be taught in schools, I have always observed the situation with a degree of
incredulousness; neither the parochial education I received in elementary and middle school
nor the public education I received for high school ever attempted to dissuade us from
learning about evolution, and while none of my classes ever taught evolution with as much
depth as Ernst Mayr attempted to convey in What Evolution Is, both systems taught it as a
fact – one that we took for granted. The debate on the use of the word "evolution" in the
Georgia school system initially appeared to me to be a manifestation of more anti-evolution
tendencies, although Superintendent Kathy Cox has not commented on the theory of
evolution itself; "the unfortunate truth," stated Cox as her rationale, "is that 'evolution' has
become a controversial buzzword that could prevent some from reading the proposed biology
curriculum" (Gross A10). Whatever her own beliefs on the subject are, however, the
elimination of the term "evolution" may provide cool comfort to the theory's detractors, but
its overall effect is merely to hamper the student's understanding of what evolution entails.
In place of "evolution," Georgia's proposed replacement is "biological changes over
time"; it hopes to convey the meaning behind the word without using the word itself (Gross
A10). Mayr's own definition seems to be rather similar when he states, "Evolution is change
in the properties of populations of organisms over time," but a word expresses more than
what a clipped dictionary definition can allow (Mayr 8). When "evolution" is used in daily
parlance in a non-biological context, adaption is often an unspoken yet important component
of it. If one speaks of "evolving as a person" or "evolving in his role as team captain," there
is a sense that one is moving from a less-adapted state to becoming better suited for whatever
it is one does. It implies that there is a development of certain qualities to be better suited for
the environment an individual may find him- or herself in, not simply "changes over time"
for the sake of change; while there is indeed a degree of randomness in how a species may
evolve (or come to destruction, as the well-adapted dinosaurs did when a meteor struck and
indelibly altered the environment), for the most part the changes are not entirely due to
chance. "One can conclude from...observations that evolution is neither merely a series of
accidents nor a deterministic movement toward even more perfect adaption. To be sure,
evolution is in part an adaptive process, because natural selection operates in every
generation," and while there is no teleology involved in the evolutionary process, the
replacement of evolution with "biological changes over time" does not attempt to explain
why those changes take place, whether out of chance or necessity (Mayr 229).
"Biological changes over time" is too simple of a reduction and does not represent the
full picture of what evolution is. Evolution, according to one definition in the Merriam-
Webster Dictionary, is "a theory that the various plants and animals are descended from other
kinds that lived in earlier times and that the differences are due to inherited changes that
occurred over many generations"; it takes into account that evolution is generational, not
simply "over time," and that one generation of organisms is the result of generation after
generation of natural selection – a process that leaves no room for an entirely static species.
To define evolution as simply being biological changes over time is to neglect evolution's
emphasis on population changes and the role this has in natural selection. Mayr takes care to
focus on populations in his definition, as "population is the so-called unit of evolution. Genes,
individuals and species also play a role, but it is the change in populations that characterizes
organic evolution" (Mayr 8). When an organism fails to produce offspring, it is the
population that is most greatly affected; that organism's genes will not be passed on to the
next generation, and it is in this manner, with particular genes and characteristics being
removed from the population, that a population may be significantly altered enough to be
considered a separate species.
With its implications of adaption, natural selection and population change, the term
"evolution" carries with it all accompanying theoretical baggage that Georgia's shorthand
definition cannot accommodate: baggage that is necessary for a full understanding of what
evolution is. With the Georgia Board of Education's deliberations on the place of the word
"evolution" sparking national attention, Superintendent Kathy Cox has since changed her
mind and has requested that the term – with all its associations – remain in the curriculum,
explaining her original proposal by stating that "the political consideration was thinking
about the teacher on the front line of a classroom in Georgia, and recognizing that people do
have misinterpretations of that terminology" (MacDonald, "Biology standards reset to cover
evolution"). However, replacing such terminology with vaguer terms does nothing to further
students' acceptance and understanding of evolutionary theory. The teacher may not be able
to control whether a students comes to agree with evolution or not, but censorship of the
word may present an obstacle to any student's full comprehension of such a cornerstone in
scientific thought.
Gross, David. "In Ga., it's evolution by any other name." The Philadelphia Inquirer: Page A10, January 31, 2004.
MacDonald, Mary. "Biology standards reset to cover evolution." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, February 13, 2004.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Perseus Book Groups, 2001.
| My Story: The Revision of Vocabulary Name: Simran Kau Date: 2004-02-20 18:26:41 Link to this Comment: 8323 |
I have always equated the theory of natural selection with the 'survival of the fittest', assuming automatically that nature weeded out those that were not intelligent or strong enough, finally leaving humans at the top of the evolution ladder. After taking this course, my concept of the ladder has changed. Instead of viewing it as vertical, I now conceive of it as horizontal, with all that is currently in existence on earth sharing the place where I believed human beings stood unchallenged. I have gained a deeper and more subtle understanding of the concept of natural selection, understanding how it works in conjunction with other natural processes to affect evolution. The stories that we have discussed in class have changed my story. They have especially changed the vocabulary that I use in order to describe evolution.
An adolescent interest in dinosaurs led me to believe in the theory of catastrophism. "Catastrophism is the theory that Earth has been affected by sudden, short-lived, violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catastrophism). One such catastrophic event occurred 65 million years ago when an asteroid struck earth, wiping out 70% of the species then present on earth. What I failed to understand when I first heard of this asteroid, was that this catastrophic event was a result of random chance, and if it had not occurred one can only conjecture about what shape evolution would have taken.
My story of evolution is now rooted in the way that my definition of natural selection has changed. I no longer view it as the 'survival of the fittest', instead understanding it to be a two step process. Natural selection is best described to be both a random and a non-random process. Mayr calls the first step the "Production of Variation:
Mutation of the zygote from its origin (fertilization) to death; meiosis with recombination through crossing-over at the first division, and random movement of homologous chromosomes during the second (reduction) division; any random aspects of mate choice and fertilization." (Mayr 119)
By this description of the first step of natural selection, Mayr claims that chance plays a big role in evolution. From his explanation, it is possible to understand that even though dinosaurs were the largest creatures on earth, chance played a role in their extinction. Thus chance occurs in natural selection from mate-choice to fertilization and more.
The second step in natural selection is described by Mayr as:
Superior success of certain phenotypes throughout their life cycle (survival selection); nonrandom mate choice, and all other factors that enhance the reproductive success of certain phenotypes (sexual selection). (Mayr 119)
Thus Mayr believes that survival selection, which is adaptation to environmental conditions, as well as sexual selection, competition amongst males to impregnate females, are both nonrandom aspects of natural selection. It is interesting to note that Mayr uses the word "superior" when describing the survival success of an organism. By the use of this word, Mayr is indicating that the species that survive are in some way better than those that do not. His use of this word undermines the role of random chance that he describes as the first step of the process of natural selection. If Mayr claims that an organism that is "superior" or of a higher order than another organism has better chances of survival, then he is describing the evolution of a species as "an intrinsic drive toward a definite goal, particularly toward greater perfection" (Mayr 77). This description is of the essentialist theory of evolution which Mayr claims to shun since it implies that a species has an essence or trait that makes it strive toward survival. My definition of evolution as 'survival of the fittest' also leaned toward essentialism. I too believed that the species with the greatest drive and most intelligence would survive. It is only after reading Mayr and critiquing his text in class, that I have come to create a story of the role of natural selection in evolution.
Even though a novice to Darwin's theory of evolution, I am aware of our genetic transition from an elemental gene pool. Mayr's text documents the evolution from protozoans to more complex organisms, such as humans. This concept of universal common descent is fascinating in its inherent implication that all natural species are actually derived from one specific gene pool. It is this theory that challenges my very concept of a vertical evolutionary ladder. The diagram of the evolutionary tree that was
shown in class by Professor Grobstein, indicates that all species currently in existence stand on an equal level. An understanding of this diagram finally convinced me to change the way in which I described evolution.
I now have a more nuanced understanding of the potency of evolution and how it undermines my initial belief of humans as superior beings. Charles Darwin concluded his On the Origin of Species by saying: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." Darwin uses the present tense when he says that the most beautiful and wonderful forms "are being" evolved. My story is currently being revised and I no longer use the words 'superior' and 'best' when talking about evolution.
Bibliography
1. Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001
2. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
| Stories as Attitudes Name: Cham Sante Date: 2004-02-20 23:14:12 Link to this Comment: 8324 |
Curiosity seems to be innately part of the human experience. With this propensity towards curiosity comes our seemingly insatiable need to search for answers to the world's many unanswered (and conceivably unanswerable?) questions. Perhaps the most important of these questions regard the origin of the world, of life, and of us as human beings. The need to account for our own beginnings can be seen throughout history, as multiple explanations have been offered from diverse cultures, religions, philosophies and disciplines. For example, "the folklore of even the most primitive human tribes indicates that they had given some thought to questions about the origin and history of the world" (Mayr, 2001, p.1). This "urge to account for a beginning" has indeed led to many different answers and justifications throughout time, the most popular and noteworthy being the stories of creationism and evolution (Mayr, 2001). These two accounts at first appear to be entirely irreconcilable, thus sparking centuries of heated controversy and debate. The purpose of this discussion is not to attempt to resolve the age-old arguments among creationists and evolutionists, but instead to investigate the psychosocial reasons behind the power of each side's assertion that they and they alone are "right".
According to the definition of an "attitude" (i.e., "any cognitive representation that summarizes our evaluation of an object, which may be the self, other people, things, actions, events, or ideas"), the stories/explanations that we come up with to account for the world around us are nothing more than attitudes (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 247). Evaluating the inherent characteristics of attitudes will allow us to gain insight into new (and more useful?) ways of thinking about persuasion (i.e., "the process by which attitudes are developed, reinforced, or changed by communications"), thereby allowing us to further understand why conflicting stories, specifically the stories of creationism vs. evolution, can be perceived as tremendously threatening (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 248).
People form attitudes/ create stories because they are useful in mastering the social environment and in establishing important connections with others. It is a well- known fact in psychology that once an attitude is formed, it becomes very closely linked to the representation of the object to which that attitude has been ascribed (i.e., the attitude object) (Smith & Mackie, 2000). This cognitive connection helps us to negotiate our interactions with these attitude objects in two ways: through the "object appraisal or knowledge function" and/or the "instrumental or utilitarian function". The object appraisal function refers to the ways in which attitudes/stories help us to organize and simplify our experience, thus allowing us to "deal with it efficiently" (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 250). Taken in terms of our need to explain the beginning of time/the world/humans, the story of creationism presents the fairly simple explanation (i.e., in terms of cognitive not religious or philosophical appraisals) that a supreme supernatural being was uniquely responsible. We are here because an invisible and thus indemonstrable power has put us here, period. What a simple answer this is! In terms of evolution, the story serves to resourcefully (and effectively?) describe Creation through a simple, concrete presentation of scientific facts such as the fossil record, common decent and molecular evidence (Mayr, 2001). And what an organized and efficient answer this is!
The instrumental explanation of the usefulness and function of stories, serves to orient us "towards objects that will help maximize our rewards and reach desired goals while avoiding undesirable situations or events" (Smith & Mackie, 2000, p. 250). In this way, creationists might tell their story in order to reaffirm their belief in a God and thereby procure a desirable place in an afterlife. Similarly, evolutionists might tell their scientific story in part to intellectualize Creation in a way that will allow for rationalizing away the uncomfortable and intimidating possibility that the creationists might be "right".
There are three "building blocks" of attitudes: cognitive information, affective information and behavioral information. Each of these building blocks serves to solidify ones own attitudes about the stories we tell, as well as inhibit the possibility for the blending/reconciliation of different stories regarding the same attitude object (e.g., Creation). Take for example, the following schematic representation of the attitude/story of creationism: (Picture nontransferable)
Cognitive Information= The bible says that God created man and the universe
Affective Information= I feel comforted by my belief in God and the word of the bible
Behavioral Information= I go to church every Sunday and read the bible before I go to bed
These Three components in combination= An Attitude/Story= God created man and the universe
Herein, lies a fundamental problem regarding the reconciliation of different versions of a story: cognitive information can be shared/learned and behavioral information can be altered/adapted, but affective information is not so easily modified. For instance, evolutionary biologists can present a creationist with a quite convincing scientific story substantiated by dense "factual" information, and that creationist may even concede the plausibility and merit of such arguments. That same creationist may also become disillusioned with religious practices such as attending church or reading the bible. However, does the affective category of attitudes not somehow constitute the true foundations of many of our most important assertions? For instance, when an attitude or story is seen to be a fundamental cornerstone of our self-concept and therefore our identity (e.g., the way creationism is often crucial to our religious affiliations and thus our concept of self), it will likely take more than refuting cognitive information (e.g., the fossil record) to bring about a persuasive change in attitude.
The point is then that when we are confronted with conflicting stories/attitudes, our response must not at once be to convince or persuade others that our version is "right" and theirs is "wrong" (as if these subjective assertions are somehow static and verifiable), but instead to accept the possibility that multiple versions of stories may safely exist. In the beginning of this discussion, the human need to search for answers was mentioned. Is it not enough then that one, both or perhaps neither of these stories can serve to sufficiently satisfy a person's questioning of Creation? In other words, let there be both a story of creationism and one of evolution.
| We are the Storytellers Name: Mary Ferre Date: 2004-02-20 23:44:14 Link to this Comment: 8325 |
A non-fiction story is a linguistic production that represents the author's mental representation of the world as she sees it. When a story is told, it is 'placed in the world' and becomes a public representation, allowing a listener to perceive it, reason about it, and tell it again if desired. The listener makes decisions about the value of the story, and what is re-told depends on this value (Durham, 1991: 194) (3). These values, commonly referred to as perspectives, are transmitted in all stories, original and retold. What is individually valued and put into a story is influenced by historical conditions and social relations, and in turn, influences future conditions and social relations.
In addition to personal and societal values inherent in storytelling, humans have certain cognitive predispositions that factor in to choices of what is told or repeated in a story. Just to mention one kind, we all use heuristics. These are problem-solving forms of reasoning that helps us to inferring the validity (or value) of statements when we are short on time. Heuristics are not always accurate. They are reasoning based on ideas like, the way things worked in the past, what is thought to be typical, analogical thinking, and poor correlations (4). I am saying people do not always think logically. Human communication is inherently inferential, because of the above stated reasons. There is interference with the exact replication and meaning of stories, hence the gradual change of stories over time. This differential transmission of ideas, values, and beliefs as expressed through story evolution is an important factor in how culture evolves (3).
This process of story evolution sounds analogous to biological evolution. Both are processes of gradual variation due to selection and differential reproductive success over time? Could I be too quickly using the human cognitive predisposition of heuristics? Probably, because I did make an analogy without thinking it through carefully.
And why did I throw this idea into an already complicated paper? For one, I used it as an example of analogical heuristics at work. For another reason, it seems to me to be an example of telling a story based on valued historical conditions. Historically, evolution is huge. It has permeated our culture everywhere. Today, clothes detergent evolves, as do cars, and love. The model of evolution is becoming so ingrained in our society that we use it to symbolize all kinds of change, regardless if there is mutation or reproductive success involved. And I am no different. I always keep the story of evolution close by.
Why do we tell and repeat certain non-fiction stories? I think we tell certain stories for many reasons, but ultimately to seek answers and comfort in those answers. Universally, we all want to understand ourselves and the meaning of our lives. I believe we are all in search of truth, for some ultimate authority. I also think a large motivation for creating non-fiction stories is to have knowledge that can be useful for adapting to our world. Science has been a very intoxicating non-fiction story because it offers us some satisfaction for both of these desires. Regarding our search for the "truth", I wonder if it is attainable. Much current philosophy stresses the subjectivity involved in the supposedly objective scientific method. Thomas Kuhn 's "Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions" (1962) raises the question of the rationality of science. In his popular theory, paradigms (scientific worldviews) shift and when they do, they negate scientific facts once held so dear. Kuhn states that even so, science is effective, but he does not know that it definitely progresses towards the truth. Nevertheless, science is a useful story. As Richard Dawkins pronounces, science does get results. "Science boosts its claim to truth by its spectacular ability to make matter and energy jump through hoops on command, and to predict what will happen and when (1).
The scientific story of evolution does just that, it jumps through all the hoops to perform "truth" for people. The world was ready to begin hearing the story of evolution because it made sense of what was observable in the world around them. Likewise, it made sense of the new information sprouting up in the 1800s. During Britain canal development, dramatic differences in the fossil records were found in the differing layers of rock strata. Cuvier studied these and found systematic development over time. Dinosaurs captured the imagination of the people when they were identified in the 1820s. Lyell's theory of gradual geological change, Malthius' Essay on Populations, and previous evolution theories all were road smoothers for Darwin's ideas (2).
In addition, society was in the right frame of mind to accept scientific knowledge of science. The intellectual and scientific revolution of the 17th century, had by 1859, begun to work its way into the hearts and minds of all classes of Western society. The concept of religious authority as the ultimate authority had been greatly weakened ever since Protestantism challenged Christianity in the 1500s. Literacy had greatly improved due to the printing press. The scientific discoveries of Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton, etc. and the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution of 1780 - 1830, such as the steam engine and the railroad systems, began to give science a high regard. The first printing of "Origin of Species" sold out on the first day it was released for sale in 1859.
Although, not everyone believed in the evolution story right away and some still disregard it today, it is a story that has achieved a high consensus. It has been overwhelmingly supported by evidence, starting with Darwin's hefty substantiation and continued mounting evidence for 144 years ever since. Biological diversity and morphologic relationships, the fossils records, theories of geologic history, Mendalian genetics, artificial selection, molecular biology, archaeological finds, and embryology all sustain Darwinian evolution as described in "Origin of Species", based on random change and natural selection (2).
Evolution is a highly successful representation story in today's society. As well, the whole story of science is a highly successful representation story. Science is not only a dependable story supported by replicated observation, but also some of its theories have developed useful technologies. It is hard to negate the truth in successfully applied knowledge. However, what about theoretical science that is not replicable like the theory of evolution? Evolution is based on a ton of circumstantial evidence. Maybe we should hold the door open before deciding it is the truth. Maybe, because most of the evidence fits Darwin's big picture that he represented, it seems true. Suppose there is a different, bigger yet picture (a new paradigm) that the evidence would fit in better?
It could be -- that we tell and re-tell the evolution story because it is a really good true story. On the other hand, it could be -- that it seems to be true. I have heard it said, that in every story, there is the story that is told and then there is the story that we want to hear. I wonder why humanity's subjective ideals, values and beliefs support the science stories that reverberate so much today. We humans want the truth badly. And we need an ultimate authority. However, is it true knowledge? Watch out for your heuristics and your value judgments!
Literature Cited
(1) Dawkins, Richard. A Devil's Chaplain. New York: Houghton-Mifflin. 2003.
(2) Mayr, Ernest. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic. 2001
(3) MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences. Eds. Wilson, Robert, Keil, Frank. Massachusetts: MIT press. 1999.
(4) Parkin, Alan. Essential Cognitive Psychology. East Sussex, UK: Psychology Press. 2001.
| The Civilized Altruist Name: Fritz Dubu Date: 2004-02-21 13:04:07 Link to this Comment: 8335 |
The evolution of man as a species can be traced with limited fossil evidence, but the development of the mind takes a different course of investigation. "Unfortunately, no hominoid fossils- nor such of a fossil chimpanzee- are as yet known for the period between 6 and 13 mya. Thus there is no documentation of the branching event between the hominoid fossil and the chimpanzee lineages" ( What 239).
Ernst Mayr, a staunch supporter of humans as the current supreme species sheds little glimmers of light onto this subject. Though his main goal in What is Evolution is to provide a biological narrative, it also works to illustrate the evolution of the brain and the emotions. In between these lines lie the broader questions. These questions delve into the realm of the cognitive and emotional. They ask the how and the whys which can not be so readily answered by biology or other means of scientific proof.
One such question arises from what seems to be man's innate need for grouping. Initially these groups were created as a means of protection from predators, of any form, but soon they evolved into complex socio-emotional support systems. "For tens of thousands of years- the period of recent human evolution- humans lived in groups ranging from 50 to 200 people. To survive they had to raise their offspring until they reached social and biological maturity" (Law 4). In these well maintained social structures there were rules and regulations, which worked to ensure the survival of the group as a whole. In time these groups became larger and extremely complicated civilizations.
Altruism is the driving force behind these constructions. By creating these codependent infrastructures, humans must depend on one another. The us against the (natural) world mind set is takes over. Altruism fosters an environment where ideas as well as behaviors can be recycled into society and time. As an altruist, an individual may or may not be rewarded for their contribution to the human species. But he or she has a lasting trickle down effect on society , humanity and civilization.
It would seem against animal nature, even that of the human, to be altruistic. Survival of the fittest does not leave room for such socially learned behaviors. Or does it? Survival of the fittest has now moved from the physically fittest to that of the adaptable. Through socially learned behaviors and adaptations evolution of the human species has become less about nature and more about the civilization's ability to nurture.
Since civilization is a product of altruism it is fitting that those best able to maneuver its pits and falls be altruists. They exist in a sustained environment built to their specifications. The prototype of civilization calls for humans to develop a high level of sociability. In the evolution of the species and their structures altruism has come to replace the archaic divisions between hunters and gatherers. Now, due to civilizations those lines have become less distinct, but still exist. The altruist is the ultimate hunter. By going into realms which are unattainable to the average man, either financially or mentally, they hunt in the unknown. They then return to the folds of civilization to disperse what they have attained. The hunters take risks as the gatherers wait. As the recipient of the altruist action the rest of civilization become the gathers. But as Mayr questioned: Can there be any real altruism?
The conception and maintenance of civilizations answers this question with a resounding no. Civilization is a survival mechanism. Pure altruism is unattainable. The closest humans could come to pure altruism would be act of animity, but even these are questionable as the person who acted still has some knowledge as to what occurred. The knowledge of having done something "good" or "beneficial", makes true altruism impossible because this knowledge will incite some for of emotion or reaction on those who "know". " The idea is as follows: A invests in (e.g., assists, helps) B because, at some future time, B will reciprocate A's assistance" (Law 35). Acts of perceived kindness and other such behaviors have an effect which is wide spread and deeply socially penetrative.
First there is the person who commits the initial behavior. They may or may not feel good based on the reaction of the civilization which they inhabit. Then there is the recipient of the action. This reaction can be observed on several levels, depending on who the altruist is and who their target is. The target, through rules and regulation set up by the civilized society, must then act accordingly. The target may then be guilted into duplicating this behavior. Others who may or may not wish to receive the benefits of being an altruist in their society also model the behavior. By this means the survival of man is ensured.
The fittest in this environment are not necessarily those who would have ben deemed the fittest of the past. Civilization creates a large population in a smaller amount of space to increase to possibility of offspring and the species survival. In this space natural selection becomes less relevant as the options have been significantly increased. It is man's interpretation of a "controlled" environment. Since it is a world of human creation built by and for humans, they can not but thrive in it as a species. In this environment, the human species can reign supreme. This was not an option in the "uncontrollable" world of nature were man was not the best equipped or adaptable species.
Works Cited
Gruter, Margaret. Law and the Mind: Biological Origins of Human Behavior. Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, Inc. 1991.
Mayr, Ernst. What is Evolution. New York: Basic Books. 2001.
| Exploring the Validity of Natural Theology Name: Perrin Bra Date: 2004-02-22 15:05:54 Link to this Comment: 8357 |
The thought processes that underlie Creationism and Evolution are undoubtedly very different. The fundamentalists of the former school of thought adhere to the Biblical tenet that divine creation in six days is responsible for environmental diversity, whereas evolutionists have repeatedly stated that the universe was created billions of years ago and is in a constant state of fluctuation. At first glance, these accounts of life on Earth seem incompatible—the creationists base their beliefs purely on faith and explain their surroundings based on that conclusion, while scientists work in the opposite direction by asking questions first and make systematic observations that have resulted from their propositions (Moore 5-6). Ernst Mayr claims that "the beliefs of creationism are in conflict with the findings of science," but the founders of Natural Theology have managed to unite the principles of Genesis with those of evolution (qtd. in Mayr 4). There are strict purists who claim that it is not viable to combine the two ideologies, but it is possible to incorporate the concept of G-d into scientific fact.
Although there are several variations on the concept of Natural Theology, its advocates generally accept evolution. Whereas strict creationists reject the notion that the Earth was formed billions of years ago, natural theists accept the scientific evidence for the age of the Earth with one large discrepancy: organisms could have only originated with the aid of divine intervention. However, it is acknowledged that there is no concrete evidence to substantiate the belief that the Earth was created a mere few thousand years ago, just as there isn't any geological confirmation that a global flood engulfed the entire planet (Science and Creationism). This liberal interpretation of Genesis and cautious acceptance of evolution allows for some flexibility with previously undisputed Biblical notions, such as the idea that the creation of the world was completed within six twenty-four hour periods. Those six days have been construed to signify as a literary device by the author of the Bible, six days separated by long time periods, or as six days from the perspective of an ageless G-d (Commission on Creation). Thus, the essence of Natural Theory is that an omnipotent creator fashioned the physical processes that set evolution in motion and these processes resulted in the creation of life.
This theory appears to be logical, except for the notion that some aspects of life are so complex that they completely transcend human understanding and are thereby the work of an Intelligent Designer. This idea would have been more logical in previous centuries where the scope of science was very limited or nonexistent altogether, but we have since gained the knowledge of the cell—the basic unit of life—and have thus learned of the complexities of the even the smallest micro-organisms. It would appear that in modern times, there is very little that is (or will ever be) completely unknowable to the formidable scope of science, but at the end of the nineteenth century, such a conclusion would have been unreasonable. For example, the discovery of radioactivity provided scientists with an accurate geological clock that enabled them to determine a close approximation of the Earth's age, which led many creationists to re-evaluate their belief that world was merely thousands of years old (Moore 180). Essentially, what we do not know today we may discover tomorrow; the only genuinely improvable concept being the existence and nature of G-d.
Science and Creationism do not completely make sense on their own accords, so the concept of a higher being can be incorporated into evolutionary thought. Faith is not necessarily only for the closed-minded—it is the few vocal fundamentalists who give religion a negative reputation in the eyes of logical thinkers. The question of the Creationists is certainly valid: how can inanimate matter suddenly become life and how did that matter even come to be created? A
strict interpretation of the Bible states that G-d created the universe in all of its entirety in a mere six days, but this explanation of our existence does not correlate with proven facts regarding the age of the Earth. Science cannot prove the existence of a G-d or other supernatural occurrences because science is involved with the natural world and there are no such tools that have been developed to prove in the reality of an omnipotent force. Conversely, Genesis contains no scientific evidence nor provides an explanation of the diversity of life and the universality of cellular biochemistry in living organisms (Moore 52). The Natural Theology solution: G-d created evolution.
Like Creationism and evolution, Natural Theology has its flaws. In particular, the issue of whether Adam and Eve were the first humans or whether Man evolved from a common ancestor. The Natural Theologians adhere to the belief that humans were created by G-d, who used a body plan that was reminiscent of the apes (Commission on Creation). Those who adopt this belief argue that evolution is a progression to a more complex form of organism and it is the ultimate goal of perfection that incites development. Although there no such internal genetic drive has been discovered, the word 'perfection' is certainly open to debate. That word is used quite frequently in the diction of Natural Theology, for eighteenth century theologians believed that the world was created as a perfect realm, and that even when it was subsequently discovered that some aspects of it were not quite ideal, it was believed that G-d's laws would ultimately lead to perfection (Mayr 213-15). However, this idea proves to be very problematic for two reasons; the first being that this view is conflicted by the Bible. If it is believed that the Messiah will come to Earth to repair and bring peace to the world, then it could not have been perfect at the onset. The second is that the physical world is far from perfect; it is a brutal and disorganized place in which many resources are wasted (Mayr 148). Therefore, the word 'perfection' is much too finalistic to
be credible.
Although there is no tangible scientific proof that an omnipotent deity exists, the story of evolution does leave many questions unanswered; chiefly, how does inanimate matter suddenly become life and how did that matter come to originate? Although modern technology has disproved many literal interpretations of the Bible, religion and science aren't necessarily incompatible. With flexible analyses of both, it is quite feasible to believe that a god created the world, complete with evolution.
Works Cited
Commission on Creation. Aug. 2000. American Scientific Affiliation. 17 Feb. 2004.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Moore, John A. From Genesis to Genetics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2002.
Science and Creationism. Aug. 1999. National Academy of Sciences. 17 Feb. 2004.
| Evolution of the Internet: A Rhizomatic Applica Name: Lauren Fri Date: 2004-02-23 01:02:36 Link to this Comment: 8384 |
Evolution is the process Charles Darwin described – the story he told – to explain the diversity of the planet. Evolution exists in nature as the interplay between linear natural selection and random events. This randomness necessitates a nonlinear model for exploring evolution as a whole, and as randomness is increasingly recognized as the dominant evolutionary force, "evolutionary schemas may be forced to abandon the old model of the tree and descent" (Deleuze 33). If we take a rhizome as an evolutionary model instead of a tree, this "connects any point to any other point" (Deleuze 35) and allows for nonlinear progression. Once the model for evolution is freed from its directed linear path, it can be applied to disciplines outside of biology.
The internet has evolved in much the same way as life on earth. Just as "all life on Earth... started with a single origin of life" (Mayr 21) and has grown increasingly complex, "the Internet grew from a single experimental network... to a globe-spanning system linking millions of computers" (Abbate 1). Both processes began with a single entity that turned into populations by increasing its complexity and diversity. While the "spreading out" of organisms on the planet is governed by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, the parallel "spreading out" of information on the Internet is the result of a different kind of entropy.
As populations and diversity increase, entropy escalates: in the internet's infancy, there were so few users that there was limited cyber-interaction among them (Abbate 84), but as more users signed on and more documents became available, there was further interaction and thus accelerated evolution. The same kind of order / disorder, expansion / contraction binaries that drive the evolution of life on earth can be applied to the evolution of the internet. In life, these opposing pairs catalyze speciation. On the internet, they create the kind of categories used in directories to organize information and by browsers to recognize different types of documents (HTML, PHP, PDF, JPEG, etc.). Whether the evolution of life and of the internet is occurring as a process moving toward "perfection" is irrelevant: both systems are in transition, suspended in "continuous flux" (Mayr 7) in a race toward ever-increasing complexity and diversity.
Both of these parallel processes must be considered rhizomatically. Neither the internet nor life has progressed along a clear line. Alongside and around the "main" trajectory of evolution, there exists "aparallel evolution" (Deleuze 33). For example, the cat and the baboon are each evolving, but their evolutionary paths probably will not overlap, even though they can be traced to the same origin. Similarly, web design standards are changing just as search engine technology is improving, but one does not directly affect or shape the other. This aparallel evolution is part of what makes the rhizome such an important model for evolutionary analysis and understanding. Even though each hypertext document is written in a treelike structure (Berners-Lee 1), the Internet as a whole and the way web pages are linked and derived is more emblematic of a rhizome.
One key element of evolution is adaptation. In life, adaptation is "any property of an organism believed to add to its fitness" (Mayr 283). For example, around five million years ago, apes living in the tree savanna had to develop "bipedal locomotion" to survive (Mayr 241). The evolution of the internet offers many examples of adaption since "systems and organizations have had to adapt to survive the relentless pace of technological change" (Abbate 4). In fact, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was created to "help make the Web a robust, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure for a world of information" (Jacobs 2). The internet's expansion and wider user base necessitated an adaptation that would allow a more user-friendly interface, leading to the invention of the World Wide Web (Berners-Lee "Answers" 2). In addition, web standards are constantly adapting to assure the internet's continued relevancy and usability. The internet, like the world, "is not constant but is forever changing" (Mayr 7).
The presence of vestigial structures – characteristics that were once functional but are no longer – has been cited as evidence of adaptation and evolution (Mayr 30). The human appendix is one example of this phenomenon. The Internet is littered with vestigial structures, like the keyword meta tag. The keyword meta tag was once used to insert invisible keywords onto pages to help search engines index them. Now, search engines no longer support this feature, rendering it useless, yet countless webmasters continue to include this tag every time they code a page (Sullivan 1). Because the internet's rhizomatic growth makes it difficult to regulate, the proliferation of vestigial characteristics is difficult to curb. This regulation and move toward consistency is one of the main functions of the W3C, which often acts on the Internet as natural selection does in nature.
The evolutionary process is rhyzomatic, with entropy and adaptations "ceaselessly establish[ing] connections between... chains" (Deleuze 30). In nature, the sequence of single cell, complex single cell, multi-cell is not a linear process of becoming "better-adapted." Each of these organisms still exists, and all of the earth's organisms are continually evolving rhyzomatically. Collapsing this multifaceted process into a linear model does not account for the web-like nature of environmental and taxonomic change. Additionally, the internet – being a "web" itself – evolves in much the same way. Its continued usefulness is reliant upon its continued evolution: "If the Internet is to continue as an innovative means of collaboration, discovery, and social interaction, it will need to draw on its legacy of adaptability" (Abbate 220). As both nature and the Internet progress toward something as yet undefined, the only plausible goal seems to be the process of evolution itself.
Bibliography
Abbate, Janet. Inventing the Internet. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1999.
Berners-Lee, Timothy. "Answers for Young People." http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Kids [19 February 2004]
Berners-Lee, Timothy. "Glossary." Weaving the Web. 1999. http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/Weaving/glossary.html [19 February 2004]
Darwin, Charles. "Darwin's Model of Evolution." http://depts.washington.edu/genetics/courses/genet453/2001/summaries/images/tree-darwin.jpg [18 February 2004]
Deleuze, Gilles with Felix Guatarri. "Rhizome Versus Tree." The Deleuze Reader. Constantin V. Boundas, ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.
Garbora, Liane. "The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity." Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission 1 (1997). http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1997/vol1/gabora_l.html [18 February 2004]
Jacobs, Ian. "About the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)." Copyright 1999-2003 W3C. http://www.w3.org/Consortium/ [19 February 2004]
Leiner, Barry M., Vinton G. Cerf, David D. Clark,Robert E. Kahn, Leonard Kleinrock, Daniel C. Lynch, Jon Postel, Larry G. Roberts, and Stephen Wolff. "A Brief History of the Internet." Internet Society. http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml [18 February 2004]
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
Morris, Paul. "Rhetoric in Evolution." Athro Limited, 1999. http://www.athro.com/evo/rhetoric.html [20 February 2004]
Sullivan, Danny. "Death of a Meta Tag" (10/01/02). Search Engine Watch. http://www.searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2165061 [20 February 2004]
| Arguing the Point Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-02-23 09:14:46 Link to this Comment: 8387 |
There is a blurry and indistinct line between giving the best possible scientific support for a theory in which one strongly believes that has only incomplete evidence, and writing a persuasive piece that will draw people to one side of an argument based on feelings as well as facts. Indeed, there may be no line at all, upon close inspection, but that would be an unpleasant thought to most scientists, who value their ability to write objective reports on subjects and end up with one best answer, because science possesses answers that are definitely and provably better than other answers.
Unfortunately it is impossible to find all the facts needed to support some theories, and sometimes scientific theories get mixed into debates involving other thought systems, such as politics or religion. Evolution may be one of the theories most prone to these problems, so writing an objective report on evolution is intensely challenging. In writing What is Evolution? Mayr threw himself into waters full of sharks eager to eat the would-be objective writers that most scientists are.
Objective writing must be based completely on cold hard facts (Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial), and if it comes to a solid conclusion is it because those facts fit together to prove the theory. If all the relevant evidence was collected and evolution was indeed true then it would stand in the face of all comers without any persuasive techniques needed, but "all the relevant evidence" would be the genealogies of every creature ever born with extensive documentation. Absent that, which would be quite impossible to gather, the theory must be argued and supported and in the end some people will turn out to be impossible to convince, which is the habit of persuasive writing.
The impossibility of gathering all the evidence has drawn the argument over evolution away from science and tied it up in the politics of science, religion, and philosophy. The Creationists, who are the main opponents of evolution, rarely hold unbiased debates over unvarnished facts; that kind of debate is a scientific convention, and has little relevance to religion. With the debate over evolution only half in the world of science unbiased debates cannot really be used, because they only apply to the methods of one side of the debate. So emotion-laden, vague arguments are the norm.
Mayr is not, however, on the Creationist side of the debate. So would it be possible for him to write a proper scientific report? He is, after all, writing about science. The problem with that idea is that if he is facing off against the Creationists he must find some common battle field on which they can meet to argue. If Creationists argue solely in terms of faith and scientists argue solely in terms of facts they will be unable to have a discussion, because the two arguments never meet. Faith has no more impact on facts than facts do on faith. So Creationists must make use of facts and scientists must address emotions so that they can even debate the topic.
So arguments for one side or the other must absorb some of the traits of the opposition, but must this be an argument? What Is Evolution? seems to be presented as an explanation of evolution, which would conform to a definition of objective writing; "the goal of objective writing is to inform and predict using a neutral point of view." (Georgetown University Law Center) A book merely giving information on evolution could be an objective one, so there is not an absolute need to take an argumentative stance. Mayr clearly does argue, however. He takes the road of saying that his opposition is so terribly foolish that there is no reason to debate with them. He dismisses any need to explain why the Creationists are wrong on the first page of appendix A, saying that their opinions have been refuted in so many places that there is no reason for him to take up space for it.
In other places he is more subtle about saying that any theory competing with evolution is ridiculous; on page 235 he mentions in passing that "no well-informed person any longer questions the descent of man from primates," insinuating that if the reader disagrees with this then the reader is an idiot, or conversely that the reader must be smart and therefore agrees with him. He does not make a direct assault on disagreeing with him, such as saying right out "I'm right, they're wrong." He does not even admit the possibility of the opposition having enough of a case to argue about. This is quite a clever literary technique; most readers assume they are intelligent. If what they are reading says that intelligent people have a certain opinion, then the reader assumes she must also have that opinion, because she is intelligent. And because there is no direct attack on the opposing point of view that would make the reader carefully consider the debate, this thought process happens on a subconscious level where the reader cannot catch the gaping holes in that theory, and simply agrees with the sentiment behind it.
Despite his apparent arguing rather than presenting, it is entirely possible that Mayr wrote this book with the intention of merely explaining evolution. It is quite common for authors to be writing with a bias that they do not know they have (Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial). This can be hard to avoid when one is writing on a topic one feels very strongly about, and in the vicious fight over evolution feeling strongly on the topic is the norm. It is impossible to say whether Mayr intended to write an objective explanation of evolution or a persuasive argument for it without further investigation of his history or interviewing him personally. What he ended up with, however, was an argument to convince the reader that evolution is fact.
Mayr does not actually use a formal persuasive style of debate, but instead mimics a style Creationists commonly use. He assumes that his opinion is correct and any other opinion is so foolish as to be inconsiderable, and uses nuances of wording to subconsciously convince the reader that he is correct. It is certainly debatable how responsible this is, and whether he should rise above the level of his opponents who use this tactic, but if he intends to compete directly with people who use this tactic then it may be most effective to fight fire with fire.
References:
1. Persuasive Writing. 2003. The Writing Center at Georgetown University Law Center. Accessed 22 Feb. 2004.
2. Scientific vs. Interpretive Writing. University of Hawaii Kapiolani Community College. Accessed 21 Feb. 2004.
3. Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View Tutorial. 10 Feb 2004. Wikipedia. Accessed 22 Feb. 2004.
| Perfection According to Mayr Name: Katherine Date: 2004-02-23 23:15:14 Link to this Comment: 8417 |
In his book titled What is Evolution, Ernst Mayr bravely attempts to explain the complex biological processes of the development of plants and animals. His book, however, reaches beyond the realm of the science text book. With What is Evolution he attempts to educate an audience which may not have a strong science background but instead a strong literary background. Through this book Mayr strives for "a mid-level account of evolution, written not just for scientists but for the educated public." In short, he attempts to write a (non-fiction) scientific novel. Though his attempt to combine great literature and hard science is admirable he often gets himself into awkward situations when trying to please both the scientific and artistic sensibilities. His major problem in the book surrounds the use of the word "perfect." As a biologist, it may be easy to pass this word off as a synonym of "adaptedness," simply meaning well-suited to one's environment. As a literary-minded person, let alone English major, however, this word cannot slip by so easily. To the novel-reader, more than to the science-reader, this word carries a lot of baggage which cannot be ignored. So, why does Mayr use this word and what is he really trying to say? Does Mayr truly believe that evolution can be perfect?
The baggage that gets snared when Mayr uses the word "perfect" in his discussions of evolution is the complicated literary definition given to this word. Exact and flawless are some common synonyms of the word perfect. Perfection is something that has reached the pinnacle, the zenith of existence. Nothing which is perfect needs any alterations, modifications or changes. When something is perfect it exists with ease. It does not struggle to remain where it is, and it does not struggle to remain alive; it works in harmony with its environment. Going beyond the definition, something that is perfect is commonly more highly valued than those things around it which have not yet reached perfection. People place a certain amount of value on things that occur with ease. The human race seems constantly to be striving for something that is faster, cleaner. Something that can achieve these goals with ease earns the title of perfection and is highly. The only problem with perfection, as least in the realm of science, is that once the peak of perfection is reached there is no place towards it can further develop. This obviously presents a problem when considering evolution, which by its very name and nature means the slow change over time of one organism into something separate.
Mayr, as an accomplished, intelligent and well-respected scientist, could not have over-looked the fact that by believing in the process of evolution, he cannot also believe organisms can (or have) reached perfection. The two simply cannot coexist. In fact, Mayr does not believe in perfection manifested in natural organisms, he says so many times over through the course of his novel. Often, when Mayr uses the word he is actually trying to distance himself from it, to slice it out of our concept of evolution. Perfection, he tries to tell us, has no place in the story of evolution.
Still, Mayr's approach to distancing himself from the word "perfection" is subtle and almost hesitant, as if deep inside he still wants perfection to have its place in nature. In the beginning of his novel he writes, "Evolution, indeed, was a change...a change towards greater perfection, as it was said at the time..." (p. 8). Mayr begins this sentence with a claim, that evolution is "a change towards greater perfection." This claim says that there is a purpose for evolution, a goal towards which it strives. This goal is for an organism to reach a point at which it lives and reproduces with complete ease within its own natural environment (otherwise known as perfection). This claim also states that the process is still in motion; we are moving "towards" perfection, but we have not yet attained it. Even though we have not attained perfection quite yet, Mayr seems to be telling us that it is within reach. Then, quietly sandwiched within the scentence Mayr writes, "it was said at the time." The subtlty he uses in inserting these six words is surprising, since it changes the whole meaning of the sentence. This notion, of organisms striving for a specific point at which change is no longer necessary, "was" believed. It is a notion explored in the past tense. Not only was the idea of evolution towards perfection conceived a long time ago but, "it was said at the time," also indicates that it is not said now. Suddenly, perfection switches from being a truth or a viable outcome of evolution to an out-dated, inaccurate theory. People today, Mayr included, do not care to believe in this struggle towards perfection. The way in which Mayr includes, "it was said at the time," however, makes him seem less convinced in the falasies of perfection than he should be.
Mayr's use of the word "perfection" could be attributed not so much to a subconcious desire for perfection, but as simply a sense of literary style. Since What is Evolution is not written simply a biology text book but also as a piece of literature, Mayr is placed in a very delicate situation. His purpose in this book is not only to declare the yet understood "facts" of biology and evolution, and help the reader to process them; he is also responsible for keeping his readers wrapped up in a good story. As Mike Grant writes in the Biological Sciences Review, people, like Mayr, who wish to coherently communicate the workings of science, must "[use] the beauty of language to communicate [their] enthusiasm for a discipline." As long as Mayr is simply taking Grant's advice, the use of the word "perfect" can be easily explained. Using "perfection" in this context is not so much a statement or a claim as a literary embellishment. It is added to evoke a feeling or an image. Grant writes, "the profound implications of a perfect DNA double-helix," to create for the common reader a sense of awe for the DNA. He wants to recreate the same feeling a scientist might have viewing a strand without actually meaning to attribute the dictionary understand of the word "perfect" to the DNA sequence. Grant wants to excite his readers and make biology interesting, so too does Mayr.
Another explanation for the use of the word "perfection" in What is Evolution is that Mayr, like many other humans, is uncontrollably attracted to the idea of the existence of flawlessness, even if he does not necessarily belive it exists. Mayr's relationship with "perfection" parallels the basic human relationship with genius, it is looked for in every corner, on every street, and in every organism. In the December 2002 issue of The Atlantic Monthly Marjorie Garber explored what she called "our genius problem." She argued that people are naturally attracted to the idea of "a certain level of achievement, a gold standard, that [is] nonnegotiable, beyond mere opinion." This "gold standard," is Ian McEwan's (who Garber quotes) definition of genius, but it could just as easily be the definition for perfection. Perfection is the peak of performance, beyond which there is no room for improvement. It is the highest bar; it is that goal to end all goals. Genius, similarly, is the peak of human mental and creative performance. Both perfection and genius are actively sought and rarely, if ever, achieved.
Genius, like perfection, is measurable but elusive. People constantly search for genius through methods such as the IQ test, which measures "intelligence quotient." People also set standard by which they can compare and recognize genius. One of these standards is what Garber calls "natural genius." A "natural genius" is one who possesses extraordinary natural or god-given powers of the mind which cannot be attributed to any amount of schooling. In other words, genius is born with someone and will emerge within their lifetime, with or without the help of a formal education. Shakespeare and Einstein are two clear examples of "natural genius." Shakespeare's schooling appears to have not extended much past our equivalent of grammar school, and it is commonly believed that high school bored Einstein so much that he skipped out on most of his classes.
Much like the people who search for genius, Mayr looks for "perfection" using tools and units of measurement of his own design. On page one-hundred and forty he lists and described eight measurements for perfection, or as he calls it "adaptedness," within living organisms. These measurements all come to the conclusion that perfection is not manifest in living organisms, still if the conditions were right some organisms could develop perfection. "Constraints of phyletic history" is the number-four big glitch in our evolutionary pursuit of perfection. Mayr argues that over time adaptations were made which lost their usefulness, but which cannot now be reversed. We are forever stuck with the end of our tailbone and an imperfect, up-right skeletal structure which places high amounts of pressure on our hips and backs. By recognizing this phyletic history as a root to our imperfection, however, he creates a path towards that elusive goal of flawlessness. If only there were time, if only our genetic make-up could change or work in reverse, we could achieve perfection. After all, "The human species...has not yet completed the transition from quadrupedal to bipedal life in all of its structures. In that sense is it not perfect." (p. 282)
All of the tests and all of the observations that Mayr makes leads to one answer, perfection is not the goal of evolution and is not possible to achieve through evolution. Still, Mayr insists on using this confusing and frustrating word throughout his novel. His unwillingness to let "perfection" slip from our scientific vocabulary may be a scienctist's attempt at expanding and energizing a literary work. However, his subtlty in rejecting perfection, and the tools by which he tries to measure it point to a different expaination. Mayr still clings to a hope that some day perfection will be reached, whether through natural evolutionary processes or alternative, man-made schemes.
| Making Sense of Science and Religion Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-02-24 00:56:24 Link to this Comment: 8423 |
| Biology and Morality: Evolution or Inherency? Name: Nancy Evan Date: 2004-02-24 03:06:13 Link to this Comment: 8432 |
In a recent commentary for BBC News, Clark McCauley, Professor of Psychology at Bryn Mawr College, analyzed the issue of human evolution from a standpoint that drew on his knowledge of psychology: gradual and collective changes in human behavior. According to McCauley, as environments and situations changed, human behavior was forced to adapt accordingly. In his comments, McCauley cites the example of disgust; although it is now a common human reaction, McCauley claims it once did not exist. As humans became less capable of digesting raw meat, disgust became an important deterring force that, through the process of evolution, became a familiar and shared part of human existence. Evidencing his claim, McCauley pointed to the fact that humans have a shared and easily recognizable facial and bodily response to disgust.
Following McCauley's line of reasoning, if there is evidence that supports changes in active human behavior over time that can be attributed to the evolutionary process, it seems likely that other aspects of human cognition and its manifestations would also be subject to evolution. This paper will address the issue of the evolution of human morality; namely, whether morality is an aspect of humanity that is constructed or innate, and, depending on those findings, whether evolution plays any role in the process of determining our morals.
In order to assess morality, we must first define it and identify the prevalent philosophy behind it. In this paper, morality is defined as the rules that determine what is 'right' and what is 'wrong'. In his dissertation, Van Mildert College Student Nicholas Giles notes that while we do have forces that counteract our morals (i.e. our own desires), morality is often the "limiting factor" of our behavior. We (as a majority) do not steal, because somehow we have internalized that this is a 'wrong' or immoral behavior. Giles uses the example of being nice to our friends, so as to be considered nice ourselves, to segue into a discussion of altruism. Although Giles sees altruism, the notion of giving to others at the expense of oneself, as a counterintuitive philosophy, he recognizes that it the philosophical basis for morality (1).
The biological basis for altruism seems fairly straightforward: organisms that put the welfare of other organisms before their own will be less successful than 'selfish' organisms. However, there are situation specific benefits to altruism; in many cases, organisms in a group will fare better than individual organisms (1). In order to gain access into the group, an outgroup member must generally display a willingness to put the welfare of the group before their own personal welfare. From an evolutionary standpoint, the individuals who exhibit altruistic qualities and gain admittance into the group will most likely have a better chance of survival and, as a result, a better chance of passing along their own genes (3). From another viewpoint, the mere passing along of genes can be considered an altruistic act, so evolution itself would not be possible without altruism. To reproduce is to assume a certain potential of threat to oneself in order for continuation, to put oneself at risk for another (2).
The evidence disputing a biological basis for altruism is convincingly strong. The most fundamental players in the evolutionary process, our genes operate without a trace of altruism. In fact, they are themselves capable of reproduction without any outside assist. If we follow this line of thinking, we are inevitably led to search for another source of morality: human construction (2). Whether individuals believe that it is a supreme being or the invisible hand of society governing their actions, morality is an effective method to keep the masses 'reigned in', so to speak. Giles touches upon this issue, that "without morality, civilization would fall apart". Morality is a 'control mechanism; it allows us to have a society, namely a society which benefits those in control. In political science terms, these individuals (largely from the elite, educated class) are called instrumentalists. The instrumentalist instills in the masses a collective notion that he/she can manipulate to their own advantage. Based on this analysis, altruism appears to be more of a social construction that has been largely internalized, yet is not innate. Further, since 'altruism' and 'morality' are such sweeping, nebulous terms, they lack the common thread for identification as in the disgust model.
This argument is one not easily settled. While there seem to be marginalized genetic and evolutionary benefits to altruistic behaviors, on a human scale it becomes more difficult to prove. Are our morals genetically determined or merely assumed? On a more forward-thinking level, say we do, in fact, internalize the rules of morality, will those of us who act in an altruistic manner have a better chance of survival? If so, this also means a better chance of perpetuation of our own genes, and less of a risk of being evolutionarily phased out. Can our behaviors find their way into the path of evolution, and if so, do they become part of the process? Interestingly enough, an answer to this question may make useless the nature v. nurture debate altogether. Until that point, there may be no infallible way to distinguish between collectively assumed behavior and actions that are the result of evolution.
Works Cited:
Giles, Nicholas. Is Morality a Unique, Humanizing quality, or is it just the product of evolution?. Senior Philosophy Dissertation. Online. Available: www.neologism.co.uk/phil/html/dissertation.html
Sharpe, Kevin. Religion and Morality Intersect Biology: Sociobiology and Altruism. Online. Avail: www.ksharpe.com/Word/EP04.htm
Uchii, Soshichi. Darwin on the Evolution of Morality. Online. Avail: www.philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00000137/
| Filling the Gap -Niche Theory and the Human Consci Name: Susan Will Date: 2004-02-24 09:56:05 Link to this Comment: 8448 |
Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
-Lewis Carroll
How do we create something new in this world? In an age where the issues of increasingly diminishing natural resources are available and the amount of consumption is growing, this question is becoming increasingly important.
The niche theory gives us a partial answer. Mayr, in his book What Is Evolution tell us that a niche is a "constellation of properties of the environment that make it suitable for occupation by a species". Niches for organisms can not only be found on the topological surface of the earth (which in itself is a niche in the universe) but also inside already existing organisms given the right conditions of adaptability. Examples of this would be to look at some viruses that inhabit living organisms and in some cases, are limited to specific species.
The human consciousness seems to me to fit many of the characteristics of a niche, barring the obvious fact that it in itself is not an independent organism. Niches in my opinion can not only be limited to being filled by living organisms, but also by its bi-products. We define our consciousness as the fundamental characteristic that makes us human.
Early philosophers defined out consciousness as "reason": our consciousness in fact gives reason and meaning for our existence and transcends the purely biological needs of the species. It is the motivation that propels us to seek knowledge and to "fill" ourselves.
Our consciousness creates a second world – one in which humans are capable of examining and having a deep understanding of ourselves. We create a new place for ourselves to inhabit inside ourselves.
The reason as to why or how it came about that humans developed a consciousness is still unknown. Why is it that humans (and potentially 1 or 2 other species) evolved to the point of being able to create this new inner world, new niche to inhabit while other species did not? This is a fundamental question of life that man has been asking since recorded history and most likely since this faculty first became active in primitive man. It may be better to turn away from the questions of why and how and instead examine in what way we fill this obviously present niche.
Human imagination is just one way in which we look at, interpret and revisit the world we inhabit. It is one of the fundamental characteristics of our consciousness. It is the home of our internalized self. Everyone at one point or another during the day gets lost "day dreaming" or living out an imaginary scenario (some more than others). It is part the motor of our desires, our ambition, and our driving force as it is the faculty that allows us to see things in relation to ourselves.
If we characterize a niche as a place where something new is created, we are faced with a roadblock when we look at imagination in this context. Our imagination is not only comprised of things we have experienced – seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. Of course we have the capacity to re-arrange these things in a different order than the way in which we experienced things. However, no one can actually create something new and original. An article from the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica says that:
"The common use of the term (imagination) is for the process of forming in the mind new images which have not been previously experienced, or at least only partially or in different combinations. However the image of a centaur is the result of combining the common percepts of man and horse; fairy tales and fiction generally are the result of this process of combination. In various spheres...even imagination is in practice limited"
Our imagination is in fact like a jigsaw puzzle – putting different pieces of things we have experienced together to create something different. We don't have the capacity to create anything new because everything we imagine is comprised of things in which we have already experienced. Like Alice, we find that all the things we experience in our dream world are just a mutation of reality.
Our consciousness is therefore not a niche in the sense that it dose not create original things, yet simultaneously it does create a new space for us to inhabit. If we apple this to the context of biology, the same issue applies: can we say that anything is really new? All organisms feed off another; borrow from another, relay on the life and death of one another. We are all interconnected and reliant. If this is so, I propose that we revise the use of "new" in the context of niche theory, and indeed in the context of life and existence.
| Filling the Gap -Niche Theory and the Human Consci Name: Susan Will Date: 2004-02-24 12:11:19 Link to this Comment: 8451 |
Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.
-Lewis Carroll
How do we create something new in this world? In an age where the issues of increasingly diminishing natural resources are available and the amount of consumption is growing, this question is becoming increasingly important.
The niche theory gives us a partial answer. Mayr, in his book What Evolution Is tells us that a niche is a "constellation of properties of the environment that make it suitable for occupation by a species". Niches for organisms can not only be found on the topological surface of the earth (which in itself is a niche in the universe) but also inside already existing organisms, given the right conditions of adaptability. Examples of this would be to look at some viruses that inhabit living organisms and in some cases, are limited to specific species.
The human consciousness seems to me to fit many of the characteristics of a niche, barring the obvious fact that it in itself is not an independent organism. Niches in my opinion can not only be limited to being filled by living organisms, but also by its bi-products. We define our consciousness as the fundamental characteristic that makes us human.
Early philosophers defined out consciousness as "reason": our consciousness in fact gives reason and meaning for our existence and transcends the purely biological needs of the species. It is the motivation that propels us to seek knowledge and to "fill" ourselves. Our consciousness creates a second world – one in which humans are capable of examining and having a deep understanding of ourselves. We create a new place for ourselves to inhabit inside ourselves.
The reason as to why or how it came about that humans developed a consciousness is still unknown. Why is it that humans (and potentially one or two other species) evolved to the point of being able to create this new inner world, new niche to inhabit while other species did not? This is a fundamental question of life that man has been asking since recorded history and most likely since this faculty first became active in primitive man. It may be better to turn away from the questions of why and how and instead examine in what way we fill this obviously present niche.
Human imagination is just one way in which we look at, interpret and revisit the world we inhabit. It is one of the fundamental characteristics of our consciousness. It is the home of our internalized self. Everyone at one point or another during the day gets lost "day dreaming" or living out an imaginary scenario (some more than others). It is the motor of our desires, our ambition, and our driving force as it is the faculty that allows us to see things in relation to ourselves.
If we characterize a niche as a place where something new is created, we are faced with a roadblock when we look at imagination in this context. Our imagination is not only comprised of things we have experienced – seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. We have the capacity to re-arrange these things in a different order than the way in which we experienced things. However, no one can actually create something new and original. An article from the 11th Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) says that
"The common use of the term (imagination) is for the process of forming in the mind new images which have not been previously experienced, or at least only partially or in different combinations. However the image of a centaur is the result of combining the common percepts of man and horse; fairy tales and fiction generally are the result of this process of combination. In various spheres...even imagination is in practice limited"
Our imagination is in fact like a jigsaw puzzle – putting different pieces of things we have experienced together to create something different. We don't have the capacity to create anything "new" because everything we imagine is comprised of things in which we have already experienced. Like Alice, we find that all the things we experience in our dream world are just a mutation of reality.
Our consciousness is therefore not a niche in the sense that it dose not create original things, yet simultaneously it does create a new space for us to inhabit. If we apple this to the context of biology, the same issue applies: can we say that anything is really new? All organisms feed off another; borrow from another, contingent on the life and death of one another. We are all interconnected and reliant. If this is so, I propose that we revise the use of "new" in the context of niche theory, and indeed in the context of life and existence.
| Making the Image Less Wrong: Expansion and the Ev Name: Julia Eddy Date: 2004-02-24 13:11:01 Link to this Comment: 8455 |
For a young scholar learning the basic concepts of science and biology, evolution was this grand theory of past life becoming more like present life over time via the utilization of such complicated and foreboding means as "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest." I came to understand that there was endless diversity of life, and variation was a result of the interactions of organisms with their environments. Natural selection placed pressure on the organisms forcing adaptations to be made, hence new species to arise over time. The oversimplified image of evolution that began to form in my head involved one single organism adapting to its environment and undergoing change in its own life span, therefore that one organism experiences evolution in action. I didn't think evolution was a process of becoming more "perfect" necessarily, but "better suited for more diverse situations," which boiled down to being better. Obviously this picture I was conjuring up was far from the most scientifically logical, and I was surprised and impressed to hear a better explanation. Evolution is depicted as an inconceivably time- consuming and expansion-driven process; it is not about "survival of the fittest" or being perfect, rather the most able to produce genetically variable offspring (less likely to be eliminated by natural selection). The major discrepancy between the two (oversimplified and clarified) formulations of evolution is the importance of random innate expansion, which arguably is a quality assigned not only to energy and matter on Earth, but also to evolution and as the entire universe.
One of the simpler discrepancies in my illogical view of evolution merely involved timescale and the mechanism of change. A single organism cannot evolve within its own life span because of environmental pressure. The very first of Mayr's seventeen principles of inheritance states, "genetic material is constant ('hard'); it cannot be changed by the environment or by use and disuse of the phenotype... Genes cannot be modified by the environment... There is no inheritance of acquired characters" (Mayr, 2001, p. 91). Therefore, one organism cannot possibly experience evolution in action as a result of environmental interactions. The term adaptation creates some confusion here because it is so often coupled with evolutionary change and expresses a change suited for certain environmental conditions. The fact of the matter is evolution, as well as adaptation, occur over many generations and changes are not directly related to the conditions of the environment. Environment doesn't trigger change, change occurs secondarily. It should be noted however that one single organism, in fact every single organism, is the result of random reproduction and is therefore involved in evolution as it is happening. However, selection is not predestined, it occurs after the organisms already exist with their set characteristics from birth. Mayr explains this on page 121 and writes, "Selection does not have a long-term goal" and "evolution is not deterministic" (2001).
In addition to not having a predestination, evolution is also not striving for perfection. Instead evolution is striving for survival, and survival only into the immediate future, it doesn't plan ahead. Mayr explains the process of selection within a population on page 117:
Every species produces vastly more offspring than can survive from generation to generation. All the individuals differ genetically from each other. They are exposed to the adversity of their environment, and almost all of them perish or fail to reproduce. Only a few of them... survive and reproduce. However these survivors are not a random sample of the population; their survival was aided by the possession of certain attributes that favor survival (2001).
Whatever the attributes are that favor survival, they aren't planned out in advance, nor are they an effort to become "perfect," they are merely random genetic conditions that make for an organism that is suitable for further reproduction and life the given time.
The discrepancy among evolutionary representations that needs the most attention is on the importance of sheer random innate expansion. Mayr writes on Darwin's theory that, "evolution through natural selection is best referred to as the theory of variational evolution. According to this theory, an enormous amount of genetic variation is produced in every generation, but only a few individuals of the vast number of offspring will survive to produce the next generation" (Mayr, 2001, p. 85). Clearly here there are two actions occurring, reproduction and selection. The reproduction is translated to expansion, and is completely random, whereas the selection aspect is systematic.
Natural selection is thrown around so readily that it seems to be the main ingredient in the evolution potion. Rightly, selection is a necessary process for change but it alone doesn't define evolution. The important and underrated force at play is expansion; the natural and unconscious drive to expand is inherent in the all matter and energy. In order for evolution to occur natural selection must eliminate organisms unsuited for the environment, but according to Mayr "at the first step, that of production of genetic variation, everything is a matter of chance" (Mayr, 2001, p. 120); the random generation of new genetic subjects creates the diversity which then can undergo selection. Why the random generation of offspring? Perhaps an innate need to expand?
Expansion means spreading out, extending, another synonym might be entropy, becoming messy. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics explains entropy as the always ultimate flow of energy from order to disorder within the constraints of the Earth. A classic example of entropy at work would be that of the messy room; no matter how many times it gets cleaned, entropy always brings the disorder back. It is this flow of ordered energy or matter that can be related to evolution. The random and excessive reproduction is an effort to expand; therefore the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is also applicable to evolution. There are spurts of expansion or Stephen J. Gould would say punctuated eruptions of species with a new generation then equilibrium or contraction as natural selection sets in.
While the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is used to explain matter and energy on Earth and thus also applies to evolution, the more amazing place of application can be the universe. While the universe is infinite and hard to apply any rules to, entropy logically seems to be relevant here as well. According to the compiled observations of Einstein, Hubble, and Vesto Slipher regarding structure of the universe, light absorption of distant galaxies, and velocity or the rate of change in color among these galaxies, other distant galaxies are said to be traveling away from Earth's galaxy implying that they all matter was once mounted together prior to a Big Bang event. Perhaps even more boggling is that while matter (galaxies) is spreading out in the universe exhibiting entropy, it is actually suggested that the galaxies moving away are a result of space and the universe itself exhibiting entropy and expanding (Evans, 1995). The example used at the Expanding Universe website is making homemade raisin bread – when the dough rises the raisins spread out in the dough as a result of the dough expanding, the raisins move with the dough not through it (Evans, 1995). Is contraction also occurring in the universe? It seems quite likely.
Nothing in evolution, science, and especially nothing in the entire universe is known for sure. There are no truths, only observations. Based on reliable observations, an approximate picture can be created. This new picture is of evolution being a process of random innate expansion followed by a process of selection, which leaves the lucky organisms with favorable characteristics to expand randomly in another round of the cycle. The selection occurs at the genetic level, with no regards to perfection or environmental goals. The key mechanisms are expansion and contraction. In presenting a more logical picture of evolution and the universe, it is possible to see that everything, all matter, energy, and even the entire universe itself, is perhaps in a perpetual cycle of expansion and contraction.
WORKS CITED
Evans, C. R. (1995). Expanding Universe. Retrieved 2/22/04 from University of Illinois: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/Cosmos/ExpandUni.html.
Mayr, E. (2001). What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books.
| Race: An Empty Category? Name: Patricia P Date: 2004-02-24 13:46:10 Link to this Comment: 8456 |
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
--Albert Einstein
What is race? How many races are there? What are the genes that separate each race? How many genes are there? What do evolutionists, scientists, or anthropologists have to say about race? And even more importantly, what role does race play in your life? When I was a young girl of about 6, I had a friend of a different race who was particularly interested in answering the unsolved mysteries of our world. She explained to me that she was made "some place different than white girls." I took a good look at the both of us and determined that this must be correct. As I grew older, I felt ashamed and embarrassed that I ever believed this. And as I got even older, I started to question whether or not other people were told the same story.
Race, in the sense that I will be addressing it, is popularly defined as: "1. A local geographic or global human population distinguished as a more or less distinct group by genetically transmitted physical characteristics," or "2. Biology. a. An interbreeding, usually geographically isolated population of organisms differing from other populations of the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits. A race that has been given formal taxonomic recognition is known as a subspecies." (1) But what if we could not distinguish a more or less distinct group through genetically transmitted differences? Imagine how the definition of race would need to change if the very idea of a "geographically isolated population" become a rare occurrence? For too long, racial categories have had too forceful an impact on our understanding of human variation. Many findings in past racially motivated scientific experiments have only encouraged our divide. However, in recent American society, a great deal of time has been spent on a different approach to racial awareness. Interestingly enough, those who rest on opposite sides of the spectrum, (those who are racists and those who are race conscious and considerate,) have one thing in common: they acknowledge race as an important distinction between human beings. With a new awareness of the historical development of race, and a close look at the biology of human beings, we may feel compelled to ignore our classifications of race all together. This seemingly simple step is not only exciting on the level of racial equality, but on so many different levels of humanity that are waiting to be touched by this. This will not only change what types of variation among human beings are most important to define, but it will change the way we see ourselves, and the way we imagine ourselves perceived by others.
Unlike culture, race is actually a relatively new concept. Documentation of ancient civilizations shows us that social distinctions based on skin color or physical appearances were rare and simply not a preferred way of describing others. The ancient writings and customs of the Egyptians and Kushites, along with the relationship between the Greeks and Romans, show that color was not always and obstacle in dividing society. "They distinguished people according to customs and religion; not race." (3) It was not until the 16th century that we became race conscious, which may have derived as a cultural battle that later evolved into a distaste for physical features and color indigenous to groups that we culturally opposed or desired to control. The roots of racism can be found in the 19th century scientific traditions, and even earlier philosophical traditions where it was common practice to categorize based on the understanding that "immutable visible traits can predict the measure of all other traits in an individual or a population" (9). Race distinctions were further perpetuated by the English's struggle to dominate the Irish, or from the religious persecution during the Spanish Inquisition, when Jewish or Moorish "taint" were the clearest signs of inferiority in their beliefs. (3) When speaking of the United States, our intrigue with race has deep implications with the slave trade, and also the relocation of Indians from their homeland (4). The classification of race and all inquiries or misconceptions that arose from that construct clearly played a role in some of the more tainted moments in our human history. However, today we find race making very different historical marks. On June 23, 2003 the US Supreme Court upheld University of Michigan Law School admissions policy's use of race as a factor in admissions selections. (5) Race has also been determined as an important factor in such diseases as sickle cell anemia. It would seem as though this time, race was being used to include and care for different races, rather than exclude or harm. So, is this an example of race being used for good? Possibly.
So what if we did abolish the entire idea of race? The University of Michigan's law school would be forced to admit students based on their merit alone without ANY prior knowledge as to the color of their skin. People of other "races" would not run the risk of believing that they are not at risk for sickle cell anemia, considering the most recent statement from The Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia and their colleagues insist, "Sickle cell is in many nationalities including African Americans, Africans, Arabs, Greeks, Italians, Latin Americans, and those from India. You can be Caucasian and have sickle cell disease or trait. All races should be screened for this hemoglobin at birth" (8). But currently, all races are not, and this may have a lot to do with our current conception of race. It is important to recognize that even what may seem to be the benefits of the concept of "race," may still be nothing more than better-disguised drawbacks. And these drawbacks may be keeping us from more important scientific advancement and social, cultural, and medical achievements due to our preoccupation with a poorly developed construct with little to no value.
This may be because the common understanding of race differs from the best understanding of race. In 1996, the AAPA issued a Statement on Biological Aspects of Race as a revision of the 1964 UNESCO statement of race. I propose that the best definition of race become today's common definition, which includes the following points made by the AAPA:
"Biological differences between human beings reflect both hereditary factors and the influence of natural and social environments... There is great genetic diversity within all human populations. Pure races, in the sense of homogeneous populations, do not exist in the human species today, nor is there any evidence that they have ever existed in the past" (9).
Interestingly enough, the United States census bureau has also chosen to get involved with our misconception of strictly separate races. In the melting pot, particularly, we realized the need to break down the very rigid structures of race. The 2000 census was the first in history to allow people to check off more than one race category, "a process destine to reshape the ideas about race in America." (2) Our definition of race is changing, slowly... but is this decision scientifically supported?
The best answer is that the idea of abolishing the category of race is more scientifically sound than the idea of keeping it around. No matter where you stand on the issue, some say the best that biology has to offer is this: Human beings are made up of approximately 30,000 genes. Of those 30,000 genes, there is a surprisingly low number that have been proven to be responsible for separating one race from another- Zero! (7) But this finding, or lack there of, seems to disagree a great deal with our first definition of race. Also disagreeing with our first definition of race as something involved in "genetically transmitted physical characteristics" are studies finding that approximately "90% of human genetic variation occurs within a population living on a given continent, whereas about 10% of the variation distinguishes continental populations. (7) Basically, this would imply that we can find 90% of our individuality to be distinct from our neighbor, even if that neighbor is of the same racial category. Furthermore, it is also crucial to take in the fact that a black woman and a white woman may share much more "genetic similarity" than two people of the same race. (7)
It is important for human beings to define themselves and to be defined through their actions and not their appearances. Eliminating the idea of race, an idea that was ill conceived from its inception, may allow people the freedom to classify a group by their actions, their culture, and their beliefs. Abolishing the idea of race does not force us to ignore heredity, or the medical advantages of understanding someone's geographic history, family lineage, or bloodline. It merely forces us to look deeper. Abolishing the use of race as a defining characteristic will not erase our past, but it will evolve our future in a completely different direction, especially concerning our scientific endeavors. If you are someone whose goal is to end racism in this country, or in any other, consider not only focusing on ending intolerance to differences, but terminating vocabulary that supposes we have more differences than actually exist. We have found different approaches to our differences throughout history, and we would be best served to ignore our skin color as a means of classification. Race is not a valid distinction between human beings. The merits of the previous statement rest on biological advancements, and not just a sweet ideological wish. To be in agreement with Albert Einstein, although race may be a visible trait that seems easy enough to measure, it does not predict the more important traits of an individual... at least not enough to be "counted."
Bibliography
1. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=race
Dictionary. Com - A source that provided me with a generally excepted definition of race in a variety of different context, including a biological one.
2. http://www.projectrace.com/inthenews/archive/inthenews-unun99.php
Project Race: Rethinking Racial Identity - An article expressing excitement over multicultural, multiracial advancements made in this country.
3. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jonmorro/race.html
Race: Is It a Valid Issue? Focusing on the historical non-existence of race.
4. http://search1.npr.org/search97cgi/s97_cgi?action=FilterSearch&QueryZip=Race
NPR.org Audio clips taken from the Travis Smiley Show concerning Race (includes several commentators)
5. http://www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2003/Jun03/supremecourt.html
University of Michigan website- An article on their victory in the case involving race as a factor in admission to their Law School.
6. http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/population4.html
World Almanac for Kids Online: The 2000 United States Census
7. Bamshad, Michael J., and Olson, Steve E. "Does Race Exist?" Scientific American Dec. 2003: 23+.
8. http://www.scinfo.org/sicklept.htm
The Sickle Cell Information Center: Is sickle cell only in African Americans?
9. "AAPA Statement on Biological Aspects of Race." American Journal of Physical Anthropology 101 (1996): 569-570.
| A Rose by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet Name: Stefanie F Date: 2004-02-24 15:56:33 Link to this Comment: 8459 |
Douglas J. Futuyma, in Evolutionary Biology defined evolution as, "...change in the properties of populations of organisms that transcend the lifetime of a single individual. The ontogeny of an individual is not considered evolution; individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are inheritable via the genetic material from one generation to the next." (1)
Like most of the population, I've never picked up a copy of Evolutionary Biology and have only recently thought about the most correct definition of the term. The issue at hand is that most people do not reference scientific texts when formulating an opinion about evolution. Webster's Dictionary defines evolution as "...the development of a species, organism, or organ from its original or primitive state to its present or specialized state; phylogeny or ontogeny". Evolution, as I have concluded, is a scientific term, which has taken on a more controversial and politicized meaning in the non-scientific community, due in part to misinterpretation and false or misleading definitions like those presented in common publications like Webster's Dictionary. In our society, is it possible to avoid the politicized issues surrounding evolution by giving the concept a new name?
In January of 2004, Georgia State Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox proposed a new biology curriculum for students which would remove the term evolution from the classroom and replace it with biological changes over time. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other regional publications, critics are saying that this change in terminology will weaken students' learning experience. The adjusted biology curriculum would not require a revised textbook, nor would individual public school systems be prevented from teaching evolution in depth if they chose to do so. (2) Yet, even with this flexibility and minimal change to actual curriculum Georgia residents and politicians nationwide are in an uproar. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution online survey found that 12,900 people preferred the term "evolution" as opposed to the 1,783 who were in favor of biological changes over time.
Evolution, according to the most scientifically accepted theories is biological change over time. In What Evolution Is, Ernst Mayr presents the same simplified definition, describing evolution as "...change in the properties of populations of organisms over time". (4) If Kathy Cox feels that the theory might be better accepted if it is known as biological changes over time, that is her decision as State Schools Superintendent.
Terrie Kielborn, a middle school science teacher who served on the curriculum committee, said that the rationale for not including the term evolution was community reaction. The United States, especially the south, is known for its very active Christian Conservative voting block. In the past, this particular group has fought to ban evolution completely in schools, because of its conflict with the Creationist teaching. The Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to ban evolution on religious grounds in 1968; as such legislation would violate first amendment rights. (3) Cox has been accused of distorting evolution by distorting its meaning in the classroom, I, however, beg to differ. If evolution is, in essence, still being taught to Georgia's school children with only slight modification, it shouldn't matter if Georgia teachers were referring to it as George, the theory of evolution is still be taught.
Cox has described evolution as controversial, and indeed it is. By detaching the community from the divisive term and instead focusing attention to the correct teaching of the theory, Cox has attempted to make a new story for the students of Georgia. Her assertion is that evolution can be taught without the constraints of terminology, however, she was wrong. Despite her attempts to avoid controversy, her curriculum amendments only created further disagreement. On February 5th, Superintendent Cox decided to scrap her plans to remove the term evolution from the curriculum. The Georgia Governor described it as the right thing to do. (5)
The United States is still adjusting to the idea that a theory like evolution can exist in addition to other competing theories and moreover, be taught in schools. Superintendent Cox was merely thinking outside of the box. Despite the supposed eagerness of constituents and politicians to now preserve the biological education of Georgia students, perhaps they are only impeding it? If students, and their parents, thought of evolution in a different way, by reevaluating the terminology or understanding of the theory, perhaps teaching would be more effective. However, the United States is not ready to evolve just yet.
Works Cited
1. Moran, Laurence http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html
2. MacDonald, Mary "Georgia may shun 'evolution' in schools" http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0104/29curriculum.html, January 29, 2004.
3. "The Closet Atheist" http://www.geocities.com/closetatheist/evolutionclassroom.htm, January 2001.
4. Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Perseus Book Groups, 2001.
5. "Georgia Schools Chief Says 'Evolution' Will Stay" http://www.newsday.com/, February 6, 2004.
| Mayr and the Monkeys Went Down to Georgia Name: Rachel Cla Date: 2004-02-24 22:50:26 Link to this Comment: 8477 |
When Ernst Mayr published his book, What Evolution Is, in 2001 it was hailed as a work of genius. The praise, replete with superlatives, ranged from "elegant, enthralling, and provocative" to "clear, comprehensive, and very informative".1 From all appearances it intended to be the theory of evolution offered up to the common man for general consumption and enlightenment; it was what would put the evolution/creationism debate to rest once and for all. It neither fulfilled its own goals nor lived up to the acclaim received from the intellectual establishment.
In order to assess the success of Mayr's book as a book for the people, it is necessary to examine just who these "people" are. Certainly scientists would understand and agree with this book, but they do not need this pop- culture version of evolution; they can find what they need in giant volumes with complex scientific writing. Those within liberal intellectual society would agree with evolution and the premise of this book, although some would base this assertion more on a knowledge of scientific fact while others would choose the argument of 'that's just the way it is'. The latter is neither useful nor compelling: Mayr does not need to convince this sector of the population. For them, he wants to explain evolution; the dubiousness of this success is explained in Mayr's mention of scientific theories, etc. without further explanation or discussion. That leaves the sizable portion of the population which is not part of the scientific elite and does not subscribe to "liberal" values, but instead to more traditional views. While Mayr supposes to be the common man's evolutionist, he and his arguments inhabit an entirely different plane of existence from a substantial portion of the American population. In fact no region of the country has experienced as much controversy over evolution as the South. The theory (or fact- as Mayr would have it) of evolution represents a threat to the traditional identity of this region. This tension between science and tradition (whether real or perceived) has affected the education and upbringing of an entire region for so long that even now in this age of "reason" and "scientific enlightenment", the debate continues.
To understand the unique relationship between the South and evolution, one can look at the Scopes trail in 1925 and the recent controversy evolving the Georgia department of Education. These two cases illustrate the continuing friction between traditional American (Southern) culture and modern scientific thinking/ the intellectual community.
Eighty years after Tennessee v. John Scopes, 1925, know to many as the "Monkey Trial", many states south of the Mason-Dixon Line are still grappling with the same issues as the people of Dayton, Tennessee did in 1925. John Scopes, a young school teacher in the small community of Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to challenge the newly passed state law which forbade the teaching of evolution in public schools. He was tried and convicted for breaking this law and so became a martyr for science over ignorance. The trial was dubbed the "trial of the century" and tiny Dayton became the center of national attention. The trail was a battle between the forces of good and evil. Who was good and who was evil all depends on your point of view of course. Although Scopes's conviction was overturned by an appellate court due to a technicality, it was not until 1967 that the Tennessee legislature stuck the law from its books.2 The lawyer for the prosecution, William Jennings Bryan, an ordained Baptist minister and presidential candidate, was and still is a hero to many people in the area. The Scopes trial is still reenacted every summer in the Rhea County Court House and people hold views about the case as strong now as they did then. When evolution is the topic, the South is neither amused nor convinced.3
A very recent example of the evolution debate is the case of the Georgia Board of Education. The Superintendent of Schools for the state of Georgia attempted to remove the word "evolution" from the state biology curriculum. The stated purpose of this action was to reduce the controversy of teaching evolutionary theory in the more conservative areas of the state. Presumably that would be everywhere but inner-city Atlanta schools. The opposition to this act was very vocal, as was a small segment of the population in support of it, but I feel that it is fairly safe to reason that if the population of the state were to be polled, the numbers of those in opposition would to be reduced to all but the most liberal elements.4 In the end, the "E-word" was reinstated owing to the dissent of several high-profile citizens of the state, among them former President Jimmy Carter.
Given these tendencies towards censorship in the southern states, one could argue that Mayr, unyielding and unambiguous is needed even more, but should Myer be the harbinger of all that is scientific, good, and enlightened in the world? Probably not. Myer is an elitist who does not attempt to conceal the fact that, yes indeed, he knows more than his reader. While the New York Review of Books and other literary publications might faun over this account, it is not the "people's" book of evolution. Many times throughout his book he is dismissive and does not open the subject up for dialog but instead states his fact in a deific manner.
Mayr offends the sensibilities of traditional society; he neither attempts to be diplomatic nor suavely persuasive. Evolution is an empirical science and is not subject to negotiation or compromise, the tone that Mayr assumes while he explains the intricacies of biological evolution does not endear him to the reader. He does not speak to the common person.5 The foreword to What Evolution Is, states that "evolution needs to be understood not only by scientists, but also by the general public." Later the author of the foreword, Jared M. Diamond, a scientist himself, continues asserting that this book is particularly suitable "for the audience of everyone interested in evolution" and is meant for "non-biologists". [Emphasis mine] Mayr does not live up to this praise unfortunately. While he is undoubtedly extremely knowledgeable in his field, his argument fails to acknowledge the fact that evolution is not solely a scientific theory but a cultural institution with its supporters as well as its antagonists. Without addressing these cultural and historical issues, Mayr cannot begin to write the definitive persuasive volume on evolution.
1. See: Praise for What Evolution Is on the back cover of the paperback version
2. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm - 2/19/04
3. I have consciously chosen to refer to the South as one entity. This is not because I suppose that everyone in this region holds these views, but instead I understand that there exists a certain prevailing discourse which, not surprisingly, is controlled by those in positions of relative authority: pastors, teachers, elected officials, school curriculum committees, parents of school children, county commissions, etc.
4. Georgia Board of Education Website, www.doe.k12.ga.us , 2/20/04
5. I do not suggest that all literature, science or otherwise, should be "dumbed down" in order to be assessable by all of the population. I chose address Mayr in this manner simply because of the fanfare which has surrounded this book.
| Altruism and the Fluctuation of Intelect Name: Kat McCorm Date: 2004-02-26 14:25:28 Link to this Comment: 8528 |
"So I raise this question, although there is nobody around to answer it: Can it be doubted that three kilogram brains were once nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race?"
Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos
On reading the text What Evolution Is by Ernst Mayr, one single fact among all that upheaval of information and opinion has stuck with me and continued to occupy my own big brain: that "the human brain seems not to have changed one single bit since the first appearance of Homo sapiens, some 150,000 years ago". In contrast, the two million years before that was a period of rapid brain growth for our forbearers: the approximate volume occupied by the brains of our forbearers effectively tripled in this period of time which is, in terms of evolution, relatively short. (214) Although body mass at this time was also increasing, the rate at which our brains were increasing in size far outstripped that of the body.
Why then, some 150,00 years ago, did that process suddenly halt? As is evidenced by the fossil record, there was apparently some selective pressure towards bigger brains size that eventually leveled off and stopped. Why do we no longer have natural selection in favor of that bigger brain size? Two logical explanations present themselves: either the circumstances that caused our brains to begin increasing were satisfied, or some other circumstances occurred that effected brain size in the opposite direction. One hypothesis that has presented itself to me is that the latter has occurred, but as a side effect of our own evolving intelligence; that we, in effect, became "too smart for our own good". What byproduct of our intelligence could be so powerful as to provide a selective pressure against intelligence itself? Altruism. Guilt. Compassion. All those human emotions that have such a complex understanding of self and other that they endeavor to put another organisms needs above our own.
One theory as to why the increase in brain size evolved in the first place is now dubbed the 'machiavellian intelligence hypothesis'- brain size was driven up by the demands of the social world in terms of lying and deceiving others in order to best serve one's own needs. (Cartwright 134) This is related to another theory called order of intentionality, a way of demarcating the ability to cognitively recognize interpersonal relationships. Awareness of self indicates first order intentionality. Realizing that others are also aware indicates second order intentionality. Third order intentionality indicated that the self is aware that others are aware that the self is aware. Order of intentionality continues on this way; it is easy to see why selective pressure for a bigger brain would have occurred while trying to keep track of these complex interpersonal relations. Machiavellian intelligence involving deceit requires at least a third order intentionality, and it is thought that adults today handle about five orders of intentionality in everyday relationships. (Cartwright 135). Like deceit, the capacity for altruism, guilt and compassion also requires at least second order of intentionality, and discussion of the self-reflexive benefits of altruism require at least a third order. However, altruism is thought to be a result of increased intelligence and the evolution of culture, whereas deceit is a selector for increased intelligence. Could it be true, then, that an increased need for complex social interactions and deceit begat intelligence, and intelligence in turn begat culture and morality ( and hence, altruism) which is in turn leading toward a trend away from increased intelligence and towards mediocrity?
To asses the plausibility of this argument, it is necessary to examine the first recorded incidence of altruism. As early as 80,000 years ago, ceremonial burial customs were first practiced by Neandertals, a practice which shows at least second order intentionality, if not direct altruism. (Eccles 115)The evidence of burial appears relatively soon after brain size had leveled off for homonids. Less than 20,000 years after that, the first concrete incidence of altruism occurs: the skeleton of a Neanderthal man who was severely incapacitated from birth is found. The man apparently was kept alive through the support of others for almost forty years. (Eccles 115) Such an incapacitated man could not have survived on his own, and his age at death indicates that there was someone who was willing to care for this decidedly unfit member of society for his entire lifespan. This shows a marked breakdown in the principals of the popular tenet of Darwinian evolution: survival of the fittest. The rise of altruism has allowed more and more "unfit" specimens to survive and reproduce. This has led to a breakdown in the "forward change" that is often associated with evolution in terms of adaptedness. Having a culture that is largely based on morality and altruism has taken selective pressure off of increased brain size. What, then, has it been transferred to? What is now the trait in humans which displays the most adaptedness: altruism? Ability to elicit pity in others? Although all our cultural complexity still requires considerable brain power, is it entirely unreasonable to hypothesize that our collective intellect could actually decrease in the coming evolutionary period? It is interesting to entertain the possibility that we have in fact become too smart for our own good, and that our intellect is now producing some emotions which will in turn counteract the drive towards more intellect. All the advances that humankind has made since the age of the Neanderthals 150,000 years ago have been a product of our creation of cultural knowledge rather than a result of any increase in our brain size. It is perhaps because of this evolution of culture, and the ideals inherent in it, that our brain size has not selectively increased in the past 150,000 years.
Works Cited
Cartwright, John H. Evolutionary Explanations of Human Behaviour. Routledge: New York, NY, 2001.
Eccles, John C. Evolution of the brain. Routledge: London, England, 1989.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. Basic Books: New York, NY, 2001.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Galapagos. Dell Publishing Co.: New York, NY 1985.
| Mental Categorization Name: Heather Da Date: 2004-03-01 15:06:58 Link to this Comment: 8590 |
Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, explained cognitive development in a way that may be useful in understanding the story of our story of evolution. He explained that in order to understand and function in our world, we organize thoughts and behaviors into systems, and are in a continual process of adapting our mental systems to better make sense of our surroundings. He calls these systems schemes and defines them as the basic building blocks of thinking, or tools for being able to mentally represent objects and events. They can be very simple like a scheme for throwing a ball, and get more complex like a scheme for playing baseball. Throughout development, new schemes arise and they become more organized to better make sense of the environment.
Schemes become more complex and better organized through adaptation, which Piaget explains is a mixture of two different processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when one makes sense of something in the environment by fitting it into an already established scheme. This may or may not work. For example, most things of similar body shape that swim in the water can be understood and fit into a fish scheme. However, when one encounters a whale, it may not fit into one¡¦s previous schemes, or what one understands to be a fish or a mammal. In that case, one has to accommodate, or change their schemes in order to make sense of new information. These processes most often don¡¦t occur in isolation, but are done together constantly to make sense of the world. In some situations, when the information we are getting from the environment is too complex, the information is left out entirely. As our understanding of the world expands, Piaget explains, it also divides into categories.
Expansion and fragmentation also seems to be a universal natural biological principal. Liquids and gases spread out to the boundaries of their containers, animals disperse on land, and humans have managed to explore even the uninhabitable territory of space. Animals often divide themselves into herds or flocks, while humans divide themselves into cultures, societies, and families.
Expansion and division seem to be inherent and interconnected in other realms as well. The human constructs of religion and literature expand through time as they build on past stories. The more the wealth of knowledge, beliefs, and history expands, the more categories we define to separate them.
Biological evolution is characterized by a similar branching. Through what is explained as evolution, the possibilities for life¡¦s characteristics continuously expand with each new generation. It is through this expansion of possible characteristics that what we think of as categories or kinds of life exist. When a population is reproductively separated for a long enough period of time, gradual changes in each population bring about a division or a branching of the species. The explanation for the evolutionary process seems very similar to Piaget¡¦s concept of adaptation: As possibilities for life and for understanding expand, they are divided into categories. However, a greater exploration of these categories illuminates the fact that they are largely misleading and useless.
While evolution explains the emergence of what we define as species, it rejects the very definition we understand them by. While a population can over time branch into very different species, two very different species can become incredibly similar if exposed to similar environments. If environment has this power, a species¡¦ characteristics seem arbitrary and useless in understanding relationships between populations. Rather than being defined by essential characteristics, species then are defined by their reproductive isolation from each other. However, the usefulness of this explanation is questionable. Dennett gives a perfect example in his book ¡§Darwin¡¦s Dangerous Idea:¡¨
As we look at the herring gull, moving westwards from Great Britain to North America, we see gulls that are recognizably herring gulls, although they are a little different from the British form. We can follow them, as their appearance gradually changes, as far as Siberia. At about this point in the continuum, the gull looks more like the form that in Great Britain is called the lesser black-backed gull. From Siberia, across Russia, to northern Europe, the gull gradually changes to look more and more like the British lesser black-backed gull. Finally, in Europe, the ring is complete; the two geographically extreme forms meet, to form two perfectly good species: the herring and lesser black-backed gull can be both distinguished by their appearance and do not naturally interbreed. [p45]
As a similarly frustrating example in our understanding of species, ¡§Wolves and coyotes and dogs are considered to be different species, and yet interbreeding does occur¡Kand their offspring are not in general sterile¡¨ [p45]. It seems that neither characteristics nor reproductive isolation can completely account for the way we understand the categories of species. Evolution is a story told in response to and to contest people¡¦s tendency toward essentialist thinking (or the way of understanding species by some defining characteristics). Although it refutes the stasis of a species and of its characteristics, the story of evolution still seems to be stuck in essentialist thinking by trying to explain what we perceive as categories.
The categories we define in life are not as simple or useful as we understand them to be. Fluidity in religion could be useful to many people while strict division causes animosity and conflict. Our idea of families and societies has a similarly limited application. Societies and cultures are constantly in contact and have no clear boundaries. Also, there are extended families, step-families, and single families. The nuclear family is largely a western concept, not being a majority in other parts of the world or the West. The division of literature is also not completely clear. To site another example from Dennett, if a horror book is defined as fictional, which category does someone¡¦s own story of horror fit into? Vladimir Nabokov writes what Mary McCarthy calls a ¡§half-poem, half-prose,¡¨ which defies our preconceived notion of categories. Could the fact that we see so few texts transcend these categories be a symptom of our definition of the categories in the first place?
Piaget¡¦s explanation may explain our tendency toward categorization. Perhaps categories have little to do with reality, but are just projections of our internal reality. We place our own characteristics on the world around us to make sense of it. If our minds can make sense of things only by placing them into categories, perhaps we leave out evidence that does not fit and would offer a different or complementary explanation for life or any other observation.
Furthermore, the story of evolution may itself be just another division, attempting to explain itself in contrast and independent of other explanations for life. Can there be no middle ground, no compromise, no win-win situation? Does the truth have to be in one story or another? Perhaps it is our tendency toward categorization which defines one story in opposition to another. This may not be the way the world is, but how we have to make sense of our world. Piaget¡¦s story, like many others, may merely reflect this tendency toward having to explain things in categories. It may not be the way we think, but the way we explain, understand, and tell the story about what we think.
| The Story of Evolution and America's Fear Name: Lindsay Up Date: 2004-03-03 14:47:21 Link to this Comment: 8656 |
In August of 1999, the teaching of evolution in schools was banned by the state of Kansas. Since last year in Texas, educators have debated over which textbooks to use in grade school science solely by the language of evolution each text contains. And today in Georgia, educators talk about replacing the word "evolution" with the phrase "biological changes over time." (1) Apparently, our apprehensions about teaching the theory of evolution are popping up all over the news. In hearing these debates, one usually thinks that it is only religious groups or fanatics trying to preserve their stories by eradicating the teaching of evolution. However, I think that culturally we have trouble accepting the theory of evolution because of other stories we tell ourselves.
While religion does play a large role in our stories of creation, we have many ethics and ideals outside of faith that contrast with the theory of evolution. We may have trouble facing the facts of evolution because of what it says about the human race. Accepting the theory of evolution places us on the same level as all other species in terms of how we came into existence and how that existence will end. It means letting go of many misconceptions we hold about ourselves. For example, that humans are somehow superior or meant to wield control over the earth. It affirms that we have not been here for nearly as long as our world, and will be long gone before the world ends. Evolution, it seems to me, touches more closely on our fears about death and our place in the grand scheme of things than it does on our faith. The reason evolution comes into such great conflict with religion is because questions such as, "Where will we go after our lives here end?" are so important to us. Consequently, the fear surrounding the theory of evolution belongs not only to the religious and the fanatical, but also to anyone who has ever asked him or herself such questions.
America was founded on the concepts of idealism and opportunism; we all are brought up to take advantage of our opportunities and succeed to the best of our abilities. The nature of evolution is to go against these ideals. Evolution occurs randomly, meaning the human race did not "earn" its place as sovereign of the earth. As Americans, we see ourselves working toward a society that is closer and closer to perfection. As individuals, we are taught to be the best we can be. The theory of evolution tells us that we are adapting to random changes. So in essence, we, as an idealistic society, are rejecting being educated about this existential system of how we came to be. Even aside from all religious affiliations, it is not too surprising that due to the stories we have always told about ourselves as a culture, the theory of evolution is, at the very least, a little scary.
"Reason and evidence alone cannot assuage such fear. Many proponents of creationism and intelligent design play on that fear, painting their argument as a defense against godlessness. Denial of evolution in the face of overwhelming evidence is irrational. The fear of chaos, however, is understandable, especially in light of today's frighteningly uncertain world." (2)
This might explain a little better our resistance to teaching evolution in schools. How can we raise our children to believe in this story while also assuring them that they have every opportunity to succeed as long as they try? I am not sure that the latter clause can be true when the former is posed. Under evolution, life is not fair, and this is just as difficult and frightening a thing to teach grade-schoolers as is the theory of evolution itself. Teaching evolution in schools is the only way to remedy our fears about our existence in this world.
"True science shows no deference to any particular religious view. That is its place, and therein lies its value of objectivity, as an ever-important and integral methodological tool in our on-going struggle to question, comprehend, and live together in peace." (2)
Whether we call evolution a "theory" or a "fact," we owe it to ourselves to learn the story as best as we can. In order to do this, we must not allow religion to be an excuse for letting our fear get in the way of education any longer.
(1) http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/0104/29curriculum.html?sub=yes The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a local newspaper.
(2) http://puffin.creighton.edu/NRCSE/TheThreatofEvolution.html The Threat of Evolution, (published in slightly edited form Feb. 22, 2003, Omaha World-Herald) Anita Jeck Co-founder, Nebraska Religious Coalition for Science Education
| Is Death Responsible for Diversity? Name: Bethany Ke Date: 2004-03-14 20:10:34 Link to this Comment: 8737 |
Some of the hardest questions we struggle to answer in life surround the phenomenon of death. What happens when we die? Is there something beyond death? Is one way to go better than another? Is it possible to escape death? Why do we die, anyway? Why couldn't we just live forever? One explanation for death may come from the story of evolution.
To explore this question, let us imagine a hypothetical situation, a world in which nothing dies. (We will imagine also, for now, that organisms would continue to evolve along the same trajectory as they do at present.) Every organism that has ever existed in the past would exist now, along with every organism present and every organism that has yet to exist. Not only would the world contain these organisms, but all potential organisms. "However many ways there may be of being alive, it is certain that there are vastly more ways of being dead or rather, not alive." – Richard Dawkins (p 104, Dennett) All the representations of the ways of being 'not alive' would be there, including those that we could not possibly fathom, those that are not necessarily contingent to our present environment. What this signifies, this absence of death, is a lack of natural selection. When nothing can die, everything is selected for, nothing is selected against. No death implies; no tests, no judgments of fit or unfit, no randomness or weeding-out of the genome, no consequence to anything that is potentially detrimental to the species.
This hypothetical situation is a look at the unchanging set of all possible options, every combination of DNA that could potentially give rise to life. Every possibility is valid. This version of the world could only exist if we ignore three crucial points; the second law of thermodynamics, the definition of a niche as it pertains to the environment and to evolution, and the fact that without these influential factors, evolution, at least in the sense that we now know it, would not exist.
The second law of thermodynamics states that energy tends to go from a state of high concentration to a state of expansion, or being spread out. In other words, there is a tendency to move away from potential energy. As we know it, the sun 'dies', gives off energy. This energy is taken in by plants, which die and fertilize more plants with that energy. They also give energy to any plant-eating animals, which in turn give energy in decomposing to more plants. Organisms give energy to other, carnivorous organisms by being eaten, by dying. There is no way to create something new if some form of work is not done. Energy must be transferred, and the manifestation of this in evolution is the process of death, and consequent creation or new life. It is not possible to acquire something from nothing, the energy must be used, given out, recycled.
In the hypothesis version of the world, there is no transfer of energy; there is only accumulation of life. This would quickly exhaust the supply of energy and available space. Another enormous side effect is that evolution would cease, at least as it exists now. A driving factor for this process is the idea of competition, which relies on a loser, which implies death or extinction. "Indeed, the gist of every selection is to favor individuals that have succeeded in finding a progressive answer to current problems. The summation of all these steps is evolutionary progress." (p 215, Mayr) A situation in which there is no death is a situation in which everything is constant. Therefore there would always be the same current problems and no catalyst to inspire any changes. "Elimination does not have the 'purpose' or the 'teleological goal' of producing adaptation; rather, adaptation is a by-product of the process of elimination." (p 150, Mayr) No adaptation without elimination.
Death is also vital to the evolutionary niche, and the expansion and contraction that occur within this niche. If death were non-existent, we might have niches, but they would not be necessary. Every organism would be able to live anywhere, to co-exist with any other organism. This side effect of the absence spits in the face of our current situation. According to Mayr, a niche is a "constellation of properties of the environment making it suitable for occupation by a species." (p 288) It's important to remember that an environment is partially defined by what organisms inhabit it. So a niche evolves and changes with its living constituents.
"Open ecological niches or zones are often repeatedly colonized by entirely unrelated organisms that, once adapted to these niches, become by convergence, extremely similar." (p 156, Mayr) This supports the hypothesis that the definition of a niche includes the organisms to which it is home, and it also spotlights the huge influence of selection pressure; what worked then will work now, what worked there will work here. If the niches are similar, they will probably yield similar organisms and similar lineages. But if there is no selection pressure then you could have penguins in the Savanna, giraffes on the South Pole. There would be nothing barring these organisms from different environments, because there is no death, no consequence for a lack of compatibility between inhabitant and habitat. The world would be just one big niche, where anything goes, anything is possible.
If we do away with natural selection, then we must consequently do away with change, with evolution, with boundaries. "Whenever a species acquires a new capacity, it acquires, so to speak, the key to a different niche or adaptive zone in nature." (p 208, Mayr) The key merited is contingent to the change only because the niche is 'locked' before the change occurs. The boundaries we see are what create the selection pressures that cause organisms to change and are often products of selection pressures themselves. There is a direct relationship between these phenomena. If we have change (evolution) and niches, then death and natural selection are mandatory.
Sources -
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is.
New York; Basic Books, 2001.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
New York; Touchstone, 1995.
| Untitled Name: Diane Scar Date: 2004-03-16 13:52:34 Link to this Comment: 8837 |
Art is a thoughtful, emotional expression. It has many forms, such as painting, sculpture, architecture and the written word. Rousseau proposes, "Instead of thinking of life as something to which signs and texts are added to represent it, we should conceive of itself as suffused with signs (Culler 12)." For these purposes the signs which Rousseau identifies are works of art. This statement speaks to the inseparable quality of life and art. Since life and art are connected they invariably affect one another. Life is inherently chaotic. This prompts the creation of art, which consequently promotes the stasis of chaos. Art's affect on society demands that we decide whether we value art enough to risk our own undoing.
Human beings are psychologically driven creatures. As a result their endeavors are similarly psychologically driven. The compulsion to create is one of our most basic, primitive drives. From a psychological perspective this is known as sublimation, or the channeling of one's energy into a healthy, socially acceptable behavior. This behavior alludes to the idea that the act of creating something of significance makes up for life's troubles. This cognitive negotiation is known as rationalization. It would seem that productively acting in response to chaos would restore the good. However, this energy is misdirected. Channeling all of one's energy into art neglects the problems that truly need attention. In this way art is like putting a fresh coat of paint on a crumbling old home. Consider the Beat Generation. This was a passionate group of painters and poets who produced a massive body of work during the mid twentieth century. It is not a coincidence that they indulged heavily in promiscuous sex, hard drugs and maintained dysfunctional relationships with one another. This environment was the major catalyst that caused them to work. For instance, William S. Burroughs wrote his most famous novel, Naked Lunch, while under the influence of drugs. Rather than focusing on his personal problems he wrote. This addiction progresses so aggressively that he eventually shot his wife in the head while under the influence. In this instance Burroughs' art did nothing to mend his troubled existence, if anything his art perpetuated it.
Chaos manifests itself in many forms and can affect us independently, as it did with the Beats, or as humans collectively. It reaches all of us to varying extents in each aspect of our lives. Art is a symptom of chaos. Art cannot exist without chaos and chaos inevitably leads to the production of art. There is evidence of art reaching back to ancient cave drawings. Often the artists would depict hunt scenes, which are a smaller, more controlled example of chaos, on the cave walls. A life without such chaos, whatever the degree of severity, is not, to the best of our knowledge, possible because people have never existed without art. In fact, all that we learn about our ancestors come from the artifacts they left behind. This begs the question of whether inhibiting the production of art would allow us to correct the chaos of life. Yet there are presently so many forms of art that it seems possible that the prevention of the use of the old mediums could lead to new, unpredictable forms of art that would spontaneously, and perhaps unintentionally, explode out of us. This would suggest an innate component to our human drive to be artistic. It would also mean that art, as well as chaos, are inevitable as long as humans thrive. However, this interchange is not without purpose.
Immanuel Kant thought that aesthetics are meant to "bridge the gap between the material and the spiritual world (Culler 32-33)." This idea assigns a greater purpose to life and is appealing to humans who struggle with chaos. It is meaning which makes this chaos worthwhile for the intellectual. For example, Picasso painted "Guernica" in 1937 after the town was bombed by German soldiers for practice. It is the intellectual who is able to reflect on the incident and gain a greater understanding of what happened because of this piece. Chaos also appeals to our passions. Culler notes that aesthetic objects have "a purposiveness to their construction: they are made so that their parts work together towards some end. But the end is the work itself, pleasure in the work or pleasure occasioned by the work, not some external purpose (33)." It is this pleasure that makes the chaos seem tolerable and prevents its correction. Pleasure becomes more desirable and replaces one's drive to harness the chaos.
Picasso wrote, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand (Picasso 321)." In regard to the relationship between art and chaos art is only a lie as long as its purpose remains unexamined. For some of us, regardless of the negative ties that art has to life, nonexistence is favorable to a life without it. Art teaches us that all wonderful things have ramifications. I would argue that the greatness of a masterpiece exponentially surpasses the harm it causes because it captures its chaotic origins and builds from them. It is as if life's troubles have changed form and evolved into a worthwhile, undying entity.
Bibliography
1. Burroughs, William S., Naked Lunch, New York: 1959.
2. Culler, Jonathan, Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, New York: 1997.
3. Picasso, Pablo, "Statement to Marvis de Zayas," 1923.
| The Evolution of Religion Name: Meg Folcar Date: 2004-03-18 11:15:47 Link to this Comment: 8873 |
Near the end of his novel Darwin's Dangerous Idea Daniel Dennett questions religion and contends that it was an evolutionary process to keep humans entertained. He says "they [religions] have kept Homo Sapiens civilized enough, for long enough, for us to have learned how to reflect more systematically and accurately on our position of the universe"(519). Dennett's position is a controversial one, and it is difficult to argue because it is such an abstract subject. Religion is associated with free will, and has been part of humans for thousands of years. Is religion as we know it useless now, have we arrived at the point in evolution where it is no longer necessary?
Dennett never completely dismisses current religion, but he does not support its perpetuation either. Dennett's view of religion is as function, something that humans need, like opposable thumbs. He claims that religion has become merely about the actions, and that soon they will die out and belong in museums and "zoos". Dennett elaborates this thought, "what,then, of all the glories of our religious traditions? They should certainly be preserved, as should the languages, the art, the costumes the rituals, the monuments"(519). Is this right? Should only the material aspects be saved? Have they served their only purpose. Dennett seems to say that humans no longer need religions, and that since they have existed for so long they are no longer needed, it is their time for extinction. Will religions disappear leaving only the materials and traditions as Dennett seems to suggest they will, or will they evolve, and change to meet our modern world.
In Karen Armstrong's History of God she says "for 4,000 years it [the idea of God] has constantly adapted to meet the demands of the present, but in our own century, more and more people have found that it no longer works for them, and when religious ideas cease to be effective they fade away"(376). Armstrong and Dennett agree that religion will disappear altogether. Will beliefs that have survived so many years and tribulations just cease to exist. The thought that they may evolve instead seems to be is more comforting. Perhaps certain beliefs will merge together, or break off, some religions might die out while others will gain strength and change direction. The change of religious affiliations is becoming more evident. From 1980 to 1999 in the U.S. the percent of protestants, catholics, and jews either remained the same or shrank, while the "other" percentage rose significantly (http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec01.pdf). This demonstrates, that even though it may be subtle, religion is changing direction.
Religions have greatly benefitted the human population throughout history. According to Dennett, "They [religions] have inspired many people to lead lives that have added immeasurably to the wonders of our world, and they have inspired many more people to lead lives that were, given their circumstances, more meaningful, less painful, than they otherwise could have been"(518). Does this suggest that altruism is only in existence as a result of organized religion? Altruism and religion both came with the emergence of free will, but not necessarily conjunction with each other. Religions incorporated altruism into their belief systems, but it is hard to consider them as one and the same. Religion alone cannot take credit for the existence of altruism. Altruism is its own entity. Religions may have inspired people to behave more morally, but people would have been altruistic without religion. There would be no guilt without religion. Religion has more credit for the existence of guilt than the existence of altruism.
Dennett also calls certain religious beliefs and methods wrong. He says that teaching "creation science" is "misinforming a child" (516). While it is not good to teach children one side of the story, creation science is not misinformation to everyone. Some people believe that God created humans, and that there was no evolution, and it is their right to believe. It is important to understand the argument for evolution, but no one has to give up their beliefs. Dennett also calls simple doctrines wrong, merely because they are "too simple". Dennett goes on about simple doctrines, "They are, in a word, wrong- just as the ancient Greeks' doctrines about the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus"(514). Although the ancient Greek religion no longer exists it was not wrong. It was another religion that simply faded away because it lost pertinence, the same happened to ancient Egyptian beliefs, as well as the Mayan beliefs, and countless other religions. These religions may have disappeared, but they became infused into other religions. The ancient Hellenistic religion became infused into Christianity, and the Sumerian religion was an influence for the writers of the old testament (http://www.comparative-religion.com/ancient/). In that sense the ancient religions continue to exist, they have merely taken a different form.
Will the modern religions of today follow a path decreed by Dennett and Armstrong and disappear, or will they merely become influences in the next wave of religion? The major religions today have been in existence for thousands of years, but that does not mean that they will not evolve. As people and culture change, so will the worlds religions. People will always have faith, and humans have not achieved a point in evolution where religion is no longer needed, and it is highly unlikely that it will ever reach that point.
| The Power of Words Name: Perrin Bra Date: 2004-03-18 21:14:19 Link to this Comment: 8879 |
Communication and language are not always synonymous. Gesticulations and facial expression can convey certain messages that often make verbal expression unnecessary. Although I appreciate the endless possibilities that are associated with speaking, our primary means of communication, I have discovered that the human capacity for speech might not be as extremely innate as the linguist Noam Chomsky claimed. A few years ago, I had the privilege of encountering a thirty-five year-old woman named Joann at a summer camp for adults with multiple disabilities. Being extremely autistic, Joann was unable to close her mouth, let alone form distinguishable words. Instead of talking, her principal method of communication was to make clicks and guttural noises when she was upset or wanted something. Unlike the case of Genie, who was reared in a small room without human contact, Joann and many other autistic people are not raised in silence and should have theoretically learned to talk (as per Chomsky's theory). The camp counselors encouraged Joann's attempts at speech and tried to build her verbal skills, but they were never able to progress beyond monosyllabic words. Why wasn't she able to speak and why did they fail?
To a certain extent, language is innate, but Daniel Dennett trivialized the depth and complexity of linguistics. He wrote, "...it's so effortless...for even 'slow' children to learn to speak. They aren't really learning at all, any more than birds learn their feathers. Language, and feathers, just develop in species..." (Dennett 388). This generalization is horribly arrogant and unfair to people like Joann, for whom any form of verbal communication is hardly 'effortless.' I think that some form of learning and shaping in the brain does occur, though most of it probably results from human interaction and constant verbal absorption. Genie was never able to learn how to properly talk and was rendered verbally impotent by her silent environment, but according to Dennett, shouldn't she have been able to learn? However, Joann did seem to be able to understand what was being said to her, though she was not capable of responding since she was able to comprehend and follow simple directions. Even some of the most autistic people in the camp were able to recognize when someone was talking to them, which confirms the innateness of oral comprehension, but not speaking. Understanding and talking are not interchangeable, so a clarification is needed in order to distinguish the two. I sometimes have moments in which a "verbal freeze" occurs, in which I have a thought that I can't manage to verbalize. Perhaps Joann lives in a constant state where she is unable to express what she is thinking—the thought processes are there, but the language is not. If this is true, then the capacity for language is innate, but cannot be so simply accessed in all people.
Therefore, is it possible for Joann to think without using language? Are language and thought somehow linked? For our Neanderthal and early human forbearers, verbal communication probably consisted of a series of grunts and gestures and language as we know it today subsequently ensued. Thus, did thought precede language? Our ancestors were able to create fire without words, which displays some form of intellect, but I think that language is somewhat more of a superficial indication of thought than a sign of intelligence. I believe that emotions are the foundation of speech and are the predecessors of our words. For example, an infant is not able to articulate that he is angry or frightened, but he can cry when comfort is desired. However, it is only when they get older and has developed their language skills that they can verbally label their emotion as 'anger' or 'fear.' Joann has been developmentally trapped within that infant stage, for she has proven herself able to think and feel via her actions (such as vehemently nodding) and facial expressions, but cannot express how she is feeling. Dennett
discusses the notion of language as an adaptation and I believe that this is true, for humans would not be able to construct such a complex society without some form of communication. An adaptation implies that something existed before; namely, emotion and thought, which are even more innate than language.
However, Joann could have been using verbal communication. She often uttered clicks and guttural noises when she opened her mouth, which might have indicated a basic form of speech. Currently linguistic research suggests that our early ancestors depended on similar clicks to communicate and that such noises were the first language. Clicks are currently used by a few groups of tribal Africans and aboriginal Australians, some of which do not use any verbal sounds at all. Interestingly enough, some researchers believe that click languages died out when humans moved from being hunter-gatherers to agrarian farmers, which coincides with the notion of language as a societal adaptation (Pennisi 1319-20). Infants and small children often make clicks which seem to be precursors to language, but these noises become assimilated into more concrete words as their lingual skills develop. Clicks still remain human speech, but are indications of emotion (like disgust) rather than conveying a certain message. Joann's clicks all sounded the same to me, but was she in fact uttering a language similar to that of the tribal groups? Since clicks were supposedly the first human language, Joann theoretically could be speaking or trying to covey some message when she makes those utterances, as if she had completely bypassed the evolution of clicks into words.
It has been suggested by psychologists that there is a "critical period" for language acquisition which theorizes that children lose the capacity to readily absorb new languages by the end of their toddler years. The fact that children are able to learn new languages so quickly shows that to some extent, language is innate, but speech is not acquired so easily. Joann will
probably never be able to speak like other people, but there exists the possibility of her understanding much more than Dennett would give her credit for.
Bibliography:
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon and Schuster: New York, 1995.
Pennisi, Elizabeth. "The First Language?" Science 27 Feb. 2004: 1319-1320.
| Evolution Before Darwin, The Evolution of the Prim Name: Student Contributor Date: 2004-03-19 00:06:34 Link to this Comment: 8882 |
"Yet the water did not calm,
It stirred within itself,
And waters within the waters
Moved and parted, the waters folded open
And from the deeps of the deeps...
Ak-ana whispered:
'Create.'"
(Persian creation myth)
It is not an astounding observation to say that there exists (or existed at one point in time) thousands, possibly millions, of stories on Earth. Stories that our innocent young selves were subjected to in elementary school that have influenced the way we see ourselves and those around us, more so than we would like to admit. Stories that our parents have read to us late at night willing us with their words of cats in hats and cows jumping over the moon to shut our eyelids and drift off to sleep, and stories that come and visit us in our dreams, usually only for a moment, leaving behind traces of its scent the next morning. We are a species who thrive on this thing called 'story', much the same way a bee thrives on honey or a poet thrives on words. As we continue to generate new stories and, by doing so, generate new meanings of the world, it is hard not to feel as if one is sinking deep into a quicksand of life, unable to make sense of all the sense, mainly because there is too much it. Just when you think you're going to choke on all of the suffocating information regarding the origin of the world, of species, and of culture – too many stories – something clicks and you find yourself breathing fresh air once again. I stopped sinking once I learned not to fight against the sand, but instead, to become friends with it.
Much the same way Darwin based his theory of evolution on patterns that he had observed on the Galapagos Islands, I base the arguments presented in this paper on patterns that I have observed in ancient creation myths regarding the creation of the world. What once felt like a random bombardment of infinite stories, now feels like a handful of calculable stories told by an infinite number of story tellers. Darwin's theory of evolution, his creation myth regarding the origin of the world and of species, is not an exception. The theory of evolution is not as innovative as was once thought; in fact, the major observations embodied within the theory of evolution has been a common theme in ancient creation myths from around the world. Darwin himself states: "The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously the same" (Dennet, 135). And indeed, they are the same, just as the formation of different stories is curiously similar.
In Darwin's Dangerous Ideas, Daniel Dennett argues that the fact that species share homologies is an argument for evolution, for if they had been created separately there would be no reason why they should show similarity (Dennett, PAGE). While Dennett would probably not agree with the presumption that Darwin's theory of evolution is itself an evolved story from a long line of ancestors, the same argument he uses to support the evolution of species can be used to support the evolution of stories. Why else would stories share homologies?
The creation myths discussed at length in this paper were chosen to illustrate the commonality with the theory of evolution. Alongside the traditional creation myth involving a God who created life through the first male and female, such as the Judeo-Christian and Iroquois creation myths, exists other creation myths involving the emergence of life from chaos. As early as 2400 B.C. inhabitants of the Near East, which is known today as the Middle East, believed that Atum, "the complete one", arose from watery chaos. An ancient tablet which is believed to have been from that particular era was recovered and discovered to reveal the following script: "I raised up them from out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss of water) from a state of inactivity...I came forth from (or, in the plants, the form of) creeping things all, [and] things which came into being all [are] in them" (Sproul, 83-86). It appears that the belief that all living things potentially originated from a single source preceded Darwin by a few thousand years. Chinese and Japanese creation myths also tell of a similar story of life emerging from chaos.
According to an old African Mande myth, all the forces that gave rise to people, worlds, and nature originated from the "egg of God" (Sproul, 66). The Brahmanas of India tell a similar story: In the beginning this universe was nothing but a sea of water. Out of the watery chaos a creative power of heat was recognized and a golden egg was produced. This egg is believed to have given birth to all creation (Sproul, 184). Water, chaos, and a single source of creation, are all common themes in the above creation myths, as well as many others that could not be discussed here, and it is hard to believe that these stories developed independently of each other. It is highly likely that these stories diffused to other cultures with the passing of time and resurfaced in myths, songs, and artwork – a sort of universal acid. The origin of these stories, if there is a single origin, will be impossible to ascertain, analogous to Dennett's argument about the universal authorship of jokes. The jokes we hear and pass have evolved, picking up revisions and updates as they are passed along, and its authorship is distributed over hundreds of tellers (Dennet, 99). In the same way, the authorship of these creation myths is collectively shared by hundreds of cultures, including the Darwinian culture.
One of the most striking similarities between certain ancient culture myths and Darwin's theory of evolution is the idea that humans were, at one point in time, to 'animalistic'. A North American Wyot myth tells a story of a God who, at one point in time, was so disappointed in humans because they "were too animalistic; they were still furry and their speech was indistinct" (Sproul, 139). According to an Australian Aborigine myth, the Sun Mother was commanded by the Father Spirit to awake the sleeping spirits on earth, starting with the waters, next the fish, small snakes, and lizards, finally the plants and animals. Once she was finished she rose into the sky and became the sun. At first all the spirits lived together peacefully but then they began to argue. To mediate their bickering she bestowed upon each creature the ability to change their form. The rats soon changed themselves to bats; there were giant lizards and fish with blue tongues and feet, and unusual creatures, such as duck and platypus, arose. The Sun Mother was not pleased. These are striking examples of common ancestry well before Darwin's revolutionary book On the Origin of Species was published in 1859.
The argument that the theory of evolution predates Darwin has alarming implications. It implies that Darwin was not the 'Father of Evolution' nor was he the founder. It implies that the story of evolution is a meme that resurfaces unexpectedly anywhere from ancient tablets, to modern-day poetry from Iran, to private journals of biologists in the nineteenth century. This is not to say that Darwin read an Australian Aborigine creation myth as a young adult and was inspired to write Origin of Species, on the contrary, we know his voyages on the Beagle were his inspiration, but what it does insinuate is the possibility that there were other scientists, or poets, or holy men, or whatever you want to call them really, who noticed the same startling similarities in creatures and were inspired to write their own stories. It would be interesting to know what Darwin read as a child, if his parents were keen on reading to him at bedtime about the various myths of the creation of the universe, stories that lulled him to sleep and then left quickly once he awoke in the morning. Mythologists talk of an unusual approach to explain the parallels that exist between myths. Apart from the argument of cross-cultural exchange, there is a psychological view of mythology that believes that myths are products of the human psyche and therefore universal to all human beings (Murtagh, 3). This supports the notion that Darwin founded his theory of evolution independently of the stories that preceded him, and the reason for their similarity is not a product of chance, as Dennett would argue with his elaborate example of randomness in the Library of Babel, but is inherent in the human psyche. It is something inherent within us that forces us to think certain things and make certain observations. This approach is intimidating by nature, but nonetheless alluring. However, for the sake of simplicity (and sanity) I find the cross-cultural exchange approach to be the more convincing.
Dennett argues that all achievements of the human culture, such as language, religion, and science, are themselves artifacts of the same fundamental process that developed bacteria. No meme is an island (Dennett, 144). And I agree wholeheartedly. No meme is died with its creator, but is modified and revised, and resurfaces now and again usually in the most unlikely of places.
Bibliography
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Simon & Schuster, New York. 1995
Murtagh, Lindsey. Common Elements in Creation Myths. Available on-line at
http://www.cs.williams.edu/~lindsey/myths/myths.html. Visited on 3/17/2004
Sproul, Barbara C. Primal Myths: Creating the World. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.,
USA. 1979
| Dickinson versus Dennett Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2004-03-19 08:16:35 Link to this Comment: 8887 |
So goes the first stanza of poem #632 by Emily Dickinson (1). For the moment, let us infer, as Paul Grobstein does, that Dickinson is saying that each of us is in our brain (2). Our conscious self is situated inside that physical wet stuff of neurons, chemicals, electrical impulses, and the like. Some people feel uncomfortable "that 'self,' rather than being safely housed in some form resistant to physical disturbance, might actually, itself, be a material thing" (2). Reading Dickinson, I do not. Not until Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (3) did I begin to squirm. But Dickinson's "theory" is every bit as radical and not dissimilar to Dennett's. Does the human brain take a different (intentional, physical, design) stance when assessing scientific versus non-scientific information?
Neither Grobstein nor I complain about Dickinson's lack of rigorous logic or scientific underpinnings in this poem. Instead, we accept it as a welcome springboard for our own imaginings about her concept. By contrast, many have criticized and resisted the sometimes-slippery logic and swift-handed science that Dennett uses to explain his neo-Darwinian theory, or explain away whatever challenges it. In the end, both writers/thinkers rely on historical narrative to persuade their readers: "Many scientific patterns are also historical patterns, and hence are revealed and explained in narratives—of sorts. Cosmology, geology, and biology are all historical sciences. The great biologist D'Arcy Thompson once said: 'Everything is the way it is because it got that way.' If he is right--if everything is the way it is because it got that way--then every science must be, in part, a historical science." (4).
Even the motives suggested in Dennett's and Dickinson's writings parallel each other. Neither is less astounding than the other. Dennett would convince us to discredit Descartes' theory that there is a physical place where brain states become conscious (Cartesian Theater) and replace it with a new science of consciousness (5). Dickinson would convince us of the logic of converting from an omniscient (Calvinistic) god to the omnipotence of poetry. Her poem concludes:
Dickinson's story (or our story of it) is that there are two states in each of us: the external/physical "other" and the internal/spiritual "self." She places our consciousness as a defining container around any spiritualism we might have. With humility akin to Dennett's, she puts the sky, and then the sea, inside our brain. If the brain can imagine these, it contains them. By some sort of intuitive extrapolation, our brain contains all that is physically external to it. Furthermore, it can make up stories about what all of our senses register; we have the capability to extend, reshape, even eliminate those entities altogether. The brain is bigger.
Supremely adept as a poet, Dickinson can label or categorize anything, even the royal "You." She uses textual symbols to help us see her point: those dashes and capital letters are carefully positioned. Then, to help us hear/feel her, the poem's meter follows a ballad stanza. This ploy curiously aligns with a quote from one of her letters: "Let Emily sing for you because she cannot pray"(6). The final stanza of the poem contains her agenda: regarding god, our brain is no bigger, no smaller; it is not so much equal as it is the same. Dickinson's identity is as a poet; she valorizes language and poetry as the means to define humans and human nature. Visual, sensual, textual language conveys her views—to our delight.
Does Dennett delight us? His critics use words such as obfuscating, condescending, smug, and flippant to describe his language in Darwin's Dangerous Idea. For example, Gould bristles: "Dennett, as Dawkins's publicist, manages to convert an already vitiated and improbable account into an even more simplistic and uncompromising doctrine"(7). But Dennett's logic is no more provocative than Dickinson's. Consider Dennett's conclusion: "The best reason for believing that robots might someday become conscious is that we humans are conscious, and we are a sort of robot ourselves."(3). Is this more audacious than assigning the human brain god equal weight? Dennett's "belief" would displace the god-friendly notion that a self-conscious mind is immaterial and has causal powers beyond algorithmic definition. Dickinson's would subsume the almighty. There is no difference.
Yet we ask more of Dennett. He must convince us of (at least) the following: 1) natural selection is driven by algorithms that can support the application of strong Artificial Intelligence (itself, a tall pole); 2) the algorithms of natural selection can be consistently applied to the propagation and selection of ideas; and 3) natural selection also applies to intentionality. According to his theory, humans are automata (descended from automata, composed of automata) driven by algorithms—both our biological and cultural states. Therefore, he tells us, machines can be reengineered to replicate (and surpass) humans. This would amount to a sort of artificial speciation of Homo sapiens. While certain computers exist that learn, none has demonstrated self-awareness, so these tall poles must be first addressed—but by what criteria?
By contrast, we ask nothing before embracing Dickinson's portrayal of the Brain, You, and God—or at least the Brain and You. Consider Grobstein's detailed distillation (8) of Dennett and Darwin's Dangerous Ideas, versus his comfortable acceptance of "Emily's" idea (nowhere does he refer to Dennett as Daniel or Dan) (2). Grobstein selects and categorizes aspects of Dennett's theory as supportable, questionable, or refutable. He determines that "universal acid," emergent meaning/ intentionality, the notions of cranes versus skyhooks, and "nice tries" are useful, that "selfish" genes and memes, forced moves, and Dennett's (random) algorithms are iffy, and that Dennett's conclusions belying personal agency and free will are flawed/problematic.
Then Grobstein sizes up Dickinson. He simply muses, "What particularly intrigues me is not just that Dickinson neatly put the self in the brain but that she did it happily, 'with ease'." While this may be true, how does he know it? He surmises, "If so, Emily's thought that the brain is THAT big is even more impressive as a prediction of understandings to come... Was Emily right? Perhaps and perhaps not. Only time will tell" (2). He has not challenged her methods, motives, or the possibility that she intended some other meaning. Indeed, his impression of what she meant impressed him. Given that it's poetry, I would have done the same.
For science versus poetry, we take different "stances." According to Dennett, intentional stance is the speedy application of our beliefs and desires about the things we encounter, enabling us to assess these things quickly and make predictions. By contrast, physical stance requires that we reduce things to physical laws. The short-cuts of intuition do not apply. Indeed, both intentional and physical stance would appear to be useful in combination when we have some historical narrative and some scientific patterns available. This is the case with Dennett, but not with Dickinson alone (without Grobstein's extended analysis). We do assess them differently, perhaps because it is difficult to jettison engrained standards of scientific inquiry and proof. But if we recognize this and approach Dennett in a two-stance manner, he may provoke us less and inform us more. This hope is an echo of Dalke's and Grobstein's desire regarding how humans learn and teach: "Different styles need not be in conflict. We desire-perhaps even more strongly, we need to see binaries as mutually supportive and, if kept constantly in interaction with one another, mutually generative" (8).
I choose to "read" science by its historical narrative patterns along with whatever scientific patterns might be available. Looking at Dennett this way, he has set up evolution by natural selection as a sort of kaleidoscope that reveals what each of its storytellers wishes to see as each twists and tilts it. Just so, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, he jiggles the colored crystals, finding patterns to serve his intent to supplant Descartes' notion of dualism with new underpinnings, the "Dennettian niche," where the next human taxa can be engineered. And, just so, in poem #632, Dickinson tilts heaven and earth in order to supplant one Supreme Being with another. "Emily Dickinson's religion was Poetry" (9). Daniel Dennett's "religion" is that Emily Dickinson can be reengineered. Both are intriguing and each can amplify our understanding of the other, depending upon where and how we choose to stand.
1. Dickinson, Emily. Johnson, Thomas H. Ed. (1960) The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston. Little, Brown & Co.
2. Grobstein, Paul. (2002) "Who's Afraid of Emily Dickinson, Or... How I learned to stop worrying and love the brain." http://serendipstudio.org/bb/brainpsychoanal.html
3. Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York. Simon & Schuster.
4. Dennett, Daniel C. (1999) "The Evolution of Culture." The Charles Simonyi Lecture, Oxford. http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dennett/dennett_p2.html
5. Dennett, Daniel C. (1992) Consciousness Explained. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co.
6. Dickinson, Emily. Johnson, Thomas and Ward, Theodora, ed. (1958) The letters of Emily Dickinson Cambridge, MA. Belknap Press of Harvard.
7. Gould, Stephen Jay. (1997) "Darwinian Fundamentalism." The New York Review of Books. Volume 44, Number 10. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1151
8. Dalke, Anne. Grobstein, Paul. (2003) "Story-Telling in (At Least) Three Dimensions: An Exploration of Teaching, Reading, Writing, and Beyond." (draft submitted for publication) http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/bridges/3dstory.html
9. Howe, Susan. (1989) My Emily Dickinson. Berkeley, CA. North Atlantic Books.
| Deriving Awe Name: Reeve Baso Date: 2004-03-19 12:35:00 Link to this Comment: 8892 |
Having become deeply compelled by the ability of evolutionary theory to tell a story that consumes or subsumes all others, I have followed the story of change back beyond the origin of life, beyond the formation of the solar system, back to a point where the first something came into existence. Though it may not do so for everyone, the story even allows me one more step along this rewinding trajectory, a step toward rejecting the need for any intention or plan by upholding the power of random change to produce order. I have found it very useful to tell a story in which the absolute truth is randomness. This is not to ignore the phenomenally intricate, ordered and interdependent systems that organize matter in our universe, but rather to understand creation in terms of an infinite dimension of possibility through which navigation occurs fueled by random change. My story, then, becomes one in which the Beginning is really just the beginning of one path through the infinite dimensions of possibility, or what Daniel Dennett calls design space (Dennett 1995). Order or design does not rely on the Word or intention but is produced as changes accumulate and become directed by one another, restricting and refining a particular branching journey among the possibilities.
Thus, reaching backwards along the story of evolution I grasp randomness and a Wordless beginning. Reaching forward into new designs and increasing complexity I suddenly encounter human agency and imagination and I am catapulted into the possibility of transcending design space.
"If a brain were truly capable of non-algorithmic activity, and if we have such brains, and if our brains are themselves the products of an algorithmic process...an algorithmic process (natural selection in its various levels and incarnations) creates a non-algorithmic subprocess of subroutine, turning the whole process (evolution up to and including...brains) into a non-algorithmic process after all. This would be a cascade of cranes creating, eventually, a real skyhook" (Dennett 1995)!
This argument suggests that natural selection of random change (AKA cranes) has created a skyhook- something that exists independently of and has the power to manipulate evolutionary processes. It defends the refusal to believe that human agency, free will, meaning, responsibility, etc. are all reducible and ultimately adaptive illusions. Yet, however desirous we are of such a defense, the very ability to know and interpret that we seek to uphold as a human transcendence of evolution must also cause us to recognize the flaws in this attempt to secure a degree of evolutionary removal.
The first round of my cross-examination is a response to the idea of a skyhook created by cranes. A skyhook, as I understand it, is not created by the machinery of evolution. If it is created by a crane then it, too, is a crane. As storytellers who are able to "use models to create what would not otherwise have come into existence" or to imagine that which was not previously imaginable (Grobstein 2004), we can manipulate genes, prolong life, create artificial intelligence, and accelerate change in many other ways. We can see these as skyhooks, as heretofore impossible leaps in design space, or we can imagine that there are locations in design space at which a different location is distant through every route except one. From such a position access is greatly increased to that point which, from all other nearby positions, is a very distant location in design space. The infinite dimensions of design space should allow for this possibility. Moreover, that which is not previously imaginable is not synonymous with that which is not previously in design space. Design space is not limited to the imaginable, most obviously because imagination is human. Finally, the conversion of an algorithmic process to a non-algorithmic process is a skyhook only if it trumps not only biological evolution but also the entire evolutionary process of natural selection acting on random change. Humans may have evolutionarily unprecedented powers of navigation through design space, but we cannot change the inevitability of our own extinction, or (if there are some who would argue that we can) at least not the heat death of the universe. We are causal only so far as we are constrained by fundamental evolutionary algorithms.
The second major thrust of this cross-examination is an effort to reconcile the disparate "truths" of meaning and meaninglessness. "Admiration and awe is all very fine, but I want to be an agent, to MATTER, not only to be shaped by but to shape" (Grobstein 2004). Yet, if evolution is the explanation, then mustn't we discredit morality, comfort, goodness, personal responsibility, etc. as illusions? If we can imagine a robot programmed with enough intricacy that it collects and modifies algorithms in such a way so as to appear to have developed agency and free will, then we can imagine ourselves (Dennett 1995). However, in our case, this programming is the vastly improbable product of random change. The proposed skyhook capabilities of humanness may only be cranes that have created skyhook disguises for themselves, but they are the fabulous product of a "net historical opportunity" that is unreplicable and unintentional (Jacob 1977). Human senses of agency and meaning may be reducible to algorithms, but they do have power within the context of human experience. We must accept two separate realms in which to consider truth, a human context and an absolute context. The trouble with absolute truth is that we can never remove ourselves far enough from our very particular and vanishingly probable humanness to be able to know something that is absolute, something that encompasses all the possibilities. Anything we find can only be absolute in the context of human meaning. It is here that we arrive at the conflation of truth on a human scale with truth on an absolute scale.
Though I may hold with Dennett's version of unengineered design emerging from randomness, and though my sense of absolute truth may not rest on intention or meaning, I nonetheless find myself in the essentially human position of seeking that which is beyond me, the unknowable, the all powerful, the irreducible. What I discover and cling to through the story of evolution is the power of randomness, the unknowable and irreducible vastness of possibility and the absolute awe of being part of such an incredibly intricate and virtually impossible piece of design. By virtue of, and entirely contained within, my evolutionarily derived humanness, these experiences are meaningful. Our particular, vanishingly probable evolutionary niche is so complex that it allows us to imagine, to believe in, transcending evolution. Even if this sense of removal is entirely a product of contingency, have we any less cause to do as Dennett does and "stand in affirmation of its magnificence" (Dennett 1995)?
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel
1995 Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Grobstein, Paul
2004 "Dennett's Ideas (Dangerous or Otherwise) About Evolution and Life:
and/or Paul's Admiration/Suspicion We Can Do Better Than This." Lecture notes for Story of Evolution/Evolution of Stories, 24 February. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/dennett.
Jacob, Francis
1977 "Evolution and Tinkering." Science. Vol. 196, num. 4295.
| Not So Fast, Nietsche! Name: Orah Minde Date: 2004-03-19 12:36:42 Link to this Comment: 8893 |
Not So Fast, Nietzsche!
"It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all."
-Melville
In 1859 Charles Darwin offered a theory that seemed to disprove the longstanding explanation of the Origin of existence. Darwin's theory of evolution proposes a convincing argument that the universe was not created for a purpose, with intention, by a conscious God, but rather, was a phenomenon of random change. Fredrick Nietzsche articulated the gravity of the affect of Darwin's theory on society. He said that when Darwin published the theory of evolution people stopped believing in God. Nietzsche wrote that when people stopped believing in God, God died. According to Nietzsche people read the theory of evolution as a direct contradiction to the notion of the Mind: a Consciousness behind creation. Nietzsche's assertion pivots on the assumption that God's existence depends solely on human belief. Nietzsche assumes that belief is the greatest power that humans possess, but that this belief could not stand strong against the theory of evolution. So the theory of evolution destroyed the greatest power possessed by humans and in doing so destroyed God and destroyed the notion that there was Something that sparked the origin of species. But Darwin's theory did not stop the study of teleology: people continued the search for the Origin of existence. Even after The Publication in 1859 people still have a powerful need for knowledge, and a yearning faith that It is out there, that there is Meaning. This need fuels humanity's search for God. Darwin may have killed the human belief in a conscious, purposeful God, but he did not kill the human belief in an Origin. The search for the Spark that started existence continues. More powerful than belief, within humanity, is a need. God, the original Spark, the Origin, does not depend on belief, but rather It depends on need. When humans stop searching, when we no longer yearn to know the Origin of existence then God will die.
This searching for the ultimate explanation for existence is a phenomenon that has permeated human thought for centuries, if not for the entire history of humanity. Aristotle gave an explanation of this Origin: God. This explanation was cherished for centuries. Darwin did not try to substitute Aristotle's explanation with another, he did not offer a theory to what the actual Origin of the first species was, but rather, suggested a scientifically based proposal that there is no evidence of the existence of a conscious, purposeful God. This revolutionary idea sent a shock through western society. People's beliefs were unsettled and they were forced to begin a new search for the answer to the question of Origin.
Even before Aristotle, Plato made an attempt to answer teleological questions in a scientific manner. Daniel Dennett describes Plato's theory of Ideas by writing, "every earthly thing is a sort of imperfect copy or reflection of an ideal exemplar or Form that existed timelessly in the Platonic realm of Ideas, reigned over by God. This Platonic heaven of abstractions was not visible, of course, but was accessible to Mind through deductive thought." Aristotle used this theory of Ideas to expand his theory of Essences. Aristotle's theory of Essences is the theory that "permeated the thinking of just about everybody" Dennett explains Aristotle's theory: "All things – not just living things – had two kinds of properties: essential properties, without which they wouldn't be the particular kind of thing they were, and accidental properties, which were free to vary within the kind... within each kind was an essence. Essences were definitive, and as such they were timeless, unchanging, and all-or-nothing." At the base of these theories Plato and Aristotle assumed a Consciousness, a Mind. In an attempt to answer the questions of teleology they attributed existence to this Consciousness. Until 1859 this was the God of western society.
When Darwin published the theory of evolution in 1859 he seemed to disprove this attempt to answer the question of the Origin. Fredrick Nietzsche saw this as The End of the Force that prompted people to live a moral life style; this is the Force that enables society to function. But, Darwin failed "to offer an explanation of the origin of the first species, or of life itself; he begins in the middle, supposing many different species with many different talents already present, and claims that starting from such a mid-stage point, the process he has described will inevitably hone and diversify the talents of the species already existing." Darwin did not attempt to suggest an answer to the questions of teleology; he did not try to end The Search of humanity with a solid answer, a definite God. Rather, he attempted to unsettle the longstanding answers upon which society was based. Darwin's persuasive theory did not disprove the existence of any kind of God, a form of Morality, but rather, seemed to disprove the existence of the type of God upon which people had depended for so long: a Mindful, Purposeful God. What the theory of evolution did was make people uncomfortable in their present belief in the stagnant unchanging God presented by Aristotle and Plato. People did not lose the sense that there is Something out there, Something to which we must fit our actions. Darwin encouraged a continuance of searching; he reopened the study of teleology. Darwin did not address the question of Original Source. He did not suggest that there is no Force.
In 1859 people did not stop believing in the idea that there is Something out there for which we can search, but rather, people stopped believing in a stagnant God. People began an active search for another Origin. In 1859 Darwin revived an ancient search. Daniel Dennett points out, "if Nietzsche is the father of existentialism (a view that there is no purpose, no meaning to existence), then perhaps Darwin deserves the title of grandfather." In granting Darwin the title of 'grandfather of existentialism' Dennett suggests that this loss of faith occurred as a result of Darwin's theory of evolution. It is true that people lost a faith in 1859, but only in a very specific God. In 1859 Darwin created a space for people to find new faith. Darwin did not kill the human ability to have faith in a God, but rather, opened the field of possibilities.
Nietzsche's argument of 'The Death of God' did not take this opening of possibilities into consideration. Though people might not believe in a certain type of God they continue to search for something. Nietzsche writes with a very narrow definition of God: the conscious, purposeful, mindful Creator of existence. Maybe this God died in 1859, but it did not leave western society Godless. In all of recorded human history people have been searching. There has never been a time when people have given up The Search for Meaning. This Search is what makes God a living reality. Humans are always yearning to find Meaning. Only when this yearning stops will God die.
| Our Perceptions of Purpose in Nature Name: Emily Sene Date: 2004-03-19 13:31:03 Link to this Comment: 8894 |
"It will be objected that the book deals too much with mere appearances, with the surface
of things, and fails to engage and reveal the patterns of unifying relationships which form the true underlying reality of existence. Here I must confess that I know nothing whatever about true underlying reality, having never met any..for my own part I am pleased enough with surfaces- in fact they alone seem to be of much importance." -Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
The primary distinction between humans and the rest of the natural world is our sense of consciousness and self-consciousness. We have very different perceptions and filters than any other organism on the planet. Language, for example, enables "story tellers" to communicate and interpret their surroundings. However, there are limitations to relying on language as a primary tool for both internal and external dialogue- the verbal definition of things can often differ vastly from how they actually are. Words have cultural connotations and if the story teller is not careful, a meaning or significance that he did not intend will be assigned to the subject. Equally dangerous is the instance where a story teller actively searches for meaning in the natural world and uses language to clarify and articulate it.
The roots of self-consciousness go as far back as the origin of humankind. Choice, morality, altruism, and a sense of purpose do not exist in a vacuum, they are as much the products of an evolutionary process as our physiological features. Until approximately 10,000 years ago, the only organisms to exist could be classified as "model builders," meaning they are able to anticipate external change but do not have language or a sense of self. "The Game of Life" is a good example of the factors which determine the behavior of model builders, and nature in general. There are certain biological constants which limit the possible outcomes, but there is, in fact, no purpose or intentionality to the patterns which emerge. Edward Abbey explains this phenomenon in his novel Desert Solitaire- "I am not attributing human motives to my snake and bird acquaintances. I recognize that when and where they serve purposes of mine they do so for beautifully selfish reasons of their own." (25)
"Story tellers," on the other hand, though part of nature as well, have much more complex factors to guide their actions- including emotions, consciousness, and language. Although these characteristics have enormous advantages, there is a tendency among story tellers to ascribe the same purpose to their surroundings as they find in their own lives. Is it possible for them to step around the boundaries of consciousness and language to arrive at a completely pure, unfiltered account of the natural world?
One story teller who spent much of her life in pursuit of this state of un-consciousness is Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She was fascinated by a book called Space and Sight, by Marius von Senden, which chronicled the experiences of people who had undergone cataract surgery and were newly-sighted. For these people, "vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning." (302) They do not associate images with their verbal counterparts immediately because they only know how a tree, for example, feels, not how it looks. In a sense, these people are experiencing the world without the constraints of language.
Dillard wanted to share this experience. "I have to maintain in my head a running description of the present," she says, "When I see this way I analyze and pry...But there is another kind of seeing, which involves letting go...When I see this way I see truly." (306-307) There are two instances described in her novel during which she sees truly. In these moments, she exists only in the present and is not restricted by translating the moment into words, or interpreting it, or discovering its purpose. Dillard is aware of the constraints imposed on her by self-consciousness and believed that it is possible to overcome them.
"Consciousness itself does not hinder living in the present. In fact, it is only a heightened awareness that the great door to the present opens at all. Even a certain amount of interior verbalization is helpful to enforce the memory of whatever it is that is taking place. The gas station beagle puppy, after all, may have experienced those same moments more purely than I did, but he brought fewer instruments to bear on the same material, he had no data for comparison, and he profited in only the grossest of ways...Self-consciousness, however, does hinder the experience of the present. It is the one instrument that unplugs all the rest." (327)
For Dillard, the key to experiencing and understanding the natural world is to condition oneself to abandon our evolved self-consciousness for brief flashes of time.
Although she may have discovered a way to remove the linguistic filter for herself, it is virtually impossible for Dillard to do the same for her readers. We can partially assume her perceptions of the world though the text, but that's exactly what they are- her perceptions. There is no way for Dillard to allow us to see without filters when she is using language to communicate in the first place. She may be able to advise others and provide a means to live in the present, but the only way for someone reading her novel to really understand what she is talking about is to experience it for himself. Even Abbey cannot escape personifying his "snake and bird acquaintances" from time to time in order to enhance his description. The only way to view them in their natural state is to employ Dillard's un-consciousness and see for yourself.
It is probably impossible for humans to stop interpreting patterns and projecting meaning onto the natural world. In fact, it is our imperative as story tellers to do so. We believe that there is purpose and intent, despite all evidence to the contrary. Counter to Abbey's assertion, humans cannot be satisfied with only the surface of things, even if we never will discover "the patterns of unifying relationships which form the true underlying reality of existence."
Sources
1.) Abbey, Edward. Desert Solitaire. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968.
2.) Dillard, Annie. The Annie Dillard Reader. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1994.
| Of Time and the Quiver: connecting time/beauty/lan Name: Em Madsen Date: 2004-03-19 14:21:49 Link to this Comment: 8896 |
Our class has been pondering language. People have asked each other, 'do you think in words?' Some have suggested that when we are involved in activities such as chess or tennis, we do not think in words, but rather act from an intuitive space that needs no language. Our class has also been pondering time. We have reminded each other of
a paradox that exists in our everyday lives: we cannot be truly in the moment, for as soon as we consciously start trying to be in the moment, we have removed ourselves from the moment. There is the idea of that nebulous, nameless space proposed in both lines of thought which begs to be connected. I am led to questions: Can we connect time and language? In other words, can "being in the moment" in the sense of our perception of time mean that we are finally centered in that wordless space where we act from instinct?
I can trace this thread of questioning to a Borges story ("The Secret Miracle") that I love wherein a man is sentenced to death by firing squad. He prays to god to be given enough time to finish his play before he dies, and god freezes time (the shadow of a bee on the stones near his feet remains motionless, and puffs of cigarette smoke from the soldiers' mouths hang immobile in the air). The man cannot move, yet he can think. He spends his time (or his out-of-time) working on his play, and when he finally feels it is done, the normal course of time resumes and he is shot to death.
While intense experiences of immersion in a moment may not take this form, Borges creates an interesting commentary on the notion of being in the moment. The man is frozen in the moment in most senses of the word, though he is able to think and to use language to define his situation. The idea that I am working with suggests that it is only when we pull back from a moment that we engage with language in order to describe the activities that were, in a sense, timeless only moments before. The man before the firing squad is given the luxury of both the moment and the ability to reflect on it.
This raises another interesting question. If "time" is frozen and no one moves, what kind of scale is the man's mind working on? The process of thinking is a process over time, so it would seem that he is existing on two different scales, or maybe even that his time is all taking place at once. Is this far-fetched? The more I think about it, the less I think so, as
I have heard many stories of people who have fallen asleep and had incredibly intricate dreams that seemed to span hours, only to wake up to find that they have been asleep for four minutes. Dream space thus presents another valid way in which to explore the question of timelessness and wordlessness.
I have proposed that at the moment of no language, there is no time. Can it be said that when there is no time there is no langauge? In the case of the man in Borges's story, no time does not mean no language, as the man can think and work on his play, which is a linear accumulation of ideas. In dreams, no time does not mean no language, as we move and speak to each other in a mind-constructed scale of time that has no relevance to the amount of time we've been sleeping. However, in real life, no time would also mean no language, I believe. Since language occurs on a temporal scale (each word, like each thought, following the previous one), to remove the framework of time would be like removing language's bones. Thought and language could not move forward without time, and instead would melt into an unintelligible puddle.
Now I need to contradict myself, however, for the moment of no language that I have been discussing is far from unintelligible. It is actually a moment of intense clarity that results from the removal of language, rather than the removal of time. Cause and effect is important in this case. And the effect of the removal of language and the entrance of our bodies and minds into the electric space where we act from intuition and cannot feel the familiar prodding of time's fingers is something I want to call "the quiver." I feel this is a valid description because this moment out of moments is often an intensely physical
experience, a kind of a-temporal orgasm or seizure.
It is in this way that I feel we experience beauty. The objects we observe are not beautiful as they exist in time or because they have survived time. They are beautiful because we identify with them in a timeless, wordless moment of beauty. When we look at them and say they are beautiful, we are not referring to the statue or painting or poem, we
are referring to that quivering moment when we recognized them for ourselves as beautiful. "The quiver" is that moment when time and language fail, and we are left instead with a fleeting feeling of discovery and wordless awe. In this way, "the quiver" is akin to an electric pulse that moves us along despite the absence of time-- the experiences of life or beauty or even pain motivate us as they propel us forward.
For me, "the quiver" is an elusive flash I can find in my music. Sometimes, as I play my violin, I become so thoroughly immersed in the music that I lose track of time. My fingers move by instinct and I am transported to a different space, a space sans language or time, where only the music and my intense connection to it tether me to the world to which I must return. This is a scary and beautiful experience. Like the man in Borges's tale, I am able to create a work of art in a span of time that does not technically exist-- musicians speak of "stealing time" in their playing by slowing down a passage of music, extending triplets or lyrical sections, or playing around a rest. Musicians use these techniques to create time and space, or to hold them still. This might seem to give musicians a sense of power. But, like the recognition of beauty, even this "quiver" places us as humble humans, relegated to "stealing" time, or escaping from the harness of our self-created language.
Recognizing our humanity and thus our insignificance places us in time, and we struggle, as Orah says, to cling: to time, to beauty, and to the idea that these things will evolve and carry us with them. Who does not want to be remembered? The desire to be remembered transcends time, or rather exists because of it, its forlorn twin. Acknowledging that time waits for no man (anyone know who originally said this?) and admitting the simple fact that death will eventually kindly stop for us all (Emily Dickinson), is to recognize what it is to be human, and to acknowledge that the inexorable system we have named time will carry us into obscurity whether we like it or not. So where does "the quiver" fit in with all of this? I'd like to think it gives us a glimpse of immortality, a taste of what it might be like to merge with the infinite and lose ourselves. Or, we might use it to create a definition of "forever," where time becomes a plane with no edges visible in any direction, something we are always centered in and defined by. In any case, it is an occurrence that carries within it a complicated unfolding of what it means to be human which borders on the sacred.
| A Universal Game Name: Daniela Mi Date: 2004-03-19 14:50:48 Link to this Comment: 8897 |
"The blank page is nothingness-the silence-
on which the words enact their epic journey,
which is both a quest for a meaning and a
creation of meaning."
O. B. Hardison
The Bible introduced the concept of God as a creator of the universe. In contrast, Darwin's theory supplanted the idea of a single creator orchestrating all extant processes by affirming the role of chance in shaping the reality. According to Darwin's story, random events create chaos in the universe and then re-establish order characterized by certain patterns of life. Like the changes in the environment, the emergence of specific patterns cannot be predicted. Yet, no matter how chance might shape reality, language adapts to mirror all of the changes. Consequently, by molding language to reflect the emerging patterns of life, chance begets new meanings. Building bridges between time and space and arranging the patterns created by chance inside these domains, language contains the expression of meanings. Therefore, using language to describe the surrounding world, we control the universe. The role of language in the formation of reality also makes us reconsider our notions of self and freedom.
Fueled by chance, random memes generate new patterns. As Dennett contends, memes need human minds in order to live and "reproduce" (give rise to a new idea, thought or meme). As soon as a meme assumes a trivial meaning, it is supplanted by other memes. Once a meme is anchored in a brain, it is "processed" and changed in compliance with the idiosyncrasies of that particular brain. Then, it is passed to other brains.
According to this description of memes, an individual cannot generate germinal memes without being influenced by other people. This means that our thinking is dependent on other people's thinking. Consequently, the society we live in shapes our mental processes, culling those thoughts that threaten to undermine its foundations. Therefore, if we happen to resist the influence of the memes and generate our own thoughts, eventually we become pariahs, because our way of thinking differs from that of the rest of the society. Faced with the prospect of living alone, we do conform to the social way of processing memes. Of course, we will remodel them in accordance with the idiosyncrasies of our brains, but the attribute of the meme stays the same. Thus, the social processing of memes gives birth to different cultures. Because of the dependency on society for the formation of our perceptions of the environment, does the freedom to be unique exist?
The freedom to be unique depends on chance. According to Dennett, memes propagate "because of our esteem for them" (363). Random events and the particular social circumstances induced by them determine the social stance. So, being unique is the freedom to respond to the emerging patterns imposed by chance according to the idiosyncrasies of our brains within the boundaries set by society. Experimenting by putting elements together in a new way approved by society, playing with memes within those boundaries, and challenging the boundaries, we display our uniqueness.
Do we have control of the processing of the memes? Apart from society's influence to reject or adopt a meme, the influence of the memes themselves may be too subtle for us to perceive it. Inadvertently, we may turn into "a sort of dung heap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew themselves..." (Dennett, 346). It is again chance that determines whether we will happen to resist its influence.
Like the detection of a meme, its propagation depends on random events. So, chance begets thoughts, which are in turn shaped by language.
Articulating thoughts, words convey meaning. So, the appearance of new words increases the range of thought by providing additional means to communicate these thoughts. Likewise, the decrease in the number of available words limits the range of consciousness: "In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it...Every year fewer and fewer words and the range of consciousness always a little smaller." (Orwell, 55) Because we need to adjust the extant vocabulary to reflect the emergence of new patterns or the disappearance of certain structures in the surrounding environment, the array of words is constantly changing. By establishing new order chance fuels the creation of new words and the disappearance of others. Consequently chance shapes thought and determines the range of consciousness.
Yet, in addition to conveying meaning, words create such. The placing of one word after another to form phrases, sentences, paragraphs, books gives rise to meaning not contained in the individual words, but emerging as a result of their interactions with one another. Articulating thoughts, we impose order on words. Nevertheless, the emergence of meaning sometimes depends on chance. Often struggling to express an idea, writers and speakers place words after one another creating unintentional meanings. Sometimes it so happens that the meaning completely diverges from the original intention. So, the creation of meaning depends on both personal will and chance.
The interpretation of the language is solely an act of will, however. Reading or listening, we project our own experiences, attitudes, moral beliefs etc onto the text, thus creating a meaning that corresponds to our selves. So, the meaning of a chain of words is exactly what we make of it. Since a text is construed in accordance with the unique personal experiences and idiosyncrasies of one's brain, the resulting individual images of the universe also differ. Describing the surrounding world, we create reality which varies for different people. Thus denying the concept of an absolute reality, we find a way to control chance.
Articulating thoughts, people impose order on the surrounding world, arranging their perceptions in a particular way in space and time. Thus, language provides people with the means to control the universe by describing it. Creating the various identities of the surrounding world is what triggers evolution. Not facing objective boundaries of reality, we are encouraged to cast off fears of the unknown and of failure, play with and seek successful formulas to modulate our notion of the surrounding world. Thus, giving rise to new theories to explain what we see, the playful impulse prods people to try to expand their notions. The moment we attain the knowledge to do so, we cause the universe to evolve by ascribing new meanings to it. So, if chance creates new meanings and language contains the universe, the role of people is to create various identities of the universe.
Mastering language, people have learned to create various images of the extant world. So, if both people and the gods of the various religions are capable of imposing order on chaos and disrupting the patterns of life, what should our definition of a supreme being be?
The more people know about language, the greater their power to control the world. Yet, it is not feasible for us to hoard all words in order to expand infinitely our identities of the universe. Neither it is possible for us to control both past and present by expressing it in words, because random events constantly reshape the environment. Human brains have so evolved that they tend to dispose of all information that is not being used. Consequently, a being is considered supreme if it is able to retrieve the words normal people have long forgotten and thus get hold of the past. So, a god is somebody who can store numerous words and arrange them in more ways to generate a myriad of meanings. Playing with words, experimenting with their form and content are the prerequisites for these.
Furthermore, to maintain ascendancy over people entails the knowledge to express the meaning in a distinctive and articulate way. It is not the most germinal ideas that receive credit, but those expressed in the most lucid and compelling way, because other people are able to understand them. Having managed to mold a certain thought in an effective way, those who have mastered to the art of expression elicit emotions and thoughts from the audience. The ability to achieve this grants immortality to the text and its creator.
Random events inspire new meanings, contained in words. Arranging words to transmute time and space, people manage to control the universe. Giving us the freedom of thought, language allows us to impose order on the surrounding world, thus enabling us to create reality and grow. Having the ability to transmute the environment according to our own volition, are we free to do whatever we want? Are we entitled to the right to do so?
References:
Daniel Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (New York, N.Y.: Touchstone books, 1996)
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-four (London: Penguin Books, 1990)
Jonathan Culler, Literary Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)
| Evolution Embedded in Symbols, Symbols of Evolutio Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-03-19 16:09:45 Link to this Comment: 8898 |
Two billion years ago two prokaryotes bumped into each other and formed the first multi-cellular organism. 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and dinosaurs became extinct. Three days ago, in your notebook, you drew a mess of squiggles which to you represented Jackson Pollock's painting, Number 1, 1948. You wrote the word entropy on the upper left hand corner of the page. On the bottom right hand side you wrote, Creativity is based on randomness and chance.
This paper will not try to determine why the dinosaurs became extinct or what caused two prokaryotes to form the first multi-cellular organism. Instead, it will ask you that which is, perhaps, a more difficult question: Why did you write what you wrote in your notebook?
If human recorded history only represents 10,000 years of a universe which has been evolving for 15 billion years, then does a question pertaining to such relatively recent human practices as writing and artwork matter? Yes! These symbol making processes matter because of what they can tell us about our identity and our place in the evolutionary process. This essay will explore the notion that human identity is based almost entirely on representing life symbolically, and grapple with the idea that we exist because of the symbols which we create. It will then go on to explore how symbol-making resembles the biological process of evolution in the way it prizes and incites both messiness and reproduction. Finally it will synthesize these two ideas: symbol-making tied to human identity and symbol-making resembling the biological process of evolution in order to provide a backbone for the idea that humans might evolve in such a way that the cultural transfer of information could take place as a part of the process of biological evolution.
Reason I:
Because after all the discussion, something was still missing. It'd be difficult for me to tell you exactly what, because we discussed concepts about evolution quite thoroughly. But nonetheless, I was feeling empty. And so I guess what I was trying to do was tell myself a story on paper, trying to fill the emptiness that all the other stories created.
The only way that humans can communicate with each other is through words and signs. In his book entitled, Literary Theory, A Very Short Introduction, Jonathan Culler shows how large a part signs play in who we are by stating that "instead of thinking of life as something to which signs and texts are added to represent it, we should conceive of life itself as suffused with signs, made what it is by processes of signification."(Culler, 14) So, according to Culler, life is not just represented by symbols, its very core and essence is defined by symbols and the process of creating them. One literary symbol system, The Bible, can be used to help illustrate this idea. The Bible helps to indicate that the sign was the origin of all life by saying: "In the beginning was the Word." (John 1: 1-2) "The Word" and its connotations (God, life, pure symbol...) were the original sources of signification. It as if, people have continued the process of sign-making almost obsessively ever since this original source was established. To reduce the issue to its most basic level and then build upon it, one could say: In the beginning was the word, in the middle were more words, and in the end there were words upon words upon words; too many words for anyone to remember a single, signifying origin. Indeed, from the very start, people have been coming up with words to try and make sense of the world. There have been stories about observations, words about God, about everyday life, about mysteries of the universe. In light of this, one can find Culler's description of literature an "entropic force," (Culler, 40) to be quite an apt. Books, conversation, analysis and communication of any kind opens up an infinite space for more and more signifying practices.
The first way in which human symbol-making resembles evolution can be examined by comparing symbol-making to entropy. Like the energy distribution in the universe, the process of signification was destined from its start to be a messy and uncontainable process. Additionally, words are another type of what evolutionary philosopher Daniel Dennett has deemed, "universal acid." That is to say, one word invites another word, another analysis, another sign; the creation of words and symbols eats up more human energy than it can possibly return. You wrote in your notebook because all of the energy exerted in coming up with explanations and symbols still did not satisfy. The words of the class discussion simply made you want to bring more words into being.
So far we have looked at the importance of the symbols which we create. It is interesting to now look more explicitly at a question closely attached to our original line of inquiry. Do we exist because we create symbols? One manner of looking at this question is in terms of the way that the creation of symbols affects individual identity. The time that one does not spend sustaining life (eating, sleeping, reproducing etc.) is spent engaging the brain in the process of symbol making. What creates each person's unique human identity is not the way in which he or she eats, sleeps or reproduces but the way in which he or she thinks, communicates and engages his or her mind in various signifying tasks (making a gesture, solving a problem, telling a story). So if one sees the most essential quality of being human to be individuality, it is indeed our symbol making endeavors which make us human.
Before leaving this topic, let us explore one more angle for the extent to which we exist because we create symbols. Culler shows how in an autobiography, Rousseau described a deep love for someone whom he called Maman and how while in her presence he snatched a piece of chewed bread from her mouth so that he could become closer to her in the same way he imagined being close to her when she was not in the house. In describing Rousseau's act, Culler says that "Maman's presence turns out to be a particular type of absence, one requiring mediations and supplements." (Culler, 13) So too with language- it is as if language sets a standard for reality and the weight of this standard is more than reality can bare. In other words, the real world event still can leave the person participating feeling empty and a person must find a way of symbolically filling that empty space. The story or symbolic action that a person makes becomes more of a reality for that person than what happened in real time and space. It is the symbol of reality that has the power over our lives rather than the reality itself. In trying to create reality through symbols, the symbols gain power enough to create us.
Reason II.
Because I wanted to make it mine. I was moved in Art History class by Jackson Pollock's art and wanted to put it at the center of my notebook because it was meaningful to me. Also, it related to what I was trying to figure out about randomness, messiness and change.
In her book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry states that "beauty incites replication" (4). Like a history of evolution, a history of human symbolic representation is heavily dependent on the act of reproduction. This reproduction has manifested itself quite literally. For example, when a painter finds something in nature to be beautiful (or in the case of the "Jackson Pollock squiggle" in your notebook, a pre-existing image that is beautiful) she can reproduce it on the canvas or paper. Similarly, when a writer finds a moment to be inspiring, she can transcribe the moment into "a set of instructions [i.e. words] about how [a reader] can imagine or construct [that moment]" (Dreaming by the Book, Scarry, 6). Like sexual reproduction which allows organisms to share their genetic material in order to continue species and to create new organisms, pictures and words help with a transfer of cultural information, its continuance and recombination. An image is created by someone who finds it to be beautiful and then that image is represented in the mind of the viewer. It has the chance to be passed on again if that viewer finds the image to be beautiful. To create a symbol of something with a string of words or with several brush strokes is to perpetuate and generate new versions of that which is beautiful for future generations.
Another interesting way that art supports and prizes the concept of reproduction is in the way that the formal properties of words and images are pleasurably sensual and intimate. Elaine Scarry quotes Aristotle saying that "images are like sensuous content, except they contain no matter," (Scarry, 6). Images do, however allow the matter that existed in the real world to be represented in the imagination. This causes intimate and sensual excitement. For example, in a recent lecture at Haverford College, Writer Lynda Barry spoke about her desire to kiss a good book after reading it. An additional example of a connection between artistic reproduction and sexual reproduction is the myth of Pygmalion. The myth is about an artist who falls in love with the sculpture of a nude woman which he is creating. The symbol of beauty that Pygmalion produces becomes an actual beautiful woman. She is transported from the realm of representation and into the physical human world. This relates back to Rousseau's symbolic act. Maman was a symbol of a lost mother figure and, like Pygmalion trying to bring his sculpture to life, Rousseau was trying to bring his mother figure back to reality through his symbolic representations of and projections towards Maman. If one thinks deeply about these two examples, one can conclude that a large component of the entire symbol making process involves a journey towards turning the symbol into a piece of reality which was lost long ago or never existed in the first place.
In addition to a consideration of how symbols fill an absence is also interesting to consider whether or not the symbol-making process has served the purpose of inciting the biological reproductive process. Have there been any instances, besides Pygmalion, of art actually creating a human desire for sexual reproduction? Or has art, for the most part, remained in the sensual world without necessarily venturing into a more overtly sexual realm? One possible answer to this question lays in the fact that a large majority of the history of art (including visual representations of the Pygmalion myth) involves the representations of nude women. Such examples span across art historical periods. Examples include Venus of Willendorf, a female fertitlity sculpture dating back to 24,000 b.c.e., Praxiteles' sculpture, Cndian Venus from the Classical period, Valazquez's The Toilet of Venus from the Spanish Baroque period and Manet's Olympia from the Impressionist period. Today installation and performance art pieces often feature an actual nude female body in the midst of other symbolic objects. According to some feminist art historians, within the symbol system of art, the nude woman came to allow for a penetrating male gaze. This gaze incited sexual desire in the viewer. Dennett states that it is a "misleading idea that the summum bonum at the source of every chain of [thought] is the imperative of our genes" (Dennett, 473). However, the above examples illustrate that, somewhat paradoxically, the subject matter of the artistic symbol-making process (that which distinguishes humans from animals) is determined by a genetic imperative or more animal-like urge to reproduce, to continue the human species by this act of reproduction.
The artistic process of Jackson Pollock is also a good example of spontaneity and chance, two key factors in the evolutionary process. Pollock's paintings seem to represent a sort of painterly entropy, a showcasing of disorder and randomness. His is a system which is based entirely on an intentional messiness. It is as if all of Pollock's messy splatters are intimately connected with one another and no one splatter is entirely comprehensible on its own. The energy within the painting is barely containable by the closed system of the canvas. All of this is related to the evolutionary process. According to Mayr, "evolution is subject to a large number of interactions [based upon] genotypes within a single population responding differently [to different environmental factors]" (277) Like the prokaryotes mentioned in the beginning of this essay, in the context of their randomness, each splash of paint seems to interact with every other splash. In fact, all of the brushstrokes interact in such a complex way, that it is difficult to tell where one brush stroke ends and another begins. Like the evolutionary process, Pollock's paintings are both intensely messy and random and profoundly complex.
Reason III:
Because of a genetic imperative, for the future or, see reasons I and II., add an element of self and pass on what is learned.
We have discussed how symbols form our identity and help us to understand the world. We have also looked at the way in which like the biological principle of entropy, words provide a sort of universal acid, that with each new story, written or visual, there is a fundamental dissatisfaction which promotes the creation of new symbols, new stories. These stories try to fill in a gap, a longing within humans and perhaps even re-create what never existed in the first place. We have looked more specifically at the way which Jackson Pollock's paintings parallel the randomness of the evolutionary process and even at how symbols in a history of art have incited the biological imperative to reproduce. With the importance of these symbols to the human life process, why is it that symbol-making remains a part of cultural evolution and nothing more? Is it possible to suggest that cultural evolution and symbol-making processes could lead us to passing on symbols in the genetic material of our children?
It is interesting to note that the theory of cellular memory would point in this direction. Various web sites seem to indicate similar ideas about what cellular memory is and although the theory has next to no basis in large amounts of biological research (the web sites about this are often personal, rather than scholarly) the degree to which life resolves around human symbol-making makes such a theory seem less far fetched. The theory states that "virtually every behavioral pattern exhibited during routine activities of daily living results from data which is stored, or encoded as cellular memory." (McClasky) An example of cellular memory would be that the memory of traumatic events within cultural groups can be passed on to future members of the group which experienced them. For example, this theory would state that, without experiencing the Holocaust, the child of a Holocaust survivor might know about it on a cellular level without hearing about it or seeing a picture. The memory of the event and all of the signs and symbols that went along with it would be firmly imbedded within that child. This also brings up questions about the extent to which the concept of the collective unconscious might also have some basis at a cellular level.
In order to consider more explicitly, the question of whether cultural information could be passed on genetically more explicitly, let us consider technology. Because of technology, (specifically the internet) there are a wide variety of ways that humans can interact. Online forums, e mail and web based interactive projects all allow for the exchanging of people's stories, a greater potential for the transfer of the symbols which we make. We can look at one very recent art project which seems to illustrate the way humans have used technology to express the evolutionary process and discover the way in which it might help symbols to become embedded in the biological process of evolution.
An art project on the web entitled Life Spacies allows everyone who enters the web site to type an e mail message. It is the individual words and letters of the e mail which create the genetic coding for a virtual creature to emerge. This creature then becomes part of a living system which is "based upon the human observer, his or her consciousness and the evolutionary dynamic and complex image processes of the work, which themselves are based upon principles of artificial life, evolution and dynamic non-local interrelations." (Life Spacies web page)
In addition to consciousness and imagination which distinguish us as humans, the ability to transfer cultural information to offspring becomes important once that offspring is born. Mayr points out that "in most invertebrates the parents die before their offspring hatch from the egg." (253) Thus, for many animals, a dissemination of information from parent to child via observed action and symbolic representation is simply not possible. However, as we have stated, it is a common assumption that even in humans, the words and symbols that a person makes in his or her lifetime are in no way transferable into the genetic makeup of the child. This emergent web project is interesting because it suggests a possibility for the words to provide the genetic make-up of an organism. Through the continual sharing of symbolic information, the symbol systems which humans create could became part of the genetic makeup of future generations. This would allow for a merging of the symbol making and purely biological parts of the human brain. It would represent a merging of a system which humans use to represent evolution with the evolutionary process itself.
Bibliography:
Barry, Lynda. Haverford College. 31 Oct. 2003.
Burke, Tim. "Something to do with Emergent Art." Emergent Systems Working Group. 9 April, 2003.
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1997.
Dalke, Anne. "The Ramifications of Being Easily Distracted, or An Account of a Journey from Metaphor and Metonomy to Trees and Rhizomes."
Grobstein, Paul. "Emerging Emergence, A Report on Progress (October 2002- present): From the Active Inanimate to Models to Stories to Agency (and Back Again)." 29. Jan. 2003.
Grobstein, Paul. "From the Head to the Heart: Some thoughts on similarities between brain function and morphogenesis and on their significance for research
McClasky, Thomas R. "Decoding Traumatic Memory Patterns at the Cellular level." The American Academy of Experts in Traumatic Stress, Inc. 1998. http://www.aaets.org/ar30.html
Nead, Lynda. The Female Nude: Art Obscenity and Sexuality. New York and London: Rutledge. 1992.
Rosenberg, Harold. "The American Action Painters." The Tradition of the New. New York: Da Capo Press. 1960.
Scarry, Elaine. Dreaming by the Book. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1999.
Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. 1999.
Varnadoe, Kirk. "Open-Ended Conclusions about Jackson Pollock." In Jackson Pollock: New Approaches. New York: Museum of Modern Art. 1999.
methodology and biological theory." Emergent Systems Working Group. 28 May. 2003 http://serendipstudio.org/local/scisoc/emergence/brain.html
Sommerer Christa, and Laurent Migninmeau. Life Spacies. 1997
| Spears or Mozart: Have Our Memes Failed Them? Name: Erin Daly Date: 2004-03-19 16:19:59 Link to this Comment: 8899 |
_"Consider, for instance, one of Mozart's compositions, one that is retained stably in our concert repertoire... The persistence with which a Mozart symphony reappears in our concert programmes is solely a consequence of its high selection value. In order for this to retain the effect, the work must be played again and again, the public must take note of it, and it must be continually re-evaluated in competition with other compositions."
(Dennett, 348)
_The first thought to develop in my mind after digesting the above passage was this: Mozart achieved notability and longevity in the field of music, and so did pop queen Britney Spears. The thought continued to plague me. Use of the phrase "concert repertoire" is easily applicable to Britney. She performs music in a concert to an audience that adores her. They may be twelve-year-old girls and infatuated boys, but she keeps them as fans as her career progresses. Is this "solely a consequence of high selection value?" Britney's public continues to "take note" of her, a requirement for "persistence." The radio ensures that the work is repeatedly played to obtain the desired effect of inebriation and subsequently enforced pleasure.
_According to Dennett, permanency is acquired when "human conservators" prevent a piece of culture from a fate that means, "to dissolve in time." We all long for immortality, do we not? If a genie appeared and informed us we had three wishes, would not one of them be for something like fame, fortune, or immortality? Mozart has been conserved because of his selection value, because people have enjoyed his music and continue to enjoy it and deem it worthy of reputable celebrity. Britney Spears has achieved a similar preservation because her public has deemed her in possession of a high selection value, but does she warrant the reputable celebrity we give to Mozart?
_Once her public turns away from her, Spears will dissolve in the mind's eye. The same could someday occur to Mozart. Can we study Mozart and Spears under the same lens with the same rules? Dennett believes we have "competitions that rage through a human mind (359)." Competitions take place to achieve a high selection value, to gain longevity. There are memes that fight to occupy our attention, and somewhere inside of us there is something pulling on us to decide what we like or do not like, what we strive for or do not strive for.
_A "public" might consist of multiple individuals. A public decides what becomes popular. Each of the individuals within a public has an individual mind with an individual mind's eye that determines what cultural objects will or will not gain attention and will or will not maintain a cultural impact. The term "fifteen minutes of fame," which we use so widely to describe those seeking quick and effortless celebrity, can be reduced in scientific exposition to the competition occurring within our minds for control of what we find culturally important to us.
_The function of a meme, then, is to behave like gladiators in wrestling suits fighting for what Dennett describes as the "driver's seat" of our identities. This, in my opinion, is how we become adept at certain things and fail in others. I cannot compose music like Mozart, or dance on a stage like Spears, because my Mozart meme and my Spears meme were lost in the struggle. I can, however, write fairly well. I have the writing meme, but I do not have what Dennett claims to be the "musical meme." I do possess the memes that choose whether or not to enjoy both Mozart and Spears.
_"We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators (366)." Perhaps we have numerous on and off switches attached to our machines, and we can pull them on or off as we please. Does this mean that I cannot achieve certain ambitions because of my memes, or because of a personal resistance? Dennett believes "autonomy" is "just another fancy term for 'self-control'. (366)." We can control our "vessels." Britney has the self-control to put more clothes on in performances. She could become a goodie-goodie. That is not what we want from her. In our minds' eyes, we want her to be a sexual icon. Thus, in order to prevent her from dissolving in time, she must be the sex symbol she has become. Her theatrics are a result of what we desire in a performer, and in a way we have failed her. In a way, our memes have failed her.
_"Our selves have been created out of the interplay of memes exploiting and redirecting the machinery Mother Nature has given us (367)." I agree with this to a certain extent, but it is also troublesome in this particular argument. We use people who are predominant in our culture to fit our necessities, and sometimes we turn away and let them dissolve.
_What will happen to Martha Stewart when she goes to prison? To gain a public, she had to fit an image of the crafty housewife. In reality, she was a crafty businesswoman, but the two images did not coincide. When she overstepped her bounds and it came to light that as a crafty businesswoman she was less than perfect, far from it, she was punished accordingly, and now she cannot even manage her own business. What we see or do not see has everything to do with what we want to see or what we do not want to see. Our selves are subject to the influence of the interplay of other memes from other people. We create our own realities. It is a matter of what we would like to control.
_In deciding that Mozart is a brilliant composer whose music is a cultural artifact worthy of preservation, we have decided that many other composers before or after him were less than worthy, simply because he was selected to be our valuable piece of culture. In deciding that Spears is a sexy pop star whose music is a cultural artifact worthy of preservation, we have decided that many other girls before or after her will attempt to replicate the same success and will either fail or surpass expectations, simply because of what Spears has established as a framework of success. We allow only certain people to achieve permanency through cultural preservation, but we have memes that are guiding us to the decisions of what is valuable and what is needed to be dissolved.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolutions and the Meaning of Life. Simon & Schuster. New York, NY. 1995.
| Creative Mutations Name: Lindsay Up Date: 2004-03-19 16:36:45 Link to this Comment: 8900 |
Many other words, both positive and negative, spring to mind when one hears the word "mutation." In a scientific sense, one might think of the random variations that lead to evolution in species. In a sci-fi/ horror flick sense, one might think of a vicious monster that after contact with some radioactive substance became terribly disfigured. But rarely do we associate mutations with ideas pervasive to our culture. Daniel Dennett suggests that memes undergo a certain kind of mutation that is inherent to the creative evolution of culture.
The most important distinction to be made between mutation as it applies to biological evolution, and how it applies to creative evolution is the function of randomness. In nature, random variation is the cause of mutation, and therefore the appearance of different traits. In the generation of ideas, the role of randomness is not so easy to pinpoint. On the one hand, it seems that creative ideas are generated through patterns of association:
"During creative thought, memes potentially relevant to a solution would evoke or activate one another, altering or strategically (though not necessarily consciously) manipulating them..." (Gabora 1)
Yet, there is no predictability to these associations, and furthermore,
"The very creativity and activity of human minds as temporary homes for memes seems to guarantee that lines of descent are hopelessly muddled, and that phenotypes (the "body designs" of memes) change so fast that there's no keeping track..." (Dennett 355)
So perhaps what we would call "randomness" as it plays out in the evolution of species is really taken over by an element of disorganization in creative forces.
Dennett cites Stephen Jay Gould's point that it is common for cultures that have branched off from one another centuries earlier to communicate and continue to contribute to one another's evolutionary process. This may account for some of the messiness involved in trying to examine how mutations of creative thought occur; they are constantly crossing over between cultures. There is no neat diagram as with the branching of species to demonstrate the path that, for example, a thought may take on its way to becoming a theory.
This begs the question, then, how much control can the individual hope to exert over the way that ideas combine and affect one another within his or her own mind? Dennett writes that our ideas are limited by our personal histories and experiences (450), but this limitation is not conscious on the part of the thinker. Perhaps what are limited by our experiences are not the ideas we can possess at a given moment in time, but the way in which these experiences lead us to organize our thoughts. If we attribute creativity to a disorganized trading of memes in space, then how much can we credit an artist with her own brilliant work? But if instead we regard the thinker as organizer of thoughts, creative mutations occur as a result of a new method of organization based on what Dennett calls the thinker's "style."
"Each particular creator, each novelist or composer or computer programmer, is sped along through Design Space by a particular idiosyncratic set of habits known as style. It is style that both constrains and enables us, giving a positive direction to our explorations but only by rendering otherwise neighboring regions off limits to us...Individual styles are truly unique, the product of untold billions of serendipitous encounters over the ages, encounters that produced first a unique genome, and then a unique upbringing, and finally a unique set of life experiences." (450)
For Dennett, limitation imposed by the cultural experiences that comprise one's history is actually an impetus for creative mutation. Thus, a work of art, a new story, is the result of the thinker's struggle to organize in a way that only he or she can.
In nature, a mutation is usually fatal or detrimental to the organism in which it occurs. However, mutations are creativity's greatest asset: at one time, the great removal from more traditional realist art that impressionism posed seemed detrimental to the world of painting. The result was the beautiful addition of artists like Monet and Degas to the sphere of art. Whether one chooses to include impressionism in his or her organization of art history is dependent upon the thinker, but one cannot deny that creative mutation is ultimately beneficial to culture.
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Gabora, Liane. The Origin and Evolution of Culture and Creativity. Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission, 1. 1997.
Available http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1997/vol1/gabora_l.html
| A Recipe for Nature Name: Cham Sante Date: 2004-03-19 16:49:28 Link to this Comment: 8902 |
Nature is a fluid coalescence of complex magnificence resulting from an algorithmic mastery of simplicity. It is no doubt an awe-inspiring entity that invokes both great curiosity and bafflement in those who attempt to account for its existence and splendor. It is often seen as overly reductionistic, if not ¡§dangerous¡¨, to try to condense the (mindless?) brilliance of nature through any sort of mechanistic or logical means. And here we are faced with what Daniel Dennett calls Darwin¡¦s dangerous idea: ¡§that all the fruits of evolution can be explained as the products of an algorithmic process¡¨ (Dennett, 1995 p.60). It is no surprise that this idea might present a problem for the Homo-sapien ego, as it jeopardizes our egocentric concept of ¡§natural¡¨ superiority, as well as fails to satisfy our almost insatiable need to directly account for the expansiveness of the world around us. That is, for many of us it is somehow pessimistic, if not fatalistic, to be satisfied with the idea that we are products of nothing more than a mindless mechanical process (what a dangerous idea this is!) (Dennett, 1995 p.60). The question then inevitably arises: Is Darwin¡¦s theory of natural selection really ¡§powerful enough¡¨ to can account for all of the world¡¦s design work (i.e., the time, energy and development needed to produce a complex outcome)? (Dennett, 1995) The answer is yes, but only after nature has been unraveled in terms of an algorithmic design and only after the many misunderstandings of Darwin¡¦s fundamental ideas have been rectified.
If we are to discuss nature and natural selection in terms of being an algorithmic process, we must first define what is meant by an algorithm. An algorithm is ¡§a certain sort of formal process that can be counted on-logically-to yield a certain sort of result whenever it is ¡§run¡¨ or instantiated¡¨ (Dennett, 1995 p.50). In other words, if the compulsory steps in an algorithmic process are executed without error or deviation, a predetermined outcome will result without exception. In this way, an algorithm can be seen as a ¡§foolproof and somehow mechanical procedure: a recipe of sorts¡¨ (Dennett, 1995 p.51). An attempt to characterize nature in terms of an algorithmic process as defined in this extremely deductive and causal manner can easily be seen as problematic. However, (and here the unraveling begins) it must be understood that this definition does not adequately illustrate the actuality that both chance and randomness may be integrated into and allowed for by an algorithm. For example, Dennett uses the analogy of long division:
¡§Because most mathematical discussions of algorithms focus on their guaranteed or mathematically provable powers, people sometimes make the elementary mistake of thinking that a process that makes use of chance or randomness is not an algorithm¡¨ (Dennett, 1995 p.52).
But long division remains to be a demonstrable algorithm; however, it is an algorithm (like natural selection) that allows for randomness. In other words, when faced with a difficult long division problem, the inevitable result is found only after numbers are chosen and tested at random. In this way, the algorithm may be foolproof, but the time it takes and the methods for producing its result are variable due to randomness and chance, as well as individualistic attributes inherent in the variability of the substrate/animal with which the algorithm is concerned (e.g. the variable proficiency with which an individual chooses numbers to test is directly related not to the eventual outcome, but to the way in which that outcome is reached).
Taken in terms of natural selection and evolution, catastrophic events can certainly have a substantial impact on a species¡¦ population, in that it is often the case that such interruptions can affect the results of competition within that species. In other words, there exists the possibility (chance) that any event (at random) might affect a population, and therefore bias the results of competition within that population. Therefore, chance and randomness might disallow for the concept of ¡§survival of the fittest¡¨ and instead allow for otherwise less-adept members of the species to have increased reproducibility and thus an increased genetic impact on subsequent generations. The fact that events can alter or in part determine which members of a species are more likely to survive and reproduce, leads to the fact that the specific outcome (e.g., which particular genes will be passed onto the next generation) of an algorithmic process is not fixed, just that the inherent nature of the causal procedure is. For instance, the algorithmic process of natural selection does not provide a certain mold by which to predict the most viable members of a species, only that it is guaranteed that the most well-adapted members of a species will necessarily correspond to the most viable.
We now return to the question of how the complexity and intricacy of nature can be accounted for by an algorithmic process constituted by an inundation of simple steps. William Paley¡¦s well-known watchmaker analogy is particularly useful here, in that it illustrates the problem of complexity of design (i.e., of a watch) independent of a purposeful designer (i.e., a watchmaker). If a watch represents a complexity in design that could not have possible arisen out of purposeless chance or randomness alone, it must therefore have required a significant amount of ¡§design work¡¨ (i.e., work done) (Dennett, 68). If a complexity in design presupposes the necessity of a great amount of design work, we must then ask who or what is responsible for this work being done? One possibility that is popular amongst creationists is that nature¡¦s incredibly complex design is the result of a purposeful designer/ creator, or more specifically, God: ¡§before Darwin, the only model we had of a process by which this sort of (R-and-D) work could be done was an Intelligent Artificer¡¨ (Dennett, 68).
When discussing the ways in which natural selection can account for nature¡¦s complex design and therefore all of its presupposed design work, we come across a common misunderstanding of Darwinian thought. The mistake is frequently made that evolution in terms of natural selection is a process for producing certain results. Our own egocentric exploration of evolutionary process, tempting as it may be, often misunderstands Darwinian processes as being synonymous with progress, culminating of course with our own sophisticated arrival on the scene. This is a misunderstanding of both the characteristics of evolution, as well as those of algorithms (not to mention of evolution as an algorithmic process). Algorithms, like evolution by natural selection, ¡§don¡¦t have to have points or purposes¡K.they just do what they do¡K¡¨ (Dennett, 1995 p.56). Therefore it stands that the world¡¦s design work did not unavoidably result from a purposeful design or designer (i.e., whether it be God or evolution for any particular reason). So, what did it result from? It resulted from Darwin¡¦s natural selection in terms of an algorithmic process accounted for by the Principle of Accumulation of Design.
The ¡§Principle of Accumulation of Design¡¨ refers to the fact that the complexity of design work found in nature can be accounted for, not by a definite design process preformed by a designer, but by ¡§a different sort of process that distributed that work over huge amounts of time, by thriftily conserving the design work that had been accomplished at each stage, so that it didn¡¦t have to be done over again¡¨ (Dennett, 68). This idea of distributed design work is certainly in line with nature¡¦s slow advancement in terms of complexity and ¡§order of organisms¡¨ (Dennett, 69). Furthermore, the Principle of Accumulation of Design does not apply to work done as a result of a single unifying algorithmic process, but to the work done by a ¡§large class of related algorithms¡¨, the conglomeration of which is responsible for the complexity found in nature today (Dennett, 51).
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| The Story of Evolution as a Utopia and the Evoluti Name: Rosalyn Sc Date: 2004-03-19 17:05:13 Link to this Comment: 8903 |
In my first semester I had the college seminar that focused on the idea of Utopia in fiction, politics, and philosophy. Our discussions and readings went through a process of evolution that begin as rather simplistic and then followed a steady path to much more involved. Honestly, a reason that I chose the class was because I had done many of the readings before, but once the work began I realized that myself, and all the others in the class, would be looking at works, such as Candide and 1984, in an entirely different fashion. Many of the stories we read were written a substantial amount of time in the past and it was interesting to see how their meaning changed and evolved over different generations. While reading the books on biological evolution I could not help but see aspects of a desired Utopia in the theory of evolution. In this paper I hope to explore the evolution of selected works from my class last semester and address my feelings on the idea that the theory of evolution is a utopian notion.
One of the works we focused on a great deal was George Orwell's 1984. This counted as a utopian and distopian society because the higher powers in the book were able to control the underlings exactly as they wanted to; whereas the underlings who were suffering it all, lived in great fear and unhappiness. Orwell wrote the book in 1948 as a warning to what he felt the world may become. As we well know, his prophecies were not entirely fulfilled but the meaning of the story has evolved over time and still has relevance in today's society. When 1984 was written it was a lightly disguised reflection of the communism and capitalism. It also served as a warning for where the world might become if there came to power only a few dictators to reign over the entire world. My father read the book in 1983 on the suggestion of my mother and he said that, at the time he only felt like it was fiction but in the newspapers everyone was raving about how IBM and other up and coming corporations were turning into exactly what the book made them out to be. He then added that society today is more like the society in the book than ever before, especially with the war going on. Random bombings, general oppression on the lower classes, and the government taking complete control no matter was the mass public desires. Watching how different generations perceive Orwell's 1984 proves that an evolution of the original product has occurred.
Perhaps one of the utopian traditions that went through the most changes was the story of "Cockaigne." Cockaigne was an oral tradition passed around the lower classes about a city made of food. Thought to be originally produced in Italy, there was a different version in every European country. The story was evolved into something more fitting for every culture, seeing as people in France were not as excited about fish as they were about cheeses. A general description of the land of Cockaigne is as follows, "The walls are made of sausages. / Windows and doors, though it may seem odd, / Are made of salmon, sturgeon, and cod. / The tabletops are pancakes. Do not jeer, / For the jugs themselves are made of beer" (Unknown 22-26). For decades in the medieval times this story was told to alleviate the pain and suffering that the lower classes had to deal with. Over the years the idea of a Cockaigne as changed, especially during the post modern art era. Recently, a photograph was shown to the class portraying one of today's artists', Vince Desiderio, vision of Cockaigne. In his painting there are six centuries of Western art scattered on the floor surrounding a table with empty dishes. Desiderio explains his work as "cultural bulimia" relating it back to the original meaning of Cockaigne. The meaning of the Land of Cockaigne began as a gastronomic utopia in the medieval times and evolved into a desire for new and different types of art (the post-modern view: everything has been done before, therefore artists have to figure out new ways of remaking the old).
I have an underdeveloped theory that the story of biological evolution is, itself, a form of Utopia. A large aspect to this theory is my personal belief that no matter how fantastic a created utopia is, there must be at least one member of the community who is not happy in their surroundings. The biological story of evolution includes many individual aspects which make it a whole, including natural selection, new species, and surviving together (parasitic, symbiotic, commensalism). The way that evolution includes all things natural having to learn to cohabitate, and at the top of this line is humans, makes me think of a community living together in a perfect way. Natural selection is a form of elimination by nature, meaning if the species is unable to survive in the habitat they began in, or cannot move to one where they will survive, their species will become extinct over time. Personally, I find this way of eliminating weak and unproductive organisms perfect. Although, according to Timothy Anders (an author of biology), the root of all human suffering, and hence of all created is evolution by natural selection. This proves my speculation that not all find a utopia the perfect place to be.
In conclusion, all stories have the ability to evolve. It could simply be through different versions where either the author or publisher demands that something significant be changed. It could be through translation where words, meaning, and structure are lost (take Cinderella and the fur/glass slippers for example). Specifically, the genre of a utopian story has much room to evolve because time, desire, and access are always changing which causes the view of a perfect world to change a considerable amount. A large discussion in the beginning of this semester was whether or not the theory of evolution is a story; and both Professor Dalke and Professor Grobestein have been pressing the students to see that yes, it is a story. Therefore, because all stories have the ability and notion to evolve, the story of evolution has surely changed over the years. The system of evolution can be seen as a utopia, especially by its creators. They did not agree with Creationism and knew there was another explanation; therefore, they went out into the world and found it, forming it using their own beliefs and knowledge; thus creating their own, workable utopia.
Orwell, George. 1984. Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1954.
Unknown Author. This is about the wonderful Land of Cockaigne. NP. NC. ND.
| Where do Morals Come From? Name: Rebekah Ri Date: 2004-03-19 17:45:46 Link to this Comment: 8904 |
Science can give us as good a moral code as any religion. Or so Daniel Dennett claims in his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Dennett provides the tools to explain human morality, and inadvertently leads the way to the conclusion (which he does not share) that science can clarify how human morality came about, but not serve as a substitute or model for moral codes, religious and secular alike.
It all begins with Dennett's assertion that everything- everything- is a product of an algorithmic process, which comes about as a result of random change. By definition these algorithmic processes, evolution included, are "matter first". Dennett uses a metaphor of "cranes"; that new changes in species or anything else are made possible by what already existed in the material world. When speaking about life it is also usefully explained by considering adaptation to be, in practice, exaptation. Nothing in the Darwinian story of the world suggests that anything about better or worse, or for that matter, good and evil.
This is the main point commonly used to dispel notions of Social Darwinism. But it, in my mind, is not sufficient. A few people are doing better in the world than others, and it is not because they are better than the others, or that the others are inferior, it just happened that way because of social circumstances. It has nothing to do with biology. So what! Science here offers no ethical insight; it only prompts indifference. Even if Darwinism is no justification for social injustice, it does nothing to suggest that there is an urgent need for social change. At worst, if one does not take away from this a warning not to mix ideas about society and biology lightly, it might lead one to think that social circumstances are just another random difference that exists within all populations; therefore it is still fair game to better one's circumstances even further with them. Consider it exaptation.
Can altruism- true altruism, not altruism among kin, not reciprocal altruism, but the fabled Good Samaritan altruism, exist as a product of evolution? There is no clear evolutionary advantage to helping those in the "out-group" that deals strictly with biology (which is not to say that there are not brands of altruism for which there is an evolutionary advantage). Those who accept only matter-first explanations of the world may be likely to argue that people do not, in fact, commit purely selfless acts. Others, including Mayr, allow that Good Samaritan-style altruism exists, but only as a product of culture. It would be hard to find an evolutionary advantage to many products of culture. Take monogamous males for an example. Of course there are plenty of them out there, just as there are plenty of people who commit acts of true altruism, but like altruism, monogamy is hardly the rule. While the question of altruism is by all means an important question, it may not take us where we want to go.
The question Dennett then asks is, if morals cannot be derived from the value-free natural world, then from where? His answer is "...ethics must be somehow based on an appreciation of human nature- a sense of what a human being is or might be, and on what a human being might want to have or want to be."." (p.468) Dennett tells us that though culture (ethics included) has a foundation in biology, it is largely autonomous of biology, and presumably it got to be that way because of human's fantastic capacity for learning. (p.491) Yet he also concedes that there is little hope that we will find an algorithm for ethics (culture presumably included). The reason may be that it is simply too complicated an algorithm, but if an algorithm must have a finite number of steps, it seems very dubious to try and apply it the infinite number of human beings and cultures and circumstances.
Dennett skips right over the key. If our brains "were truly capable of nonalgorithmic activity, and if we have such brains, and if our brains are themselves the products of an algorithmic evolutionary process, a curious inconsistency emerges: an algorithmic process... creates a nonalgorithmic subprocess..." (p448) That said, he goes on to ridicule what another scientist might make of this, without addressing this possibility seriously.
The idea that the human mind is at least in part a mind-first agent opens the possibility that we ourselves determine meanings by consciously choosing what we want something to mean. In class, Prof. Grobstein demonstrated our mind-first-ness best by explaining that a piece of written music, while it is matter, does not become music until it is interpreted by the human mind and made music.
Human nature, just as it implies, should be understood to be, and be defined by, nature. Therefore our understanding of human nature should be that can be neither inherently good nor evil. Nonetheless we do indeed have "a sense of what a human being is or might be, and ... what a human being might want to have or want to be" by which we create stories and go beyond nature. These stories themselves are often the motivation for what we determine to be evil upon examining an alternate story, but we do not have a choice about whether or not we tell stories at all. That is in our nature. Alternately, without our stories we would not experience good and beautiful.
The most dissatisfying aspect of a matter-first explanation of morality is that it absolves us from any responsibility for how we impact the natural world and other human beings. This could come as a welcome relief, after considering the incomprehensible responsibility of being an agent of creation. But consider again all the hope and possibilities that lie in being able to tell stories that change the world!
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York, NY: Simon&Schuster, 1995.
| Capitalist Cranes and Communist Skyhooks Name: Stefanie F Date: 2004-03-19 18:55:42 Link to this Comment: 8905 |
Darwin and Evolution are inextricably linked in the minds of most people who have had the opportunity to study them in basic biology. However, Darwin's theories of selection and survival of the fittest have been applied to moral, economic, political, and other cultural aspects of society. Dennett briefly touched on some of the political and social ramifications of Darwin's theories in the final chapter of Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Other philosophers and thinkers have also adapted Darwin's evolutionary ideas, in order to apply them in a societal or cultural context. One great example of this adaptation of the biological concept of evolution, is the appearance of Social Darwinism during the 19th century.
Social Darwinism, by definition, is the principle that "the survival of the fittest" applies to human ethics and politics just as it does to biological evolution. (1) The theory of Social Darwinism was introduced by Herbert Spencer. The theory was then used by White Protestants, men, and others to proliferate the idea that they were socially superior. However, the context in which this paper will discuss the theory of Social Darwinism is economic.
Laissez Faire Capitalism of the early 20th century led to very clear class distinctions in the United States. The Captains of Industry (or Robber Barons, depending on whether you saw them as philanthropists or criminals), subscribed to a concept of "Social Darwinism" which promoted a survival of the richest ideal and was reflected in their business dealings. Men like John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and others justified their incredible wealth with this theory.
Following the teachings of Herbert Spencer, Captains of Industry and others like them, believed that competition was in accordance with nature. In a cut-throat Capitalist society it was acceptable for there to be rich and poor. Spencer's theory was applied in order to oppose social reform and government intervention in the private business sector. (2)
From Capitalism, came an opposing theory known as Communism. Communism is "the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat." (3) The proletariat is best described as the working class. Their formation was precipitated by the Industrial Revolution, which took place in England during the 18th century. Communism promoted the empowerment of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, in order to gain class equality.
Throughout Dennett's work he applies the metaphor of "cranes versus skyhooks" to explain Darwin's theory versus other competing theories. A "crane" according to Dennett acts as a device or "good trick" which builds on an existing foundation in order to speed up design. A "skyhook" is something which is pre-existing. It is mysterious and unfounded; not necessarily a part of the design. (4) With respect to the use of Social Darwinism promoting Laissez Faire Capitalism versus Communism, Capitalism acts as a crane and Communism as a skyhook.
More specifically, the main principle of Capitalism is a crane, and the main principle of Communism is a skyhook. Capitalism promotes the concept of equal opportunity, and feeds off of the notion that some people will, by design, be better than others. Communism, however, promotes a society in which all people are socio-economically equal no matter how hard they work. Capitalism is a thriving system, where as Communism (as it was originally conceived) is ineffective.
In order for Communism to be an effective system people must deny their desire to be competitive and greedy. These desires are a part of human nature which should not be repressed, which is what makes it a skyhook. Competition, according to Darwin, is what promotes evolution, thus in a societal context if there is no competition then there would be no evolution.
Capitalism is a system which we see in practice regularly. Its basis is not an unrealistic design. Equal opportunity for all people ensures that the working class has the ability to become wealthy. The system feeds off of human qualities, like greed and competition, promoting various types of social evolution. It can be argued that Capitalism has led to technological and economic advances, in addition to globalization.
The connection between Capitalism and Communism is just another example of a relationship which can be analyzed using Dennett's model of cranes versus skyhooks. Capitalism and Communism are examples of socio-economic evolution. Communism, was an unrealistic and ineffective system which attempted to control government and economy. It is a skyhook because of its overly idealistic principles. Capitalism, however, set into motion a series of political changes, which in turn affected other aspects of society. Thus, in Dennett's model Capitalism is a crane.
Works Cited
1. "What is Social Darwinism?" http://www.ioa.com/~shermis/socjus/socdar.html
2. People and Events, "Andrew Carnegie" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/peopleevents/pande03.html
3. Engels, Fredrick. The Principles of Communism. October 1847. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
4. Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea:
Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
| The Search for the Meaning of Existence Name: Mary Ferre Date: 2004-03-19 23:16:53 Link to this Comment: 8907 |
Daffodil bulbs instead of balls
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!
from Whispers of Immortality
by T.S. Eliot
We live and then we die. Its scary, the death part, and the living part is quite amazing. There is a great dichotomy surrounding our existence. One minute we are here, another we are gone. What is existence? What is the purpose of existence? The big metaphysical question has my interest. We grasp to understand it all but it evades us. This magnificent universe has not answered our questions.
Some people believe that our existence is a divine destiny, a creation of God, or of some purposive energy. Others say that the greatest meaning of life is to share love. These people believe that life has meaning! Actually has it! I grew up thinking that both of these meanings of life were true. There was a universal energy of good, always able to overcome bad, and love was the greatest value of all. I believed that my life would have meaning if I contributed to the good and loving energy in the world. Will my life have more meaning if I am a good loving person than an uninterested loner person? Will my life be more valuable to the universe?
Everyone would like to have meaning in their life, even those of us who are becoming cynical to meaning as an absolute. We all would be more comfortable if we knew of some transcendent value to our existence that surpasses life itself, into death. We do not know of this transcendence though. Society in the 21st century is on shaky foundations. We have tossed religious proclamations out the window and embraced science as the ultimate authority. Problem is, science is not providing metaphysical answers so we are out there in space floating around aimlessly
Currently, through the last decade or so, after seeing the substantial depth of scientific observations supporting Darwinian evolution, I begin to see another possible "meaning of meaning", and hence, a new meaning of life. Beware Darwin's dangerous idea! I now see meaning, as an emergent process of evolved human consciousness that functions as an environment analyst. I see both meaning and consciousness as aftereffects of physical processes in the brain and nervous system. Sounds pretty drab and desolate, huh? Or exciting, depending on who you are, where you are, and what time it is.
According with The Theory of Evolution, meaning could be a measurement scale within our mind that we use to size up the value of our environment. There is a possibility that life has no inherent meaning other than as a value in service of survival. Whew! Where's my romantic notion of the meaning of life as great goodness! I feel a far off sense of sinking into an abyss of a black star but mostly I am OK. The uncontainable universal acid of Darwin's Dangerous Idea described by Daniel Dennett in his book by that name has affected me (1). However, I do not mind. I think Darwin brings us closer to a better reality, in more ways than biology - a more democratic reality, less aristocratic, less patriarchal. Those details are for another paper.
The evolving process endows the biological organization with meaning (Grobstein). How could any aspect of life be meaningless? There is so much about the natural world that seems to have significance, intention and purpose; green grass and leafy trees are so cooling on a hot day; the earth receiving sunshine so that we may have energy to live and reproduce. There is still life itself, magnificent life, full of the ability to love, feel happiness, eat chocolate, and smell a rose. T.S.Eliot says that LIFE = MEANING. Somehow, this comforts me. It works -The birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees ... life is so full of meaning! Full of meaning, but we know not that this meaning is transcendent beyond life. Nevertheless, maybe, there is no need to transcend.
This feeling of meaningfulness seems to be a qualitative mental feature of the brain that has been designed to better sense the environmental patterns around us, giving them values of meaning, so that we can better calculate them into our plan for survival. Dennett states that human beings are products of evolution and their capacity to have 'meaning' is due to a suite of specific adaptations (1). It makes sense that the cool green grass and the shade trees have special meaning to me. They almost feel as if they are gifts of a God or a good force because they aid my survival. The universe seems to have special meaning also, because it is my home, a place where I live (survive!). The differential values of meaning that we assign to our environment aid survival, just as the differential values of emotions or feelings such as happiness, fear, and orgasm aid survival. If something has a lot of meaning, happiness, orgasm, etc. we treasure it. If it causes a lot of fear or does not have a lot of meaning, we do not waste our time on it.
However, I have digressed in the last two paragraphs from the metaphysical meaning of our whole existence, to using meaning as a tool for existence, although, maybe one can teach about the other. Perhaps, the reason why we ask the big metaphysical question of 'what is life and existence' is that we are programmed to ask questions of meaning. It could be that projecting this question of meaning out into the big unknown beyond life and the concerns of our niche is futile and not one of our worthwhile features. On the other hand, evolutionarily speaking, we have a chance that our metaphysical question of the meaning of life will aid our survival. Questions of meaning usually serve us well in our environment as a tool of survival. Maybe one day this bigger quest will serve us well. In the meantime, here we humans are - in this magnificent universe, however, we have no idea why? It's a weird feeling, isn't it?
Literature Cited
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meaning of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
| The Cinderella Syndrome Name: Fritz-Laur Date: 2004-03-20 16:46:46 Link to this Comment: 8913 |
Dennett's idea of universal acid can be found in many aspects of human civilization. Darwin's universal acid was released into the scientific world as other forms of acid were being released and eating away at foundations society had taken centuries to set up. With the foundation quickly crumbling it became the task of several self selected individuals to patch up the cracks that were quickly becoming giant holes. Universal acid is an idea or thought that has the potential power of disintegrating long held beliefs or truths. " Darwin's idea cuts much deeper into the fabric of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even to themselves" (Dennett 18). But it can also be an idea which has the means of molding societal norms through its mere existence.
An example of this would be fairy tales especially those written by The Brothers Grimm. These stories were not treated as a lethal form of universal acid because they were used to create social norms. In the fairy tales little girls and boys learned how to be women and men. They were also taught the rules of engagement for this new and diverse wilderness called civilization. The fairy tales and other such stories transcended culture and language. All over the world there are variations of Cinderella and other popular fairy tales.
The universal acid in these stories was used as a means for eradicating inappropriate or deviant behavior. The acid shaped and molded what made good little girls and boys. Those who were outside the parameters set by these stories would, according to the fairy tales themselves, meet with horrible consciences. They would either not be chosen by the prince or would not receive the award that awaited the good girl. This is displayed in Grimm's rendition of Cinderella's dying mother's words "Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you" (Grimm 121).
Being good is never enough. In order to survive happily in the new wilderness and individual would have to be not only good, but pretty. Beautiful, would be preferred, but being just pretty could be utilized to the individual's and their family's advantage. Through these fairy tales beauty is equated with meekness and even temperedness. These things are then used as commodities to bartered the family's way up the societal ladder and therefore increase their chances of survival in civilization.
Through the attainment of financial security the family can not only survive, but can participate in the "happily ever after" ending, if and only if they were also "good". The idea of what is "good" is also clearly described in the "stories". Being "good" means, the poor know their place; the rich are all good looking and therefore deserving of their wealth. But if by some freak chance of nature or magic, usually in the form of a fairy godmother, a "good" poor couple should happen to have an attractive child, then that child is also given access to the world of the rich.
This access is usually in the form of marriage. The poor, but good young man marries a princess after saving her from whatever situation is preventing her from being with a rich prince. The pretty and good young woman marries the prince after she has proven her ability to withstand pain, humiliation and other sorts of character building exercise. These obstacles are undoubtedly placed in her path to prepare her for a life of deserved luxury. Deserved luxury is very different for boys and girls in these long revered classics. Boys earn their right to luxury by being brave, sometimes handsome, but most defiantly steadfast and brave of heart. Girls have to be good and meek, while inspiring acts of bravery from the young men of equal or opposite economic class. As stated in the article by Marica Lieberman, "Good, poor, and pretty girls always win rich and handsome princes, never merely handsome, good, but poor men"(386).
The beauty described in these stories is very specific, just as there are certain undeniable character requirements of being "good", there are certain requirements which are made for being "beautiful". These specifications are usually set up in opposition to the female villainess in the fairy tale. If the villainess is not old and ugly then she is terribly beautiful. If she's not good and beautiful then she must be terribly beautiful or dark and beautiful. The beautiful villainess is never, merely pretty or slightly attractive, she is the ultimate beauty gone wrong. It is through her villainy that she will lose her right to not only be rich, but beautiful.
Just Cinderella's evil step-mother and step-sisters," And thus, for their wickedness they were punished with blindness all their days" (Grimm 128).The stories usually end with her disfigurement or transformation into the hideous beast within, as in Disney's rendition of Sleeping Beauty. She is the warning held up to the pretty and beautiful young women who do get the prince. Not only do they have to be "good" not, but they have to remain that way in order to keep the prince the kingdom and her looks, sometimes her life. " Among other things, these tales present a picture of sexual roles, behavior and psychology, and a way of predicting outcome or fate according to sex, which is important to because of the intense interest that children take in "endings"; they always want to know how things will "turn out" (Lieberman 384).
Coloring and color also play an important role in these fairy tales, the villainess can be fair and pale to dark and dangerously beautiful. The heroine is not allowed such color variances. She can be fair or fairer. The only things which can actually change are her hair color or in some instance the color of her dress. But even this usually carries countless cultural affiliations with colors that signify beauty and purity. The idea of fair can be in relation to her temperament or a direct description of her physical coloring. This interplay between colors is explicitly used in many latter works which follow the fairy tale plot, such as Comedy: American Style. Poor pretty girl, treated badly by ________, saved by equally pale or golden tanned handsome prince, after many trails and tribulations. The tan coming from his many adventures into the wilds of fairy tale land and the sun exposure he endured to come to her rescue, not biology. "Olivia dreams he light skinned daughter Teresa marries a princely (white, rich) husband. The achievement of Olivia's dream is thwarted by the larger, racial issue which informs the novel, the issue of passing"(Lupton 410).
With this new form or socially constructed natural selection, the evolution of the fairy tale story becomes a mutant. The majority of the society which the stories were meant to influence does not fulfill the Beauty category with satisfaction. It is easier for the men to fill the requirements of princehood, or its close relation, good and hard working. But with so many variance in the real world of the fairy tales it becomes questionable whether the existence of these stories is evolutionary in their ability to shape children's minds or de-evolutionary because the checklist for hero and heroine seem so unattainable. As a form of universal acid, authors have tried to cover and recover the endings of the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, which were not all happy. The endings were being good did not necessarily save an individual for the bad things and ogres of the world. The need to attach happy endings to these stories is an admittance of the unattainable prototype.
So to make being good and pretty desirable, the happy endings were added to sooth the wounds inflicted by the ideas being carried out through the unpleasant endings of the stories. Not only could you not be happy if you weren't beautiful and good but even then, happiness is not assured. Just as Dennett include a section titled, "The Moral First Aid Manual", the happy endings were meant to act as a salve. "At every stage in the tumultuous controversies that have accompanied the evolution of Darwin's dangerous idea, there has been a defiance born of fear" (Dennett 521). This is the same fear which birthed a need to end the fairy tales happily. In the end it was not the children who could not handle having a "happily ever after", but the adults. By experiencing a world in which they did not and were not experiencing the happily ever after they needed to be able to read the fairy tales to save them from the world which was too much like world portrayed by Grimm.
Works Cited
Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon Books. 1944.
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster. 1995.
Lieberman, Marcia R. "Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale." College English 34.3 (1972): 383-395.
Lupton, Mary Jane. "Clothes and Closure in Three Novels by Black Women." Black American Literature Forum. 20.4. (1986): 409-421.
| Our Story in Time Name: Heather Da Date: 2004-03-20 22:24:17 Link to this Comment: 8919 |
If our perception of time can successfully be challenged, the implications are huge. The story of evolution, which is supported by our observations and is largely becoming accepted as truth, conflicts with most religious stories. The story of evolution, like many other scientific stories, is changing the story of religion. If God did not really create the earth in seven days, the days must be symbolic or represent time on a different scale. If God did not create the human species in the beginning and designate us to rule the earth, perhaps he set the ball rolling, knowing what was to come.* The story told by religion seems to be accommodating more and more to the story of evolution. Do these stories have to be mutually exclusive?
Both stories are embedded in time. They are explanations of our existence based on history. An explanation outside of time is the only way that I can understand the supernatural to coexist with the natural, without denying facts or excessively accommodating for them. Can we think of an answer to the great question, "Why are we here?" without explaining it in terms of time? Can we even ask the question without wondering "Where did we come from? How did we get here?" or similar questions bounding our reality within time? Can we think of any story outside of time? This is a huge question that I do not pretend to be able to answer. But, through an exploration of our understanding and use of the concept of time, I hope to confuse our conception. It may be hard to truly imagine breaking the confines of time until we gain a better understanding by emerging ourselves in it, questioning it, and messing it up.
Before we examine the possibility of a story told outside of time, it is valid to question the existence of a reality before it can be thought, and thoughts, before they must be effectively communicated, outside of time. There seems to be three different questions that need to be addressed. Is there a reality outside of time? Can we think outside of the constraint of time? And, can we communicate without the concept of time? It seems that we need to address the first question first. It does not matter if there is a reality without time if we are not able to think about it. Before we can talk about communicating outside of the concept of time, we must first examine if there is such a reality that would be able to be communicated. If reality is truly bounded by time, it would be purposeless or perhaps impossible to tell a story without it. However, perhaps without our story there can be no reality without time. As our stories change, so does reality. A reality without time, and consequentially a complementary explanation for our existence, in fact depends on our stories.
Humans are storytellers. Unlike other species, we have the ability to reflect on our thoughts, and tell stories about our actions. Because we can choose to interpret our observations in different ways, we can choose how to act, change the way we think, and have control over our destinies. Not only do we have the power to make understandings out of our observations of reality, but also we have power to transform reality according to our understanding of what could be. With our power to imagine what is not, we can create things that would otherwise not appear. We have imagined that people could communicate overseas instantaneously before the invention of the telephone, that people could fly in the air before the invention of airplanes, and that large numbers of people could be killed instantly before the invention of the atomic bomb. Possibilities are endless. What will our imagination bring us next? Can we transcend time simply by imagining an existence without it?
When I was very young my younger brother bet me one hundred dollars that he would turn twenty-one before I did. This is nothing unique. Recently, my four-year-old cousin told me a story beginning with, "When I was six..." Is it that adults just have a better grasp on reality, or is an understanding of reality within time something that we acquire through socialization? Perhaps our thoughts are constrained by our reality.
When I try to tell a story, I immediately think of using language to communicate. Can I speak or write a story without time? "The roses are pretty. I like chocolate. Billy runs to the store." As much as I try to neutralize time, language seems to force it into the communication. Language as I know it requires verbs, which can only be spoken in a tense demonstrating time. If I communicate within language, it seems that I must communicate within time. Language in our society is the primary mode of communication, and may not only inhibit the types of stories we can tell, but contribute to our bounded understanding.
It is difficult to communicate a story without time even when not using language. Movies depict people moving around in time, but still stuck somewhere on its path. The method of telling a story may not be chronological, but even if the story is not told linearly, it still conveys events in a distinct time, and the observer pieces the parts together to make sense within the common understanding of time. We can also leave time out in the telling of a story. For example, a picture of a single instant in time can communicate what has transpired up until that point, and what will probably happen next. If we see an instant of a scene in which a distressed, battered-looking woman, across the room from a bloody man, is dialing a number on a phone of a bedside table, we can make a pretty good guess as to what has and is about to happen. Similarly, we can infer the story from a glimpse of a scene in which a man and women are sitting in a restaurant, with empty plates in front of them, and we see the man eyeing another woman at a bar, looking flushed with an empty glass in front of her. The storyteller does not need to tell us that they have just finished their meal and the woman her drink, and we can infer what may happen next. This story is told without time, but the story itself cannot exist without time. In both of these cases, although the person telling the story does not use time, the observer is expected to use their understanding of time to figure out the significance of the story. Time is implied.
I recently came across a comic story that used time in a very interesting way: http://www.scottmccloud.com/comics/carl/3b/cyoc.html. Starting with one moment in one person's life, the comic proceeds and diverges after different scenes showing many different things one moment could have led to. Then, at some points different paths will converge, leading to the same moment regardless of where he had been. Even though time still exists in this story, it seems to be a less rigid structure. This story plays with the idea of time, and makes me recall my own childhood image of my own understanding of time existing as only one of many that was going on at that moment. At the same time, on a different plane of existence, my future selves and past selves existed, as well as multiple current selves at different places depending on all the different paths I could be on. This understanding of time may acknowledge our limited view of time, but can do little to change it because our existence as a unique individual does not seem to exist outside of our understanding within time. Events, regardless of their brevity, have duration, which seem to necessitate a length, a progression, and a context in time. Can a story be told without events?
Perhaps what is restricting us is the way we're looking at it. Time is a way of ordering events like objects in space. We look at moments as directional. Perhaps this is a symptom of our mode of thinking. We have purpose and act intentionally in a way that encourages our goal. Perhaps our goal orientation perpetuates our understanding of time as a directional course of moments. Time is headed in a direction because we are.
Time does seem to be upheld by reality. Most things that occur can happen in reverse order. Thermodynamics by "law" cannot. The second law of thermodynamics states that systems tend to a state of higher disorder. Obviously, this tendency is a tendency over time. Perhaps this increasing disorder is the basis of our understanding of time. But disorder depends on perspective. If we look at a single particle, disorder, and consequently time, are irrelevant if not imaginary. Therefore, it is not reality, but only our picture of reality which requires time.
I do not have an answer to the conflict of the two stories we tell within our concept of time, but it is helpful to keep time in perspective, and to continue to play with it in order to change the reality that we understand.
*Although I imagine it has changed the stories of many religions, I will speak from a Western, Judeo-Christian perspective because it is what I am most familiar with.
| Say What You Mean? Name: Kat McCorm Date: 2004-03-21 16:17:58 Link to this Comment: 8928 |
Throughout the class discussion of evolution, one area of particular interest to me has been the relative precision or imprecision of various methods of human communication. From the connotations of particular words to the emotion incited by a distinct music phrase, it is often surprising which human forms of expression are ambiguous and which seem to be universal. When considering this phenomenon, it is perhaps useful to construct a method for discussing the relative accuracy of communicating exactly what we mean when we use various ways to say it.
From an evolutionary standpoint, it is relevant to our discussion to ask whether meaning(thought) pushed language into existence, or whether it was language that originated meaning. If the first is true, then mediums such as art and music are truly a product of our desire to communicate meaning in a direct sense. The meaning to be communicated first forms itself in the creator's head in some wordless nebula, and then consequently find release directly onto the painter's canvas, or the musical phrase. Hence, once the creation is added to the realm of world attention, and observers begin to interact with the creation, the meaning of the piece will undergo another translation into words as observers start to describe and recount their interaction. Only after the original meaning has traveled from the artist's mind, into a creation, and into the observer's mind, will it have it's first confrontation with language.
However, if language itself created meaning, then we must understand art to be an interpretation of spoken or unspoken language; a second generation product of the human desire to communicate with self or others. This is the viewpoint endorsed by Dennett in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, as he states: "the 'language organ' must indeed have evolved many of its most interesting properties as adaptations" (391), leaving meaning to follow our origination of language. Assuming this conclusion does not necessarily mean that the artist or creator thought first of a meaning for their creation in words, and then translated that worded meaning into a piece, but that anything that the artist was currently experiencing internally, thoughts or emotions, must necessarily be precluded by her language. As such, anything that the creator creates is also a product of her meaning only through that language which gives voice to it. If this is truly the case, one must wonder why people bother to translate worded meaning into some other form if the only goal is to accurately transmit specific meaning from one person to another. The original meaning must necessarily lose something in each translation. Or why people bother to write poetry, full of empty space and ambiguities, when they could come right out and say it more precisely in a nice block of prose? This inherent ambiguity of poetry is best expressed by Culler in Literary Theory:
If you take the sentence as a poem, the question isn't quite the same: not what does the speaker or author mean but what does the poem mean? How does this language work? What does this sentence do? (24)
Here Culler points out an interesting decentralization of original meaning. In an "ambiguous" form of transmitting meaning (such as art, music, or poetry), the creation seems to take on a life of it's own, a meaning of its own, separate from the meaning intended by the creator.
This line of realization leads to the proposition that people often do not want to accurately communicate a fixed meaning. Could it be that humans find some value in what meaning is lost (or found!) in each translation from human to creation, then back into human mind? The value in this is reminiscent to me of Derrida's conclusions on the nature of the original- that "the idea of the original is created by the copies, and that the original is always deferred – never to be grasped." (Culler 12). This theory can be (and was originally) applied to one of the modes of human communication that is considered to be among the most precise – written language. But does this theory mean that we as humans have no hope of ever communicating exactly what it is we mean to another? Perhaps there is no hope of this, and that is why, in some more ambiguous forms of our communication, we have ceased to hope for it and admitted defeat on that front: but in doing so, we found a new realm of significance in the variety of interpretation.
Works Cited
1)Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford
University Press. New York, NY, 1997.
2)Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Touchstone: New York, NY,
1995.
| What I Meant to Say Was... Name: Bethany Ke Date: 2004-03-24 00:44:20 Link to this Comment: 8974 |
"Iraqi Head Seeks Arms." (Pinker, p. 69) Quiproquo, double entendre, pun. These are instances of finding more than one possible meaning to an event, most often a phrase. We can't read Shakespeare, or Molière, or the works of many other authors if we don't believe that something can have more than one meaning. "There is no topic in philosophy that has received more attention than meaning, in its multifarious manifestations." (Dennett, p. 401) Meaning is one of our most intimate bedfellows – it is always in our minds. In Webster's Third New International Dictionary, meaning is defined as follows;
1meaning 1a: The thing one intends to convey by an act or esp. by language b: the thing that is conveyed or signified esp. by language: the sense in which something (as a statement) is understood 2: The thing that is meant or intended: INTENT, PURPOSE, AIM, OBJECT
It is especially interesting that there is a difference between 1a and 1b in this definition, because this implies that there can be at least two meanings for a given event or utterance; what the meaner intends, and what the witness understands the meaning to be. The number of possible meanings grows when we consider that there may be many different meanings, or levels of meanings of the meaner. There could also be many witnesses to the event, each with her own interpretation. Each of these situations is like a different context, which could reveal a new sense.
One area in which the possibility of the existence of more than one meaning or interpretation creates tension is literature. "Intention, text, context, reader – what determines meaning? Now the very fact that arguments are made for all four factors shows that meaning is complex and elusive, not something once and for all determined by any one of these factors." (Culler, p. 65) We become preoccupied with trying to weed out which meaning is better than another. It seems that really, there are many possible meanings for any given event that are equally valid, but the particular meaning selected (and its degree of validity) are contingent upon the context.
Let us set up an example. For a book, we will use Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a celebrated children's book written and illustrated by Eric Carle. The book concerns a caterpillar that is apparently very hungry. It goes through the pages eating different sorts of food generally meant for human consumption. It stops near the end, forms a cocoon, and eventually it turns into a butterfly.) First, we can assume that Carle had some form of intent when he wrote the book, that it meant something to him. We can't really know what this meaning may be or may have been, though it may have included a desire to enrich the literary (as well as general) education of young children. Let us now imagine that a parent reads The Very Hungry Caterpillar to a child. The meaning of the book for this parent is most likely quite similar to that assumed piece of Carle's meaning in that they are using it as a didactic tool. They are helping the child learn to read, and the book is a nurturing activity they can share.
The scenario gets more interesting, however, if the reader is someone with a gender-studies background. They may interpret this story in a way that pertains to their focus of study; the caterpillar is a metaphor for someone choosing a non-mainstream lifestyle. The caterpillar eats all these foods that aren't traditionally thought of as optional sources of nutrition, at least by other caterpillars. His caterpillar contemporaries must find him very strange indeed! Yet he continues along his merry way, and at the end he is rewarded for following his intuitions and going against the grain by becoming a butterfly, a symbol of his fulfillment. What if his peers had gotten to him, and he had chosen to eat only caterpillar food? Perhaps he would not have been such a happy butterfly at the end.
What if an entomologist reads this story to her child? It is bound to have different meanings still, for both child and adult, than the cases mentioned so far. It most likely comes in the company of many other bug-related books, and the discussions that ensue are probably much more interested and informed than those in a different setting. Yet another possibility; a college student who is undecided as to a major reads the story to his little sister over winter break. He may feel the caterpillar represents him in his present situation. The caterpillar seems a bit frantic, is trying all these foods in hopes of finding the right one. He doesn't know what he wants. We feel that there is a bit of a time pressure, he must choose soon! Then at the end, he transforms. Perhaps he is able to move on because after trying all of these different possible paths, he chose the one he liked best. He camps out in his cocoon to write his butterfly thesis, and then he graduates.
Are any of the above interpretations of The Very Hungry Caterpillar better than the rest? What makes one valid and another not? Whose privilege is it to decide on the validity? If we concede that each of the above interpretations is valid in its own context, then we can move on to a more interesting observation. What happens if we try to place one meaning in or to derive it from a different context? It would seem more than a little ridiculous to hear a child spouting the analysis from the gender-studies context, and we can be pretty sure that Carle did not intend the book as a guide or motivation for indecisive college students. There are boundaries at work here. We have different contexts, and within these different contexts we have many different possible meanings. But a meaning that may make sense in one context may not be generated in another.
There seems to be a great deal of similarity between this observation and what is described as a 'niche' in biology. A niche is "a constellation of properties of the environment making it suitable for occupation by a species." (Mayr, p. 288) The environment mentioned in the definition includes the organisms that live in the environment, as they each affect each other, just as meanings help to make up a context, from which new meanings can be generated. A niche seems to be very comparable to a context, and the meanings that can come from a certain context are analogous to the organisms that can come from a particular niche. We can even look at old stories or meanings as fossils from other contexts.
In both cases, entropy and natural selection seem to be at work. Within a particular context, there are infinite possible interpretations, just as there are infinite possible organisms in a niche. There are also infinite possible contexts and niches. "...there is no determining in advance what might count as relevant, what enlarging of context might be able to shift what we regard as the meaning of a text. Meaning is context-bound, but context is boundless." (Culler, p. 67) As more meanings are created, that creates more contexts for even more possible meanings. However, not all meanings are selected in a given context, perhaps just because they lacked relevance. Like organisms for a niche, some possible meanings are not as likely to come into being.
But is meaning always reliant on a context, or an audience? "The issue we are broaching is whether meaning can be said to be inherent in a message, or whether meaning is always manufactured by the interaction of a mind or a mechanism with a message... In the latter case, meaning could not said to be located in any single place, nor could it be said that a message has any universal, or objective, meaning, since each observer could bring its own meaning to each message. But in the former case, meaning would have both location and universality." (Hofstadter, p. 158) It's tempting to say that something has meaning in and of itself, and it seems rather egocentric of us to wonder if things only have meaning if we give them meaning. This idea doesn't seem to bother Dennett, though. "The Library of Babel presupposed readers: the people who inhabited the Library. Without them the very idea of the collection of volumes would make no sense at all; their pages might as well be smeared with jam or worse." (Dennett, p. 113) But the question is still valid.
Hofstadter suggests that a message or an object can contain meaning, and that it doesn't need to be put into context to obtain that meaning; it carries meaning with it regardless. He talks about records and jukeboxes. A record is a code: grooves in patterns that yield music, the message contained. Jukeboxes don't alter the meaning of a record, they just extract the information that is already there. "One of the ways that we identify decoding mechanisms is by the fact that they do not add any meaning to the signs or objects which they take as input; they merely reveal the intrinsic meaning of those signs or objects." (Hofstadter, p. 164) However, what happens when we do get more than one meaning from something; when the same stimulus solicits different reactions from different witnesses?
We might think at first that the generator of the stimulus holds the most basic, the most universal meaning. After all, theirs was the starting point, and all consequential meanings are added on an endlessly lengthening tab. Even here, though, we run into a problem. Does every generator of a stimulus have an intent or purpose? The dictionary definition of meaning depends on such an assumption. Dennett disagrees. "Why couldn't the most important thing of all be something that arose from unimportant things? Why should the importance or excellence of anything have to rain down on it from high, from something more important, a gift from God? Darwin's inversion suggests that we abandon that presumption and look for sorts of excellence, of worth and purpose, that can emerge, bubbling up out of 'mindless, purposeless forces.'" (Dennett, p. 66)
So we know that something can have more than one meaning. We see that there are parallels between meanings as parts of contexts and organisms as parts of biological niches. We don't know yet if meaning is inherent, or if we attribute it. It seems that the latter might be the case, especially if we concede that certain things from which we derive meaning were created without intent or purpose. Perhaps our concept of meaning is a manifestation of our tendency to make up stories to explain things, or desire as humans to fill emptiness and to expand. We certainly don't have all the puzzle pieces yet; hopefully our understanding will evolve and expand as more information becomes available.
Sources:
Carle, Eric. The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
New York; Philomel. 1969.
Culler, Jonathon. Literary Theory.
New York; Oxford. 1997.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea.
New York; Touchstone, 1995.
Hofstadter, Douglas R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid.
New York; Basic Books. 1979
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is.
New York; Basic Books, 2001.
Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct.
New York; HarperCollins, 1994.
| A-meme-ica Online: How Memes Have Shaped the Bl Name: Lauren Fri Date: 2004-03-24 15:26:03 Link to this Comment: 8983 |
The science of memetics – the scientific and systematic study of memes and their propagation – is not quite considered a science yet. People will concede that memes are a key factor in cultural evolution, but they are too difficult to track, too unpredictable to study closely. Unless we "someday discover a striking identity between brain structures storing the same information, allowing us to identify memes syntactically" (Dennett 354), it would seem that there is little hope for a science of memetics. How can we explore and apply memetics to culture if we cannot isolate and investigate the memes themselves, and their behaviors and effects?
While memes' motion and influence through culture at large is perhaps impossible to analyze using a precise methodology, memes' virus-like spread on the internet – most notably throughout the so-called "blogosphere" – is easier to follow. Consequently, it is also much easier to highlight how memes have directed the evolution of the "blogosphere," and, indeed, of blogging and internet itself. Richard Dawkins, who is credited with coining the term "meme," defines it as:
...a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation... Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperm or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation (Dennett 344-5).Since the blogosphere can be defined as the internet space populated by weblogs, memes travel through it not from brain to brain, but from page to page, leaving a trail that can be monitored and analyzed.
Memes have been an important part of the blogging world since at least 2001, when "Best Meme" first appeared as a category in The Bloggies, the annual Oscars of weblogging. The winner in the "Best Meme" category that year was "A Day Without Weblogs," which suggested that each December 1st, people use their weblogs to link to information and resources about AIDS, in memory of those who had died. "A Day Without Weblogs" had in fact begun with only fifty blogs in 1999, but by 2001, over 1,000 webloggers participated (Link and Think, 2003). The success of "A Day Without Weblogs" was one of the first demonstrations of the power and reach of the blogging community. The success of the project helped bring crucial attention to a serious issue, and mobilized many casual web surfers to donate time and money to the cause. Thus, the "Day Without Weblogs" meme was key in the evolution of the blogosphere into a politically active and powerful community. Now the blogosphere is quite a political force to be reckoned with, and this fact came under the national spotlight with Howard Dean's now-failed campaign, which was given a much-needed boost from the blogging community.
Often internet memes are more playful, but still just as politically contentious. For example, the idea of a "Googlebomb" became very popular in the blogosphere. Googlebombs take advantage of Google's PageRank technology, which organizes pages not just by their content, but by how people link to them. Webloggers are perhaps the most prolific linkers on the internet, often posting multiple links in one day. Once they realized the power this gave them, they decided to see if they could harness it.
In October 2003, weblogger George Johnston made a post in which he linked to George W. Bush's official biography on the White House website using "miserable failure" as the text of the link. He encouraged others with similar views to do the same (Hansell 1). By December 2003, Bush's biography had become the number one search result on Google for the keywords "miserable failure," even though those words appear nowhere on the page itself (Mikkelson 1). Since that Googlebomb, the Googlebomb meme has spread even more rapidly, with people in the farthest reaches of the blogosphere trying to start new ones every day.
The power of webloggers to shape politics and the face of the internet is in large part due to memes and how rapidly and effectively they are carried throughout the blogosphere. Still, there are those who say that memes' popularity amongst webloggers has simply gone too far. As Bladur Bjarnason, himself a weblogger, writes: "The meme-plague is the only thing which can destroy the weblogging revolution, murder it in its tracks." Dennett expresses reservations about memes also, and the unsettling robot-like culture their existence seems to imply:
I am not initially attracted by the idea of my brain as a sort of dungheap in which the larvae of other people's ideas renew themselves, before sending out copies of themselves in an informational diaspora. It does seem to rob my mind of its importance as both author and critic. Who's in charge, according to this vision – we or our memes? (346).If the fear of memes stamping out the possibility of originality and creativity is very real in the world at large, then it is perhaps an even greater fear in the blogosphere, where memes travel and are replicated much faster than they ever could if they were not on the internet.
Unlike in the real world, blogging memes are easily tracked with a number of different tools. Blogdex Top 50, a project of the MIT Media Lab, offers a list of the fifty most popular topics in the blogosphere that updates in realtime. Daypop Top 40 is a list of the forty most popular pages being linked to by webloggers at any particular time, with indications of which links are growing in popularity and which are declining. BlogPulse, made by Intelliseek, "regularly mines thousands of blogs for references to people, places, and events" (Asaravala 1). Research at Hewlett-Packard Labs on the infectious spread of information in the blogosphere has lead to the development of the Blog Epidemic Analyzer, which is "a Java program that reveals the implicit and inferred links between blogs in an interactive, visual form" (2). The Hewlett-Packard researchers have created graphical representations of the flow of information in the blogosphere that could prove useful in understanding memetics outside the internet. For example, the Blog Epidemic Analyzer and its findings might help "sociologists who are interested in learning how ideas grow from isolated topics into full-blown epidemics that 'infect' large populations" (1).
As we get closer to understanding how memes work in the blogosphere, it is still unclear whether or not they exhibit similar, if slower, behavior in the real world. Perhaps the viral nature of blogging memes should serve as a warning to people even outside the blogosphere:
As the popularity of weblogging increases, the number of meme-victims will rise and the Blogdex top fifty will not only describe the fifty most popular subjects among webloggers... It will describe the only subjects... And the weblogging meme will eat its own (Bjarnason 2).
If memes are capable of destroying weblogging itself, are they also capable of destroying culture? Memes are key in the evolution of culture, since the spread of ideas is necessary for the improvement of ideas. But if memes propagate themselves uncontrollably, and our thoughts are more often memes than original creations, culture will cease to advance and will only self-replicate. This moment in time, should it ever occur, would mark not another step in cultural evolution, but its perhaps inevitable end.
Works Cited
Asaravala, Amit. "Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious." Wired News, March 2003. < http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62537,00.html 3/18/04 >
Bjarnason, Baldur. "Death of the Blogger." Gimlé, February 2003. < http://www.unishade.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi/2003/Feb/25#deathoftheblogger 3/19/04 >
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
Hansell, Saul. "Foes of Bush Enlist Google to Make Point." The New York Times, December 8, 2003. The New York Times Company, 2003.
Link and Think. World AIDS Day, 2003. http://www.linkandthink.org
| The Ideal Moral Code Name: Simran Kau Date: 2004-03-26 02:05:04 Link to this Comment: 9007 |
"Good, Better, Best,
Never let it rest,
Until the Good is Better
And the Better is Best."
My class was taught this rhyme by my English teacher in school to ensure that we would not forget this exception to the rule of superlatives. However, other teachers also quoted this rhyme when they wanted to motivate my class to reach the zenith of their ability; that is, improve until we were "the best". My previous paper showed how a deeper understanding of natural selection made me cease to think of human beings at the top of the evolutionary Tree of Life, making me remove words like "superior" and "best" from my evolutionary vocabulary. Now I find myself questioning the premises upon which this rhyme rests: What makes something better than something else? What is best? Who sets these standards? Using the Darwinian concept of equality through natural selection, I want to discuss the concept of an equal morality in order to show that such a theory can successfully exist.
Through an understanding of natural selection, I have come to accept that all creatures currently in existence are equal. However, for the purposes of this paper, I am limiting my question to the relevance of equality for human beings. I am narrowing my categories because morality is a human created concept couched in language, the use of which differentiates humans from other organisms. Dennett claims:
"Whereas animals are rigidly controlled by their biology, human behavior is largely determined by culture, a largely autonomous system of symbols and values, growing from a biological base, but growing indefinitely away from it. Able to overpower or escape biological constraints in most regards, cultures can vary from one another enough so that important portions of the variance are thereby explained...Learning is not a general-purpose process, but human beings have so many special-purpose gadgets, and learn to harness them with such versatility, that learning often can be treated as if it were an entirely medium-neutral and content-neutral gift on non-stupidity." (Dennett 491)
While all animals are designed to follow biological patterning, human biological patterning designs them to be design makers. Thus, the difference between humans and other animals rests in our ability to make choices to "overpower or escape biological constraints." Since morality is a concept designed by humans, I will limit my questions of morality to the discussion of human beings.
A removal of the use of superlatives when thinking of morality is frightening to me since it claims that there is no blanket right or wrong. In order to understand morality, I will first analyze the way in which human beings make decisions. Philosophers have been trying to find a "feasible algorithm for the sort of cost-benefit analysis" (Dennett 498) that goes into decision making. A close look at the factors that go into human decision making, reveal that it is not possible to have this kind of formula. The primary reason for this is the presence of endless considerable possibilities that would need to be taken into consideration. Dennett explains:
This is a matter of delicate balance, with pitfalls on both sides. On one side, we must
avoid the error of thinking that the solution is more rationality, more rules, more justifications, for there is no end to that demand. Any policy may be questioned, so, unless we provide for some brute and a-rational termination of the issue, we will design a decision process that spirals into infinity. (Dennett 506).
This process may theoretically be a way to make decisions; however, practically it contains too made variables and alternatives for it to be a feasible method of decision making. In order for human beings to find answers, decision making needs to be time bound. Thus, in order to make a decision within a certain time period, humans engage in "rule-making" which allows them to narrow down the scope of all the possible options. (Dennett 507) Dennett provides some examples of such rules:
"But that would do more harm than good"
"But that would be murder."
"But that would be to break a promise." (Dennett 507)
These rules are moral decisions that people make in order to narrow down the endless possible answers available in the world. Thus, the human attempt to make decisions from the vast quantity of options available, results in the creation of what Dennett calls "conversation stoppers" but what I will call, moral rules since they are "habits [or modes] of conduct."1 Each human being creates a system of morality that allows them to not only make decisions, but also protect what they value. Thus, the process of decision making is a personal assessment of value that allows humans to narrow down the range and effect of the possible options available to them.
The use of superlatives when discussing morality implies that a comparison is being made to an ideal set of standards. This is a fallacy since such a blanket set of standards cannot exist due to the infinite possible solutions to every problem. Dennett quotes Wertheimer to explain how humans come to make such claims of moral superiority: "What and how we do think is evidence for the principles of rationality, what and how we ought to think. This itself is a methodological principle of rationality; call it the Facturnorm Principle." (Wertheimer qtd. Dennett 504). The word "ought" is used to indicate and "obligation or duty"2 thus it assumes the existence of an ideal or best standard of morality. However, Wertheimer's Facturnorm Principle is simply an explanation of how humans come to perceive their rules as ideal. The fallacy in this kind of thinking is comparable to the fallacy of human beings as the most superior creatures on earth. These two ways of thinking are comparable is because they use the same method or rationale. As discussed in my previous paper, my belief of humans at the top of the Tree of Life was eroded once I studied the way in which human beings came into existence. The process of natural selection is a random selection of the survival of certain organisms given a certain set of circumstances. This process does not take place because an organism is more "fit to survive" than another; instead, it is the biological-decision making agent that "Mother Nature settled for when designing us and other organisms." (Dennett 503). The same rule can be applied when studying the human decision making process because it too is a random selection of certain frameworks, given a set of circumstances in order to arrive at a solution in a timely manner. Furthermore, if this process, like that of evolution, were to be replicated, we would not get the exact same result or solution to the problem. Dennett points out that Darwinian thinking does not provide answers to problems but "it helps us see why the traditional hope of solving these problems (finding a moral algorithm) is forlorn." (Dennett 514). Thus, Darwin's theory natural selection helps to explain how it is impossible to quantify rules or morality into categories such as "good, better, best."
With the removal of superlative from our vocabulary, how is society to function as an orderly unit? There do, as Dennett says, need to be some rules (Dennett 507). Humans are social beings who use language to communicate what they perceive to be the ideal solutions to problems. Those human beings, who agree with a certain set of solutions, institutionalize them, creating a value system that protects its members. It is using this rationale that humans create institutions of religion, government etc. Since different human beings consider a different set of priorities when making decisions, there exist many forms of government and religion. Since this decision making process is a method by which human beings re-design the choices available to them, no one decision or institution can be said to be better than another. However, wouldn't clashes between different institutions result in a chaotic, maybe violent, society? Dennett provides another rule through which this problem can be solved. He states: "You are free to preserve or create any religious [political, social etc.] creed you wish, so long as it does not become a public menace. We're all on the earth together, and we have to learn some accommodation." (Dennett 516). Thus, each individual or social/religious/political group is free to practice the tenets it believes in, however, if their "visions dictate that they cannot peacefully coexist with the rest of us we will have to quarantine as best we can, minimizing the pain and damage, trying always to leave open a path or two that may come to seem acceptable." (Dennett 519). Therefore, the removal of superlatives from our vocabulary does not necessarily result in utter chaos, since human beings create structures such as law making bodies, which perform the function of protecting individual rights while preventing public hazard.
As a closing observation, I would like to point out that Dennett himself uses plentiful superlatives in his text, even though he declares the equality of different moralities. Thus I find his denial of other accounts, such as creationism, to be in conflict with his conclusion. My paper discusses the effect on society of the snatching away of a comfortable blanket moral code. However, I too base my arguments on the "truth" of premises such as Darwin's theory of natural selection. I would like to protect myself from the above contradiction within Dennett's text by saying that this account is simply my story and my perception of morality. I am open to the telling of different stories; however, I ask that the story teller respect my story in the same way that I do theirs.
1 "Moral, n 1" Dicionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC, 2003
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=moral
2 "Ought 2" Dicionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC, 2003
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ought
Bibliography
1. Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
2. Dicionary.com. Lexico Publishing Group, LLC, 2003
| A Game of Cricket: Understanding the QWERTY phenom Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-03-26 19:46:25 Link to this Comment: 9017 |
| THE "WHY'S" OF THE WORLD Name: Julia Eddy Date: 2004-03-28 14:43:34 Link to this Comment: 9032 |
Almost never did I question what I knew as "right," until one day in high school when I was faced with an angry teenage boy who aggressively challenged my beliefs by patronizing me with questions such as, "Why are you working so hard in school?" "Why are you trying to save the world?" and "Why do you even care?!" My world as I knew it suddenly became very fuzzy for a moment, but only for a moment for the questions had to be forced back into the depths of my head to be dealt with at a later time (I could not let this boy see that he had stumped me). I just wanted to scream, "Because it is right! It is I who should be questioning you as to why you don't care!" but then found myself muddled with fear and caught in doubt. Doubtful and ashamed of my own reasons for my values (or it seemed lack there of), I disregarded the boy as someone asking stupid questions undeserving of a response.
On more than one occasion I have been challenged to answer one of those eternally menacing questions, "why," and once again for a brief moment that "why" made me feel absolutely helpless, uncomfortable, and lost. These particular occasions of "why" led me to momentarily question my beliefs and entire purpose as a student, activist, friend, and human being. I have been "trained" (whether by nature or nurture or both is up for discussion) to believe in something, not necessarily spiritual but something, to believe in equality and kindness, the golden rule, preserving beauty, loving life, trying to give 100%, smiling and laughing, protecting what I care about, and just having emotion in general. I just knew that certain things were wrong and right, there were a few iffy spots, but usually the actions that boggled me most were the ones that seemed most wrong, such as, people killing other people, lying cheating and stealing, and even the existence of 'wrongs' at all. Hundreds of times I found myself asking "why did this happen? It is so unfair..." Never did I question the things that brought about happiness; I accepted that life just about those "right" things. Now though I dig out those menacing questions that the boy asked again, and I search for redemption. Why do I (we as humans) really care? Love? Why do we help? The main question being why and how did humans become the moral beings that they are? And for that matter, while too enormous, why do we even exist at all?
The story that found me was neither redeeming nor did it settle inquisition. The story of morality that I learned consisted of the same old evolutionary process of expansion and selection (comforting to know that the pattern persists), yet the cascade of amazement came with the realization that the generation and emergence of morality was the product of an evolutionary process that could have easily taken a different road. Still the hardest story to come to terms with is the one that says we as humans "created" morality; it wasn't something already in existence or law of the universe, but it came into existence when it was selected for in humans via social evolution.
While true that human beings are the only known living organisms to exhibit morality, with the exception of certain "quasi-moralists" such as dolphins and some primates, we are not alone in exhibiting cooperation, a product of morality. There is without a doubt a system of "cooperation and group rationality" that goes on in all multicellular organisms as is evident in Darwin's Dangerous Idea when Dennett points out that, "one never hears tales... of an eagle's wings going on strike" (457); instead the "cells so docilely cooperate with the rest" (457). The indication being not that cells are "thinking" about their rationality, but instead acting based on the chemical and genetic information they naturally possess without intent or drive. While cells of multicellular organisms are exhibiting what looks like cooperation, they are not actually conducting a moral act to help out one another (humans may just be anthropomorphisizing these cells). Like Dennett says on page 460, "We unlike the cells that compose us, are not on ballistic trajectories; we are guided missiles, capable of altering course at any point, abandoning goals, switching allegiances, forming cabals and then betraying them, and so forth," humans are the only fully moral organisms. We tend to be amazed when other species have similar behavior to ours and falsely presume that we are not alone in our morality, but those other organisms are just going through similar, yet unintentional, motions as they respond to their environments. So, then how, when, and why did this completely unique trait, morality, come about?
There have been a variety of theories on the cause of morality to evolve. Thomas Hobbes was really the first to formulate a theory in regards to the emergence of morality, and Dennett on page 454 writes a simplified synopsis of the Hobbesian story,
Once upon a time, he said, there was no morality at all. There was life; there were human beings, and they even had language... but not ethical good and bad... although they distinguished a good spear from a bad spear, a good supper from a bad supper... they had no concept of a good or just person, a moral person, or a good act, a moral act – or their contraries, villains and vices... then one fine day, a mutation happened to arise... when yet another conflict arose... these particular lucky competitors hit upon a new idea: cooperation for mutual benefit. They formed a "social contract."
Hobbes' wishful thinking was followed by the thinking of such English social biologists as Locke, Rousseau, and Rawls who hypothesized a variety of different paths leading to the emergence of morality. There was one story that they all stood by, that morality was, "an emergent product of major innovation in perspective that has been achieved by just one species, Homo sapiens, taking advantage of its unique extra medium of information transfer, language" (455).
Contrary to Hobbes, Nietzsche thought that the origin of responsibility came not from a desire to cooperate, but rather from punishment for debts and early human torture. Nietzsche thought morality came after humans were able to make promises thus making them obligated (responsible) to pay off any credit earned with other humans. Then one thing lead to another and morality evolved just like any trait over time.
Regardless of the precise path taken to get to morality, the general story told by most scientists is that morality is the result early human interactions experiencing gradual changes over time, which produced a series of intermediates up to the present (such is the case with the emergence of all unique characteristics). In other words, the take away message is that morality hasn't always existed as a supreme law governing the universe; humans created it first. The values and behaviors of one human where passed to another, to another, to offspring, to offspring, forming groups and societies of common beliefs and so forth... These behaviors and values were not difficult to comprehend or cause for any drastic life changes, they were easy adaptations that made sense to society.
It is quite obvious even now that not everyone in the world, or even within a given society, has the same values. Many values overlap but many others don't, hence the reason for so many cross cultural problems is trying to claim one culture as more "right" than another. So in light of the boy who patronized me and caused me to question my own values, he may have been deserving of a more credit than I gave him. While his questions seemed like rude and ignorant challenges, they were actually valid inquiries to which I was dejected because I couldn't trace the origin of my responses. We may have somewhat different values, but there are no true "rights" or "wrongs," because morality is all relative and subjective. It is still very hard to realize the extent of randomness that life is built from, especially when referring to the generation of something that we build every action of our whole lives on. While I find it very discomforting to think that any of my values, especially the ones that involve treatment of other life forms and the Earth, may not be "right," I still chose to believe in and defend them in what I suppose is some attempt to find comfort. The boy and I will agree to disagree as we both find comfort in our beliefs, and for now that is enough.
Works Cited
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. New York: Touchstone. 1995.
1
| The Meme Police Name: Rachel Cla Date: 2004-04-01 12:51:54 Link to this Comment: 9116 |
The Columbia Encyclopedia defines censorship as the "official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order". It is necessarily broad definition. 'Any type of expression' in fact, covers just about everything from clothing to print to movements and even to simply being. George Bernard Shaw described assassination as an "extreme form of censorship". It is now omnipresent in society and has been as long as society has existed. If one were to consider the course of an idea (and it is essentially ideas that are being censored) as its natural evolution, censorship takes this evolutionary course and disrupts and changes it, often until it is no longer the same substance as before.
Why do states (in truth any group of people) feel the need to censor? Moreover, can it be done effectively in the first place? It is human nature to prevent propagation and evolution of stories or is it human nature gone awry? What is our attachment to the status quo and what does privilege have to with this attachment? How do those without privilege subvert the systems of censorship in either information (media, literature, etc.) or other cultural memes?
Although it is not a popular notion, censorship in the eastern liberal democracies is alive and well. As American children, we learn the evils of McCarthyism and the Red Scare and similar instances as simply shadows of past evils- long banished to history. While we learn the facts of the period, the truth/ compelling force behind these periods of extreme censorship is never examined closely enough. The truth is that in out pseudo-western politically correct haze, the fear and prejudice that underlies all attempts at censorship is present in all of us- and we do not like it. The privilege of the censors (essentially those with power) is that they have the luxury of not thinking about censorship at all. Once the deed is done, the story smothered, the act is forgotten until a violation occurs or something else offends the sensibilities of those in power. The censored ones though, do not forget. They feel the loss of a story, or not the exact loss of a story itself, but of others' access to their story. This access is all-important because a story is not unlike a parasitic alien from a bad sci-fi thriller: it needs new hosts, new minds to 'infect' which will consider it and then in turn perpetuate it by sharing it with other minds. The attempt of censorship is to 'kill' the story. I do not believe that a story can in fact be killed, but for all practical purpose, it lies dormant for untold years. I believe that once a story enters a person, they are changed by it and therefore change their world because of/ in response to that story. Every action one does is a direct result of her stories, whether or not she may want them. Even if they were forcible imposed on her, she is nevertheless a product of them. BUT censorship at its most effective impedes the spread of information and stories.
In addition, it should be noted the "official" stories and "unofficial" stories and their respective paths and rates of evolution can vary greatly. In her book Censorship, Sue Curry Hanson highlight difference; she discusses the ways in which whose who are not officially permitted to tell their story manage not only to survive but also to disperse their stories, what Jansen terms "recipes for survival". "These recipes may season the gaps in the official version with piety, laughter, skepticism, or contempt...folk recipes, wisdom, and lore is inherently subversive. They suggest that the official version is not the only version. They encourage the powerless to think for themselves."
If one were to treat biological evolution and the evolution of stories or "memes" in the same manner, she would encounter the same (problem/issue) with both processes. The problem is this: neither of these professes follow the strictly natural course of evolution any longer. Theories abound regarding the pattern which natural evolution takes, but irrespective of the theory to which one subscribes, the relatively recent problem of interference occurs. In a "state of nature", to borrow from Locke, nothing would exert definitive control over the pattern of nature save the powerful force which controls/ dictates all. (i.e. Supreme Being, universal algorithm, etc.) Natural disasters decimated populations and each being had its own natural predator (to greater or lesser degrees) but this did not upset the supreme outcome. Not until very recently in human history has the species attempted to sway the outcome in a meaningful way. Breeding of animals is one example while over-hunting and habitat destruction are others. Each process undermines the natural course of evolution. Just as show doges are bred, so are ideas. Censorship is effectively the breeding of stories and cultural memes to form the pedigree desired by the "breeder" or those in power. Naturally (or unnaturally as the case may be) the resulting cultural norms, stories, and ideas are not those indigenous to that society. Just as the fluke pit bull with the less-than-belligerent disposition is prevented from breeding thus ending his gene line, those elements of society and culture that have been deemed undesirable are prevented from being heard and thus spread.
The subject of censorship is expansive and therefore cannot be dealt with definitively in this space. It is, however, a subject that should be considered by everyone more in-depth. While the mechanisms within our society and indeed our world seek to silence the stories of which do not do them glory, one must strive to resist the "breeding" of ideas. Our stories are far from being absurd and worthless show poodles. They must not be weakened because of a lack of expression and audience or from a lack of original inspiration. In the face of a potentially shrinking 'gene pool' of ideas, even the fresh consideration of the devices of censorship is a subversive act which will be, in the end, the possible salvation of everyone's stories.
| Hobbes and Nietzsche: Sociobiologists? Name: Jen Sheeha Date: 2004-04-06 00:26:15 Link to this Comment: 9191 |
With the advent of Darwin's theories of evolution and the rising popularity of biological science as the explanation of human origins, it is perhaps no surprise that philosophers began to tackle the notion of ethics and morals from an evolutionary perspective, eschewing reliance on religious texts and yet seeking to find in science the basis for such characteristics that have long been under the purview of religion and used to separate humanity from its fellow animals. While sociobiologists studied "the evolution of interrelations between organisms in pairs, groups, herds, colonies, [and] nations," both Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche attempted to derive the origins of such groups and nations and the foundation of their morality by using an biological evolutionary model (Dennett 483).
Hobbes and Nietzsche tell stories of their own making to explain how such "moral" civilizations were brought into being. In the Hobbesian version, humans once existed in an amoral state in which there was no concept of good and evil – simply good and bad, with all ethics removed. For example, "although they distinguished a good spear from a bad spear...they had no concept of a good or bad person, a moral person, or a good act, a moral act – or their contraries, villains and vices" ( Dennett 454). Mankind persisted in this "state of nature...nasty, brutish and short," Hobbes believed, until several enterprising members of the population arrived at the notion of a "social contract." Instead of remaining in constant competition with each other, humans began to band together outside of simple insular family groups for the protection and sustenance of all – the state, in its nascent form.
Dennett draws attention to "Lynn Margulis' story of the eukaryotic revolution," which does provide a useful basis for comparison between the evolution of human civilization and the evolution of species (Dennet 454). "Throughout the Precambrian period," Ernst Mayr writes in What Evolution Is, "the rich diversity of protists gave rise to multicellular descendant, some of which then led to plants, fungi, and animals," and indeed the change from simple prokaryotes to the more complex eukaryotes, and from single-celled eukaryotes to multicellular eukaryotes, seems to mirror human development into ethical beings – assuming that Hobbes' story is true (Mayr 60). The multicellular organisms, "which, thanks to a division of labor among a gang of specialist cells," could now pursue a more complex and vivid form of existence than its prokaryotic predecessors, were akin to the humans in Hobbes' story who established a social contract and a framework for ethical action so that the contract may be maintained; now with their component parts acting in harmony and in concert, the multicellular eukaryotes "could engage in Industry (oxygen-fired metabolism, in particular) and Arts (long-range perception and locomotion, and protective coloration, and so forth)" and achieve what most people would consider to be greater heights – by our own anthropocentric point of view – than the prokaryotes and their "nasty, brutish, short lives" (Dennet 454).
Friedrich Nietzsche, like Hobbes, attempted to develop his own story for the basis of ethics and morals. For him, such traits could only come into being after "'breeding' an animal with an innate capacity to keep a promise"; Nietzsche writes, "Buying and selling, together with their psychological appurtenances, are older even than the beginnings of any kind of social forms of organization and alliances" (Dennett 463). In this way, human societies were first able to form themselves but still lacked a sense of morality. In his account of the rise of civilization, Nietzsche states that the strong who ruled over the weak were "manipulated into subduing and civilizing themselves," so that "what had been good (old-style) became evil (new style) and what had been bad (old-style) became (morally) good (new-style)." However, while he was "inspired (or provoked) by Darwin" into responding to the Social Darwinists' (not Darwin's) notion of survival of the fittest, I hesitate to label him a sociobiologist as Dennett does. While he did study "the evolution of interrelations between organisms in pairs, groups, herds, colonies, [and] nations" – as sociobiologists do, under Dennett's definition – Nietzsche's story of the rise of human morals diverged greatly from the "eukaryotic revolution" that so closely paralleled the Hobbesian account. Both accounts, when applied to evolution, anthropomorphize the prokaryote to a certain extent. But the evolution of prokaryotes to more complex eukaryotes to even more complex multicellular eukaryotes does not seem to bear much resemblance to how Nietzsche envisions the advent of morals, starting with "how responsibility originated" with the breeding of "an animal with the right to make promises" and progressing to the devious manipulation of one segment of human society by another to effect the onset of morals (Dennett 463). Such deliberate action seems remote from the evolutionary process, in which blind chance and necessity had an equal hand in shaping the evolution of biological species.
Sources
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life. Daniel C. Dennett. New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1996.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Perseus Book Groups, 2001.
| Just Another Meaning Name: Sarah Cham Date: 2004-04-12 13:57:05 Link to this Comment: 9285 |
Call me Ishmael. The first line of this story begins with an assertion of self-identity. Before the second page is reached, it becomes quite clear to me that within this assertion of self-identity lay an enticing universality. Ishmael represents every man somehow and no man entirely. He is an individual in his own right, while personifying a basic human desire for something more, something extraordinary. As his name implies, "he is an outcast from a great family" (p.18). Although we all share Ishmael's yearning for adventure (however deeply hidden it may be), to throw aside our civilization (despite its discontents ) could mean societal suicide. So, we look through his eyes, we cling to his desire, we dream of his escape.
This world of ours in all its absurdity is seemingly as vast as an ocean beyond its horizon. Yet with all its opportunity, with all its splendor, we somehow manage to spoil the prospects it so generously offers. We pack ourselves into overcrowded spaces; we cram our brains with bits and pieces of irrelevancy; we herd ourselves along a well-beaten path; we cloud our souls with a veil of conformity. And yet there still remains, somewhere deep inside every one of us, the desire to cast aside restraint and venture into whatever indulgence tugs at our heartstrings and innermost fantasy.
For Ishmael this was the sea: "Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses...then I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can" (p. 18). For Ishmael to remain on shore would mean to "grow hazy about the eyes" and lose sight of what makes him happy, the drive that makes him human- his love of the sea.
Ishmael sees his decision to set sail in search of adventure, not so much a matter of choice but of irresistible fate or destiny. When our world becomes too restrictive and society's dictates threaten to overwhelm him, rather than lashing out at his fellow landlocked prisoners he quietly takes the ship (p. 18). And for those too apprehensive to leave the safety and steadiness of land, Ishmael recounts his adventure so that others can vicariously experience his freedom.
Here we have come across one of the many wonders of story telling: Stories allow us to see things we might not have the audacity to see ourselves and to become things well beyond our own perceived potential. And so we turn to stories to fill our voids, to quench the fires of our hopes and dreams, to calm our restless spirits. We might choose security rather than spontaneity and comfort rather than jeopardy, but we are able to do so and remain sane only with promise of participation in something outside of ourselves.
Through our relationships to the boundless expanse inherent in the telling of stories, "the great flood gates of the wonder-world swing open" (p. 20). The story of Moby Dick is particularly compelling, as it presents us with the "ungraspable phantom of life" and then subsequently offers us "the key to it all" (p. 20). Through a first person narrative dictating a story intrinsically linked to the universality of human restlessness, Melville offers each of us a window of reprieve. We may choose to take it as an important life lesson and throw caution and practicality to the wind in search of unbridled happiness, or we may choose to take it as a possibility best experienced at a distance, on a page. Whichever we choose, the sea of opportunity is being offered for our own exploration.
As we encounter stories, we are not passive receivers but active participants, a position that generates a sense of importance and involvement within us. However, a story has no meaning until one is ascribed to it. Therefore, a story is not only an expressive means of escape, but also an opportunity to partake in a malleable truth. We are able to indulge ourselves in the limitless possibilities, molding and sculpting literally what we will.
Moby Dick has been called the book of books, the story of stories . However, its greatness does not lay in the particular formulation of particular words in particular sentences into particular paragraphs and so forth. As with any great story, Moby Dick is comprised of infinite, multifaceted, and often allusive levels of meaning. What makes a novel great is its interaction with its readers. The degree to which a story remains unguarded and flexible while simultaneously enticing and provoking its readers, is what makes it great.
The meanings I find hidden within the text of Moby Dick are unlike any others. Yet, they are mine and mine alone. As in Moby Dick, the innumerable meanings that lie dormant within stories are like ungraspable phantoms. With Moby Dick representing an epitome, the beckoning ungraspable phantoms concealed in stories, are the key to their command.
Resources
Melville, H. Moby Dick.
| Una's Religious Quest Name: Meg Folcar Date: 2004-04-15 11:35:05 Link to this Comment: 9382 |
Herman Melville's Moby Dick is a novel filled with references to the Bible and God. In writing Ahab's Wife, Sena Naslund could not ignore Melville's biblical allusions. Naslund's novel is a reaction to Moby Dick, and therefore Una does not accept Melville's omnipresent religion. She cannot bring herself to belief in the basic tenants of Christianity, and is constantly searching for a new community, or philosophy that will embrace her ideals. Una is on a journey and her quest is to find a religion that suits her life and her experiences.
Brought up in Kentucky by a fanatical father who is determined to force her to believe in his religion, Una has is repulsed by his beliefs. From a very young age Una refuses to give into him and accept his doctrines, no matter what the cost is to her. Early on in the novel the reader is exposed to Una's thoughts on religion, "Whether there was God or not, I admitted I did not know, but it was Jesus as God, or the Son of God, that seemed to me highly unlikely" (20). She loves the idea of spirituality and God, and wants to have her own religion, but she cannot find one that is based in humanity. In looking back to the early days of her quest Una readily accepts ordinary objects as G says, "The lighthouse itself became my church, my single tall tree trunk, my faith in stone and earth, and eventually, my conduit to the sky" (23).
As her life goes on, Una tries to find religion through philosophy, then through different churches, and groups. A very intellectual woman, Una discusses her theories, and thoughts with many people that she encounters, first her aunt and uncle, then Kit and Giles, and eventually Ahab. When she goes to Nantucket, Una attends a Unitarian church. She prefers that church to her rigid Christian upbringing because, "I had thought there to be only one Christian Way, straight, narrow, exclusive. And here was a road that went off at right angles, that could bend and double back, that was open to whatever sheep might wander into it" (338). She appreciates the unconventional because she is not a typical person, or leading a normal life. Margaret Fuller later introduces Una to Transcendentalism, which is more like a philosophy than a religion, but that Una finds even better than Unitarianism.
As the novel continues, and Una endures more tragedy and experiences more, her search changes. At first she views the lighthouse as God in the microcosm of her island. She and Frannie idolize the lighthouse and worship it, "I allowed Frannie to kiss the lichen-crusted stone with her lips, as though he were an holy icon, the mighty thighbone of God, and I stood beside her and sang a hymn, such as they sang in my father's church, God of Wisdom, God of Power, changing the words to suit me: Sign of Safety, Sign of Silence, Sing we to Thy Speaking of the Light, and thanked him many times for his palpable being" (44). Here Una can relate the lighthouse to God because it is tangible, and earthly. She does not have to picture some abstract being, or create dogmas to accompany it, the lighthouse is merely a great object that represents a higher power. Una then begins to see God elsewhere. When she goes to Boston with her family, she sees religious icons in a shop, "I imaged and prayed to them all-Buddha, Bastet, Shiva, the wooden mask"(64). Later on she sees God in the moon, and the sky and the stars. Una is willing to accept many different representations of God, so long manifested through a human. Having seen the horrors that humans commit, and seeing so much death and destruction, Una cannot worship God as a man.
Ahab, Una's second husband, shares many of the same religious feelings as Una. Ahab is also on a quest to find the right religion. He is also torn by what he believes. Though he was brought up as a Quaker, Una sees him at the Unitarian church. When she questions him, he says, "It may well be that in the heart of man there is a goodness that is divine, that we are Jesus-kin. But that is only half... The other half is the Betrayer, the Liar, the Murderer, the Fornicator, the Cannibal, the Prince of Darkness. And I know, by thunder, that I have kinship there. It's that half of me that wants to be called brother" (343). Ahab is searching for a religion that will accept him and his flaws. Yet at the same time he does not want a religion that is unsure of its beliefs. He is searching for a concrete religion, "He wanted something ultimate and absolute. If there be reality beyond the appearance - be that reality ultimately good, or evil, or indifferent - then it must be so always" (18). Ahab and Una are similar in their quest for a religion, or community that will accept them and their flaws. They are in awe of God, but do not want to be damned by him. They find this mutual understanding and belief together, and in each other, and in a way they form their own religion in their union.
Though the novel is not yet finished, thus far Una has found a temporary relief for her religious quest in Ahab. They have similar musings about the raw, violent and darker side of humanity, and do not see a religion that caters to that. In admitting their shared beliefs together, and Una witnessing Ahab's tirades to God, they have formed their own church of two. Their house on Nantucket is their church, with their bed as the altar, and Ahab is the preacher, though Una has her share of sermons, and the cupola as the steeple, from which they can look out at the stars and the heavens, and be closer to God. They have no need of anything else, they understand each other and their beliefs, and therefore have filled their religious void.
| Sex and the Sea: A Close Reading of Moby Dick Name: Diane Scar Date: 2004-04-15 16:57:09 Link to this Comment: 9389 |
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick is fraught with sexual imagery. The elaborate descriptions with which the author establishes his indulgent style of writing aptly reflect the often indulgent behaviors of the characters. Melville's choice of words is loaded with sensuality. This is most noticeable in the relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg. The evolution of their relationship throughout the text associates homosexuality with negative consequences. As the book progresses their interactions become increasingly more erotic. This negativity culminates with the death of Queequeg. Thus, intimate relationships between men are negatively depicted through a range of literary devices. The subject matter is reflective of Melville's attempt to construct a social commentary about homosexuality.
This story is a vehicle to express something entirely unrelated to the surface meanings. Sexual references are often disguised by Melville's clever use of diction. Such references take many forms in the text but become most evident in Melville's description of a scene. Chapter 94, A Squeeze of the Hand, is illustrative of this. Melville writes, "I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes" (322-323). The word "sperm" is short for spermatozoon, a mature male reproductive cell. The word appropriately symbolizes the all male crew by referring to the biological essence of masculinity. Therefore, the language used here is symbolic. In this context the sperm represents the men and makes the passage serve as a metaphor for an intimate act.
Melville transcends metaphorical language when he speaks about the men squeezing each others' hands. The author's choice to discuss hands, as opposed to another body part, is intentional. In this instance their hands act as a metonymy for the rest of the body. The men are participating in something physical in a situation which reminds the reader of the sexual ways in which the body functions. By focusing on the hands rather than a more overtly sexual part of the body Melville is able to catch the reader's attention and make them notice that the way "hand" functions in this passage is unusual. Melville uses pleasurable words to describe this experience and calls it an "avocation," or something done in addition to a principal occupation, especially for pleasure. The term "avocation" confirms the lusty tone that the beginning of the passage constructs.
At the conclusion of this paragraph Melville states, "Why should we longer cherish any social acerbities...let us all squeeze ourselves into each other" (323). "Acerbity" means something sour or bitter in taste. Figuratively speaking, Ishmael could be referring to something broad such as the confinement of social norms that would prohibit him from freely engaging in this behavior. This attitude is a foreshadowing of Queequeg's death. By leading up to his death with a discussion of such an intimate interaction Melville makes it seems as if the events had causation. However when literally used, the word "acerbity" takes on a different meaning by directly tying back to the state of the sperm. The term "social" effectively modifies the term "acerbity." Pairing these words assigns them a more sexual connotation than if they had appeared alone. "Social" functions as a simile for the physical or sexual because of its interactive connotation. The phrase is an apostrophe since it seems as if Ishmael is speaking to someone who is not there. Interpreted this way, it is as if Ishmael is asking why the act of sex is so pleasurable. This is where it becomes most apparent that Melville is speaking through Ishmael because the line directly addresses Melville's greater purpose. Melville intelligently follows this line with a more obvious reference to sex. The phrase "squeeze ourselves into each other" is overtly visual and immediately inspires a physical, penetrative image. Upon considering the prior interpretation of the phrase "social acerbity" it seems logical that the act of squeezing into one another means sodomy.
Even the chapter titles are laced with double meanings. Chapter 11, which is appropriately titled Nightgown, provides the quintessential example of this relationship. The title foreshadows the event which is about to transpire by providing the context. Since nightgowns are not intended to be worn by men the title holds a negative connotation in that the word "nightgown" is defined as a loose gown worn in bed by women or children. By connecting the men to women the term is emasculating, and renders them childlike. Given the lesser status of women relative to men throughout history this title sets the scene for the act that will confirm their lesser status. This title also intentionally reflects the Freudian idea that homosexuality represents immaturity because of its link with children. Melville recognizes that in life sexuality is often equated with status and intentionally plays out the consequences of this with his characters. Although it is not necessarily true that all homosexual relationship result in death, Queequeg's fate alludes to the devastating consequences of intimate same sex relationships. There is purpose behind Melville's choice of title because it reflects the same social judgments to which the scene with the sperm alludes.
The intimate, often sexual nature of this text becomes most apparent in the passages regarding the interaction between Ishmael and Queequeg. There is a homoerotic thread linking each of Ishmael's and Queequeg's interactions. Melville writes, "Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy we were" (57). "Affection" denotes a fond devotion or love. This links intent to Queequeg's movement. The physical description of the close proximity of their bodies in bed alludes to sex. Moreover, there is a rhythm to Queequeg's movements that mimics intercourse. The word "social" is sexualized in this context for the same reason it was sexualized in the previously mentioned passage. Melville ties themes using similar diction, symbolism and metaphorical language. Consequently, his message is strictly delivered in double entendres; he conceals this message with language.
Queequeg's death equates homosexual relationships with a punishing fate. The author provides a possible justification for Queequeg's fate by referencing a discriminatory society. Perhaps this is why the term "social" is of such importance throughout the book. While it serves an implicitly sexual function it also ties in the outside influence and makes it as important a factor as the men in the relationship. This pushes the relationship out of the realm of intimacy and debases it. It is only through the outcome of their relationship that we are reminded of this reality. In general, the relationship is a tragedy about an intimate same sex relationship. The relationship between Ishmael and Queequeg tends to transcend intimacy and approach eroticism. The views expressed in the text do not necessarily reflect the author's opinions. Rather, the text is an expression of an opinion about sexuality that does exist and that the author wishes to comment on.
| Believing in Una Name: Heather Da Date: 2004-04-16 04:19:50 Link to this Comment: 9398 |
Naslund's novel, "Ahab's Wife" was immensely more satisfying and realistic than Melville's "Moby Dick." I hope to explain why Naslund did not merely present a "feminine" version of Moby Dick, but presented similarly universal themes within more realistic and meaningful contexts. By becoming intimate with the reader, she expects more: she expects us to understand the world from a different perspective.
Melville tries to be funny by making things ridiculous. Naslund makes reality funny. From what I gathered of other's opinions of Moby Dick, the hilarity came from the absurdity. In my mind, however, when something seems impossible the story seems to change to the realm of cartoon or science fiction. It seems not only not funny, but weird and irrelevant. I was glad, after feeling like I must not have any sense of humor, to laugh out loud to Ahab's Wife. "'And some people believe' Kit put in, 'that if you eat cucumbers, your nose will grow long. Or other parts.' 'What parts?' Frannie asked. 'Your feet,' Aunt said"(p93). Although just as silly, this is funny because it speaks to an awkward situation similar to one everyone has been in, probably on all sides. It is not the absurdity of the myth of the cucumber that I laugh at, but rather the Aunt's reaction to his reference.
Naslund speaks to me, however, not because of realistic humor, but because of her contextual insight. Melville makes profound but irrelevant commentary on the world, while Naslund shows us her journey to different understandings of the world. Melville, to use one of many examples of his philosophical meanderings, tells us that, "there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast." This statement could be very insightful, except that he is talking not about understandings of the world or identity formation, but rather feeling physical warmth:
"We felt very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; indeed out of bedclothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast." 52
This leaves me impressed that he was able to connect his wise perceptions of the world to an only slightly relevant story, and makes me want to steal the quote and apply it out of its context. It does not, however, make me want to keep reading. I am interested in the narrator's thought process and experiences which inspired such an assertion, which was clearly not conveyed by a tale of snuggling with a stranger.
Naslund's novel begins, on the contrary, with the narrator's vivid description of events that will undoubtedly impact her life. Then we get the satisfaction of getting to know her and her thought processes intimately, and come to understand more fully a way of looking at the world than by hearing a beautiful quote. She may, as some criticize, "hold our hand," but I would argue that she does so in an intimate rather than patronizing way. Before we can really take to heart any philosophical world views, we "walk a mile in her moccasins." We learn from Una that things are what they are "merely by contrast." She learns and comes to know more about the people in her life when she compares them. She even acknowledges that she knows herself better through contrast to another: "I rather regretted that I did not myself have a sister who was a friend and with whom I could compare myself, the better to understand both my singularity and our commonality. But I had Frannie" (32). She is not telling us how to feel, but embodying otherwise empty philosophical ramblings by telling her story.
Reality, like the representation of Una's life, is intimate and defined largely by experience and relationship, which bring emotions and change. What is real? Thoughts are meaningless without context. Our understandings of our world are embedded in our intimate relationship with it. Melville tells us a story that most people especially nowadays will not relate to, with cleverly integrated questions and postulations about reality that the reader may or may not relate to. But unless we can relate to his words out of context, we will not gain much from Moby Dick, certainly not a chance to "walk in another (wo)man's moccasins." Considering Ahab's Wife was so blatantly born out of response to Moby Dick and does often allude to it in the novel, it does a remarkable job, unlike Moby Dick, of "be[ing] enjoyable independently of its source"(back cover). Naslund shows us that connections can be made without excluding the unfamiliar. She makes intense connections to Moby Dick without relying on them to convey meaning.
Naslund, in response and in contrast to Melville, offers a book that reveals a perspective embedded as all perspectives are, in her reality, her experiences. She is intimate with the reader in order to truly offer a new perspective which the reader can try on. Unlike Melville, she does not rely on the reader to make meaning out of statements which, because they are given out of context, can only be interpreted from an unchanged singular perspective. She is, to quote Elizabeth (1/28), allowing us to
"believe in stories, wherever they are from, ...listen to them, learn from them, and make use of them when ...useful. Obtaing a full and deep knowledge of the story and it's significance involves entering the world of the story without reservation- trying as best as one can to understand the story as if one had written the story herself. This is believing a story. Only when one fully believes a story can one propel oneself forward beyond that story and onto new stories ... Every story deserves to be believed in."
The evolution of the idea of "believing" in stories, originating with Paul and revised by Elizabeth, seems to reflect the evolution of the approach taken by Melville and Naslund.
Naslund allows us to believe in a story, and a narrator's perspective. She is not "telling us what to think" but rather inviting us to spend time in another woman's moccasins, with an expectation that we will take from it what is useful and use it, like she did, to tell our own story.
| Violent Literature: The Cling and Release of Human Name: Reeve Baso Date: 2004-04-16 10:00:23 Link to this Comment: 9399 |
Two stories were recently told to me, independently of one another, and although I was struck by each, it was a third story that emerged from the collision of the first two that most challenged me. The first story is about the violence of literature: "That's my current definition of literature: a cataclysmic event, one that disrupts what we think we so-settle-edly-know..." (Dalke). The second story is a definition of violence that I heard used in the context of a conversation about racism. "Violence is the denial of humanity." Although the implication seemed to be that humanity is denied to the victim of violence, I also suggest that violence diminishes the humanity of the perpetrator.
Looming at the point where these two stories encounter eachother is a pair of screaming questions. 1) What does it mean to deny humanity? And 2) How can this definition of violence be reconciled with the assertion that literature/storytelling is violent when storytelling is a fabulously human phenomenon?
Initially, I was compelled by Dalke's definition of literature as cataclysmic and violent, partly because my immediate reaction was to disagree. Is not literature a tool that we use to cling together and to ever more profound meaning? Must literature deconstruct in order to recreate and expand? In concert with this skepticism is another story about literature which maintains that the actual number of stories is very few. All stories can be reduced to, at most, a dozen types or formulas within which storytellers maneuver creatively in order to extract new things from the old patterns. Violence suggests that something is being destroyed or detracted (I will turn to the specific target of humanity in a moment), so if literature is violent, must we conceive of these variations on a formula as somehow depleting the underlying structure? Alternatively, violence suggests that literature is a process of cannibalizing old formulas in the creation of new. This version creates the space for an infinite number of story types.
So, is literature violence or clinging? Or are these two things ultimately the same? The story of violence as the denial of humanity is where I begin to search for an answer. The elemental gesture of humanity is the desire to transcend itself, to know the universe, to grasp the absolute truth. But, this clinging to meaning, to greater meaning, is destructive because it implies something incomplete about humans and sets us up for failure. Also, an absolute truth necessarily requires a certain denial of humanity; humanity is the desire to transcend its smallness and know the whole truth, but humans are infinitely small and located. Thus, such a truth must exist beyond the human ability to comprehend both absolute and truth.
In this sense, clinging to anything that we know is, in a sense, self destructive because we are constantly driven to expand and change this knowledge. By clinging we become reliant on something that is unreliable and we therefore inevitably experience rending, deconstruction- violence. The implication that follows is that in order to survive we must drift, release. But what is the difference between being out to sea (drifting) and being unmoored (the inevitable fate of clingers)? A circularity emerges in which we ask: What is the value of survival in the absence of meaning and what is the reason for clinging if it is unsustainable?
The tension and union between these oppositional forces create the urgency and destabilizing brilliance of Melville's Moby Dick. "It is through the encounter between these two principles – the widening embrace of Ishmael and the "monomania" of Ahab – that Moby-Dick takes form" (Delbanco, xix). Delbanco goes on to suggest that at the heart of Moby-Dick is a dilemma that Melville takes on more explicitly, but less gracefully, in a later novel, Pierre. "In Pierre, Melville confronts head-on the possibility that the idea of transcendence – the idea of a stable truth that exists outside of time – is not only undemonstrable but fatal to one's ability to live in a contingent world" (Delbanco, xxvi).
Ahab's monomania is the epitome of cling and feverish meaningfulness. Ishmael's dissipated, reabsorbed self is the epitome of drift and release. At the end of the book, Ahab dies (I would argue that the other deaths are part of Ahab's - the characters and ship all serve as lenses to focus Ahab's monomania) and Ishmael survives. But what we know of survival is very changed. Survival is the immutability of an invisible, infinitely expanded character who has gradually and almost imperceptibly divested himself of meaning in the course of the story. Meaning survives only if it continues to dissipate, to spread and percolate and become ungraspable yet malleable. Meaning which is clung to becomes a grave, as Ahab so magnificently demonstrates.
The oppositional reinforcement of these two processes is the evolutionary movement of literature. Stories perpetuate the tension between clinging and drifting, but resolve neither. Literature is humanity and the denial of humanity, a mirror in which we see ourselves. A mirror, at first, may be said to reflect a repetition, a reality in stagnant balance with the reflected. However, the mirror does something much more disruptive. A reflection is a separation of the experience of self from the self as perceived by the other. The mirror tells us a story about ourselves that we can not otherwise know, but in reaction to the reflected story, our experienced story changes and thus reflects something new. An evolutionary pump is set in motion.
Thus, neither reflection nor the reflected is the whole self, but together they are an ever-changing, evolving dialogue of self. The image we see in the mirror/story moves us on an essentially human journey toward something humanly unattainable. Whether this movement is constrained by the boundaries of formulas or by the recombinant material of parent formulas, the essential quality is change. Stories are the perpetual rebirth of that simultaneously regenerative and fatal human journey.
Works Cited
Dalke, Anne
2004 "Picking through the rubble." The Story of Evolution and the
Evolution of Stories, Course Forum 8: Literature as Listening To/Telling
Stories. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/forum8.html.
Delbanco, Andrew
1992 "Introduction" in Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. New York: Penguin
Books.
| A Comparison Name: Rosalyn Sc Date: 2004-04-16 15:28:59 Link to this Comment: 9401 |
A story is composed of many parts, some necessary and some to add meaning. What are necessary are characters, a setting, a conflict, and a resolution. To add meaning an author may include complicated histories to their characters' lives, underlying themes, value within the setting, and surprising twists within the conflicts and resolutions. Because this outline is generally used throughout fictional stories, many, even if written in completely different genres and time periods, are alike and can be compared. This is because through technological and social changes, themes such as man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs. nature, and man vs. society remain constant. Newer authors such as Chuck Palahniuk are considered post modern; he must create art in a world where everything that could possibly be original has already been created. Therefore he is expected to take what has been done and make it better. Thus, he combines themes from Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife to make Diary. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick in the nineteenth century to narrate a story of a man who battles the world in search of himself. It is hinted that he left a wife behind and selfishly sacrifices his fellow humans because he can only see his one goal: capturing the white whale. Sena Jeter Naslund took the idea that Ahab had a wife and created Ahab's Wife (1999), which gives birth to many characters and similar themes. Most of this novel details Una's life before she met Ahab, but also includes her absent husband a great deal and illustrated their relationship while he is present as well as after he leaves. In both novels the inner turmoil of man dominates, creating similar backgrounds, lives, and goals for both Ahab and his wife Una. Chuck Palahniuk, a nouveaux shock fiction writer, also writes with man vs. himself (sometimes literally), man vs. society, and man vs. nature permeated throughout in order to create his novels. By combining character traits, settings, conflicts, and resolutions, one can easily understand how, though the world has evolved, the underlying themes of fiction have not.
Within the plots of the three novels there are many similarities. Diary is a fictional story written as a series of diary entries. Misty is keeping this diary as suggested by her comatose husband's mother; "It's what sailors and their wives used to do . . . It's a treasured old seafaring tradition . . . when they come back together, the sailors and wives, they trade diaries to catch up on what they missed" (Palahniuk 39). Misty is a wife left behind by her husband who tried to kill himself but failed, only putting him in a perpetual coma. Ahab left his wife to find himself and ended up, in a sense, committing suicide by chasing the whale.
Diary mirrors Una's story more than Ahab's does because we are reading the reactions of the woman left behind and how she views the life of the man who left her. Misty includes memories of the life that she and her husband, Peter, had together when her life was normal. Una is able to describe Ahab as the man she fell in love with before he left her, and after he lost his leg and went insane, when she decided to leave him.
Misty and Ahab are both viewed as outcasts of the society that they must live in. Ahab outcasts himself at first, calling himself Ishmael and by living with the personality that he does. Misty also chose to be an outcast, but it was because she wanted a better life for herself; therefore, she married into a wealthy family and moved onto an island where "old" money and traditions abounded.
Though they have physical, emotional, and mental weaknesses, in both Melville's and Palahniuk's books, the main characters lose the use of a leg. Ahab lost his in a whaling accident and Misty tripped over a rug and dislocating her knee. He is fixed with a wooden replacement and she has a full leg cast put on her. In both cases neither character allows this to stop them from reaching their goal, even if in insanity. This shows that even though a person may have obstacles thrown at them, if they are passionate enough, they will succeed.
Another boundary that all the characters must face is the sea. It acts as a boundary for Misty between the life she could have and the life she is living. Therefore she hates the sea but still looks at it longingly, reveling in its massive beauty. Ahab sees the sea as something to be controlled and conquered, which is why it conquers him in return. Una respects the sea and uses it as her means of escape into the world. She fears it and, through this fear, lives through every voyage.
Furthermore, the characters are constantly battling with themselves. Oftentimes they have inner confusion as to what they should do in order to survive. Ahab states that whenever he starts to get depressed he goes to sea. We also watch him struggle over every decision he has to make, until he loses his leg and does only what he wants to. Una struggles with love and her morals. For a long time she cannot decide whom she loves between two of the sailors she goes to sea with. Also, when the crew must choose between cannibalism for survival or deadly starvation, Una watches the cabin boy and the captain die for this cause. She chooses survival, but battles with the guilt she feels from this event for the rest of her life. Misty also battles the guilt of leaving her impoverished mother behind to live a dream. After her husband attempts suicide she must choose between working as a waitress to make enough money to live on, or follow her dream to become an artist like the entire island wants her to.
In conclusion, the basic themes of these novels can be compared in parallel. All artists are influenced and inspired by previous artists, and the concept of suffering, something that all humans must endure at some time in their lives, is a muse unlike any other. Melville, Naslund, and Palahniuk all tell the story of an outsider who searches for the meaning in their lives, narrating the good and the bad in their past and present. Melville wrote his story in a time that was much less technologically advanced than our time, and his novel reflects that. Naslund wrote Ahab's Wife five years ago, but the language and plot reflected Melville's era. Palahniuk took the ideas and themes presented in both works, as well as many other of the time, and crafted his own, modern story of suffering and individuality. Even though our society has evolved into a world of computers and drugs for everything problem, authors still have the capability to revert back to a time well past.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. W.W. Norton & Company. New York, 2002.
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife or, The Star-Gazer. Perennial. New York, NY, 1999.
Palahniuk, Chuck. Diary A Novel. Doubleday. New York, 2003.
| Honor Thy Father Name: Fritz Dubu Date: 2004-04-16 17:26:13 Link to this Comment: 9403 |
The incestuous nature of story telling which is featured in Ahab's wife is reminiscent of the Anne Sexton's poem, Briar Rose. Una is in a constant search for sustenance. Her mind as can not exist without the hope of learning and engulfing knowledge. As a child, it was the occupation of her father to appease her insatiable appetite. This was done with stories and the boundless possibilities she was allowed to find within the recesses of her mind. As time progresses and Una grew, her father started to question the conclusions and presumptions that these internal scavenger hunts were building within her.
Una could never understand why Ulysses, her father, did not take out his aggression on her mother, who was also a nonbeliever. "She remained unconverted. Why did his wrath not fall upon her? "(Naslund 21). But as his daughter Ulysses was looking for something which he could never truly hope to find in his wife. Just as the king in the Briar Rose Ulysses would have "force every male in the court/to scour his tongue with Bab-o/ lest they poison the air she dwelt in/ thus she dwelt in his odor./" ( Sexton he wanted to have her mind in his hands for his molding. He was looking for reflective surface from which he could evaluate his story, or at lest the story which he has come to tell himself. This story consisted of many parts all of which would then be combined to create his identity and the life he had built for himself. By not being able to 'convert' Una, there by making her believe his story as true, Ulysses has to admit to failure. Not only does she prove his story incorrect, but she also reflects the entire make-up and construction of it as being flawed. This flaw becomes magnified by Una's intellect. By having the power to continually question what her father hold as infallible she destroys the constructed image of the man he though he was.
Children are to be impressionable and easily persuaded. As a father Ulysses want to share a special bond with his daughter as she mirrors his believes through her everyday life and thinking. As someone who is indifferent to his teachings and ideology he feels that he has failed as a father. Even if Una had disagreed with his teachings, it would be preferable to enticing no emotion.
This inability to serve as a reflective surface for her father causes Una to experience a feeling of loss. Though not stated expressively in the tale Wife of Ahab it is apparent that due to Una's premature separation from her father's stories and in essence his life, she searches for emotional substitutes. She is like a child who has been weaned to quickly. Though she did not agree with her father's story of their existence she did not deny it. This separation form a story to compare hers to makes Una a constant scavenger. She can never have enough; she attempts to steal meaning from everyone to create a checklist for her actions and reactions.
When she meets Ahab, there is a moment of instant recognition between them. He as well as Una have come to have an intimate knowledge of lighting, blinding and sometimes paralyzing, a force of nature to be reckoned with. "And the captain- Ahab with the zaggy mark down the side of his face. I though of how, when I was still a girl at the Lighthouse, the lighting had come close to me" (Naslund 250). This is the first mention of the shared knowledge which these two share.
Upon their meeting Una can only state that she has come to a crossroads in her life. There was no way she could go back to who she had been before. First there was Kit, who was a constant reminder of what she had done. She tries to have a 'normal' life with no success. "No, Kit. I am a woman your wife" (Naslund 258), she tells him after their wedding night together. He responds, "It takes a beak to strip flesh from bone. As you did" (Naslund 258). Una has consumed human flesh to satisfy her physical hunger, but there is a hunger which is much more consuming which she never learns to fully control, the hunger of her mind.
Ahab, just as Una has this same hunger and recognizes it in the other. Through this action they act as cannibals, wanting to partake in an endless feast of the other's ideas and thoughts. They want to consume each other, mental and physically. It is this capacity for wanting and yearning which scares Una for the rest of her life. Ahab is an incestuous cannibal, who not only wants to partake in the fest of her mind, but has come to identify his possible children in her actions and deeds. She reminds him so much of himself at times that he can not but call her the daughter of his mind. "I've though that ye were Ahab's daughter" ( Naslund 277).
In Ahab Una finds a well matured version of herself. She finds the story which she had been searching for. She works as a reflective surface of Ahab's story and becomes his daughter in many ways. She thinks like him, loves to listen to his stories and can then use those stories to either define herself or the world around her. Because of this Ahab's Wife is a compliment of Moby Dick. Not only was the crew destined to die in the eyes of fate, but also in the world of romance. As father and daughter, Ahab's and Una's incestuous relationship can end in nothing but death. "When the Romantics portray an erotic relationship (and it is not a common theme), the ideal they look towards is a total sympathetic fusion. Such sympathy can not come spontaneously, through an intuitive recognition of spiritual harmony, but must be developed through experience and shared associations" (Richardson 774). From the moment of intuitive recognition the romance between Ahab and Una was doomed.
Works cited
Naslund, Sena. Ahab's Wife or the Star Gazer. New York: Morrow 1999.
Richardson, Alan. Studies in English Literature. The Dangers of Sympathy: Sibling Incest
in English Romantic Poetry.1500-1900, Vol. 25, No.4. Rice University:1985;
Sexton, Anne. Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1971.
| Theory Need Not Apply Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2004-04-16 19:12:55 Link to this Comment: 9404 |
A very short introduction: "When Aretha Franklin sings 'You make me feel like a natural woman,' she seems happy to be confirmed in a 'natural' sexuality identity, prior to culture, by a man's treatment of her. But her formulation, 'you make me feel like a natural woman,' suggests that the supposedly natural or given identity is a cultural role, an effect that has been produced within culture; she isn't a 'natural woman' but has to be made to feel like one. The natural woman is a cultural product...the main thrust of recent theory has been the critique of whatever is taken as natural, the demonstration that what has been thought or declared natural is in fact a historical, cultural product..."(1)—so says theorist Jonathan Culler.
Depending upon which school of theory, meaning could stem from the author, the text, the reader, or two or three of these loci combined—couched as immanent, historical, or utterly objective. But wherever theory stakes its next center, it will still be some prescribed model for how to think about concepts that come to us "naturally." Do I really need theory to 'get' Franklin's lyrics as they jangle my mind, vibrate my bones, and move me "body and soul"? If I do (if you say so), then let it be some auspicious convergence of evolutionary theory with the use of language, the calling card of my species. I hold a gestalt sense that what I write or read reflects what I am as a member of a population, and also extends who I am as one of its individuals; that pair of notions feels correct for a number of reasons.
Happily, we can make a case for Darwin displacing Lacan and Foucault. Suc-cessful literature, by virtue of inherent, transmittable 'truths,' seems to spawn new works in the same sense that adaptation and exaptation lead to fit variations and new, improved species. I imagine nouveau-shaped nooks opening around an organic, Gaudi-esque library, ready to accommodate the next iteration of new books with new thoughts—and so on to the next and the next generation. This neatly parallels Ernst Mayr's concept of an evolutionary niche: "that constellation of properties of the envi-ronment making it suitable for occupation by a species" (2).
Furthermore, it seems that a sort of natural selection is in play. Some literature continues to apply while other works sooner or later become irrelevant as times change. Still others never emerge. Those that remain relevant continue to be read and discussed; as such, they continue to spark ideas that hold the promise of new literary works that will fit and shape the next peopled environments. Interestingly, the half-life of a story depends upon readers, most of whom have never heard of literary theory. Postmodernist Terry Eagleton notes that, "The reader has always been the most underprivileged of this trio [author, text, reader]—strangely, since without him or her there would be no literary texts at all" (3).
How readers interpret stories also finds its analog in how they 'write' their own, the self being its own autobiographer, as Dennett explains: "[W]e are virtuoso novelists who find ourselves engaged in all sorts of behavior... We try to make all of our material cohere into a single good story. And that story is our autobiography" (4). What Dennett proposes about the self is relevant to how texts are interpreted, more so than abstract theory, although Dennett says that the self is an abstract object, a theorist's fiction. The difference, he says, between a fictional character and the self is that a fictional character is encountered as a fait accompli—what can be known is known and nothing more—whereas, "our selves are constantly being made more determinate as we go along in response to the way the world impinges on us" (4).
Furthermore, it is possible for people to rethink memories of their pasts and rewrite them: "This process does change the 'fictional' character, the character that you are," Dennett says, just as if we were to ask a novelist to write more stories to flesh out some fictional character about whom we had curiosities and questions. Actually, "That is the way we treat each other, that is the way we are"(4). And that is the way I imagine that we interpret literature—as readers who fill in the gaps from points of view we design.
The context we use to design gap fillings derives from what Dennett calls our "intentional stance," (5) an operational strategy for interpreting and predicting how some rational "other" (fictional or flesh, I would argue) will behave. Just as we assign self-based reasons for how people will act or why they did act a certain way, we project intentions onto fictional characters based upon our own evolving autobiography. Evolution theory is at play, given that our self's interpretation of the doings of others (fictional or flesh) is based upon that which will keep us (our identity as well as our physical being) surviving and thriving. Who better to interpret a story than a storyteller who lives in and because of her own? The only relevant interpretation of narrative is by the reader—whose self/story will be affected as a direct result. What else matters, I would ask the theorists.
Armed with the underpinnings of natural selection, let us interpret Moby-Dick, an inscrutable "novel." Some believe that Moby-Dick reflects Emerson's influence and not Hawthorne's—the former eschewing fiction, the latter adroit at it. In 1850, Melville praised his colleague Hawthorne only for seeding "cunning glimpses" of truth in his tales, not for his fables: "For in this world of lies, Truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe in the woodlands; and only by cunning glimpses will she reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the great Art of Telling the Truth, --even though it be covertly, and by snatches" (6). This quest for truth and how to convey it coincides with Melville's reading of Emerson, beginning in earnest in 1849 according to Melville's library records.
Professor Nina Baym finds evidence that "contact with Emerson's thought was the single most significant influence on the shape of Moby-Dick...to Emerson, human language is most literal when it is most figurative or metaphorical... as Emerson would see it, fable testifies to the human intuition of an idea behind fact but does not succeed in expressing it..."(7). According to Emerson, nature functions as language (8); Melville took that message to heart as a mantra throughout Moby-Dick. Perhaps, he fell short of expressing truth (his own assessment), but with Emerson's insights Melville may have stumbled onto some kind of linguistic bridge to his readers' intuitions.
So many plays and movies, quotes and extractions have been generated as a direct or indirect result of this book. How many niches will continue to explode beyond its covers? No "necessary and sufficient conditions," no bipartite categorizations are expected of Moby-Dick's reader. Nothing about it is fundamentalist except for doggedly seeking some means to express truth. It has no rigid structure. To the extent that it is a fable, it contains many fables all trying to explain the whale this way and that, thereby exposing the limits of fiction. Its cohesion seems to come from some catapulting energy—the writer as crusader. In the end, each reader can see in it whatever he or she puts there, as I have just now demonstrated. In that way, it is timeless. In its infinite adaptability, the story survives.
Dennett uses this example: "Pick up Moby-Dick (9) and open it up to page one. It says, 'Call me Ishmael.' Call whom Ishmael? Call Melville Ishmael? No. Call Ishmael Ishmael. Melville has created a fictional character named Ishmael. As you read the book you learn about Ishmael, about his life, about his beliefs and desires, his acts and attitudes. You learn a lot more about Ishmael then Melville ever explicitly tells you. Some of it you can read in by implication. Some of it you can read in by extrapolation. But beyond the limits of such extrapolation fictional worlds are simply indeterminate"(3).
Inevitably then, each of us autobiographers will write as he or she reads. And theories other than Darwin's need not apply.
1. Culler, Jonathan. ((1997) Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. London. Ox-ford University Press.
2. Mayr, Ernst. (2001) What Evolution Is. New York. Perseus Books Group.
3. Eagleton, Terry (1983) Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press.
4. Dennett, Daniel C. (1992) "The Self as a Center of Narrative Gravity." In: F. Kessel, P. Cole, and D. Johnson (eds.) Self and Consciousness: Multiple Perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ. Erlbaum. http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000266/00/selfctr.htm
5. Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York. Touchstone.
6. Melville, Herman. "Hawthorne and His Mosses." The Literary World, August 17 and 24, 1850.
7. Baym, Nina. (1998) "Melville's Quarrel with Fiction." University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign http://www.english.uiuc.edu/baym/essays/melville_quarrel.htm
8. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. (1836) Nature. New York. Random House, Inc. rpt 1994.
9. Melville, Herman. (1851) Moby Dick or, The Whale. Reprinted New York. Random House, Inc. 1992.
1. Eagleton, Terry. (2003) After Theory. New York. Perseus Books Group.
2. Dennett, Daniel C. (1989) Intentional Stance. Cambridge, Mass. Bradford Books/ MIT Press.
3. Dennett, Daniel C. (1991) Consciousness Explained. Boston. Little, Brown & Com-pany.
| On Oceans and Nations Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-04-16 21:56:07 Link to this Comment: 9405 |
| Moby-Dick: A Dissection Name: Em Madsen Date: 2004-04-19 08:20:43 Link to this Comment: 9431 |
I conjure him in the storm-clouds above the bell-tower-- he is there, in that roiling expanse, the underbellies of the clouds like a huge celestial pod traveling with him. He is a shock of white against the mumbling sky-- the kind of sky that appears as an illustration in the Bible when the clouds part and there, just there, above the waiting shepherds, above Mary's bowed head, above the mountaintops, lo, the angel of the lord descends or even (beetle-browed and mighty) god himself is revealed. It is a sky of portent, its brooding skeins of unnatural, dusky blue. It is a sky worthy of the white whale.
I imagine Moby-Dick with his own accompaniment. Not a "Jaws" theme song, and not even the gentle eerie cries and clicks I've heard coming from the loudspeakers in a museum display on humpbacks. (Side note: Picture an auditorium filled with 700 school children, completely silent. The cellist, David Darling, holds his instrument before him and tells us the story of how he played for the whales. He was on a boat: the open ocean, a storm coming in-- he anchored his end-pin in the wood of the boat's deck and drew his bow across the strings. The whales sang back. I am perhaps five or six, and it is like he is telling us he has spoken to god.) No, Moby-Dick's song is the absence of song-- a complete and powerful silence that envelops and travels with him. It is the silence of snow, and twice as cold.
Sometimes I think of Ahab's leg. For a while it pleased me to imagine the long fibula and the tibia gleaming in Moby-Dick's stomach. I pictured the metatarsals like a string of pearls scattering; frozen milk; Ahab's tears. The bones, washed clean by corrosive juices, were carried through the ocean, always forward, held within the belly of the whale. I transferred Ahab's fury to the bones and saw them needling Moby-Dick's gut with a desire for vengeance, kicking at the mucus-lined pouch that had become their prison. Then I realized that even the bones themselves would not remain, fragmenting and eroding until they melted away like communion wafers.
Moby-Dick was no cartoon whale, moving his massive head from side to side like an enraged bull before he charged the Pequod. There was no ulterior motive to his jaw's movements as it severed Ahab's leg. The whale did not even recognize Ahab as his stiff-jawed face flashed before him, sucked downward by the Pequod's debris and destruction. The hatred Ahab centered on the white whale might as well have been centered on the moon, which does not choose to give and take the tides, or "hide" behind its scrim of clouds. I want to absolve Moby-Dick, for he stove the boat not out of malice but rather fear, exhaustion, and pain. He took Ahab's leg in a struggle to escape, not to deprive Ahab of life or limb.
To absolve Moby-Dick must I also absolve nature? Is nature the indifferent force that moves behind the bleached white mask which Ahab seeks to destroy? "Man vs. nature." Billy Collins says that this phrase must be part of the "marginalia" in every college students' books. But what kind of nature? Maybe it is human nature to personify those things that are without motive, and it is whale nature to simply be a whale. Nature continues whether humans accept that or not. The seasons shift and the stars in the sky rotate. And deep within the whale's belly, the bones continue to bleach.
To absolve nature is to accept smallness. Melville's Moby-Dick, two inches thick, will molder away in basements and attics, crumbling at the touch of mouse and beetle. We could wake up one morning and we could not. Whether our berth is on a whaling ship, or on the third floor of Brecon, whales must eat and we grow older. And we all, whales included, will die someday. Moby-Dick, are you an acknowledgment of death? Are you on the other side of the mirror I look into every morning, lurking in the silver depths? I think of the shirt in Jane Wagner's play, and Lily Tomlin standing on the stage describing with a catch to her voice its simple slogan: "Whales Save Us." Moby-Dick, humans have motives. We hurt each other on purpose. We kill each other and we lie to each other. Moby-Dick, you cannot lie. Teach me to tell the truth by simply living.
I imagine you beating in my chest instead of my heart, a quiet and strange white organ. This comforts me. I dream of curling up inside your ribs and listening to your heart. I want to hear the inexorable footstep of life in its lub-dub, and I want this to be my lullaby. Today, cheek cradled in the rough nap of my sweater, I have the urge to rub my face against your barnacled side to feel the scrape and know it is real. Keelhauled by time. Moby-Dick: agent of nature and truth, wrapped in your silence, you are zen (breathe in, breathe out, and all the while unaware of anything besides whaleness). Moby-Dick, this is all so strange-- you are just one whale. Yet I conjure you, I call you up from the gray waves of my mind. Moby-Dick. I'm listening. Save me.
| Simply Absurd Name: Daniela Mi Date: 2004-04-19 13:55:40 Link to this Comment: 9436 |
"Each life unfulfilled you see,
It hangs still, patchy and scrappy;
We have not sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired-been happy."
Robert Browning
Introducing the idea of the evolution of species, Darwin emphasized on the importance of the "struggle for existence" as the driving force for that process. Facing scarcity of resources in their habitats, some species gain certain traits that help them utilize the available resources in a more efficient way. Thus, given a competitive advantage over the other species in that habitat, the species that are better adapted to their environment have greater chances for survival than others do. Drawing on the history of H. sapiens, Nietzsche supplanted Darwin's "struggle for existence" with "struggle for power" as the driving force for ontogenetic development and evolution of the phylogeny. What instills power into people?
Knowledge rather than physical strength gives people the necessary power to claim their lives. On the intrapersonal level, knowledge of one's goals and motivation are the prerequisites to attain one's life. Understanding one's self and the mechanisms one uses to compose coherent stories of the numerous observations equals making sense of the universe. The ability to comprehend one's own inner world complements the ability to compose an articulate story to account for the findings. Therefore, on the interpersonal level it is of paramount importance that one is able to articulate one's ideas by molding them into palpable notions by means of language and, thus, maintain ascendancy over people. Yet, having attained power to live, people face only death. Analyzing Ahab's experiences, Melville suggests that life itself is absurd.
Insights about the universe and the importance of language in shaping it give Ahab power to claim his own life and maintain ascendancy over the crew. Aware of the mutability of the surrounding world, he aspires to define the attributes of life and comprehend the underlying logic of the world: "All visible objects are... but pasteboard masks."(Moby Dick, 140). He believes that "Truth hath no confines" (140) and in doing so he refuses to be confined in his search for it. Avoiding the pitfalls (The 4 Great Errors as Nietzsche defines them) that hamper one's efforts to attain truth, Ahab does not allow himself be deceived.
The error of confusing cause and effect (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols): Understanding the universe is the meaning of Ahab's life. Having identified such an aim, Ahab has attained the power to live. Finding the ultimate truth is his vocation. It is the frustration and subsequent hate, evoked by this inability to comprehend the ultimate truth Moby Dick personifies, not the leg he lost, that fills him with gall and animosity towards the whale: "The inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate" (140). Aware of the true cause of the journey, Ahab does not seek revenge, but attainment of knowledge. So, it is a positive impetus (the search for truth) not a destructive one that inspires and energizes him. On the ship trying to thrush through the impenetrable wall that surrounds Ultimate truth, Ahab does create his world.
The error of false causality: Using language to transmute his world into an actuality, Ahab brings Starbuck under control: "Starbuck now is mine; he cannot oppose now without rebellion" (140). The vivid pictures the captain builds, coupled with the indomitable logic of his reasoning, make Starbuck abandon his primary convictions and defer to the captain. Ahab is so convincing because he reminds Starbuck that nobody is inherently entitled to know the truth. But instead of being discouraged, people should aspire to attain knowledge of the world they inhabit: "Are they not one with Ahab, in the matter of the whale?"(140)It is the realization of this common aim that makes the crew and the captain akin. Not fear of Ahab but understanding, sympathy and admiration for his goal and courage to pursue it prevent Starbuck and the rest of the crew from rebelling. Having identified with Ahab's aim, they begin to live. So, the crew needs Ahab who incorporates this aim, in order to be able to live.
The error of imaginary causes: "Human beings are not the effect of some special purpose or will, or an ideal of morality."(Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols) Rejecting the role of any supreme being in his search for the ultimate truth, Ahab is aware of his importance as a creator of his world. As such he has identified his own moral values and has assumed the responsibility for them. If he breaks any of his internal laws, guilt will be his punishment. Because it is inflicted via the consciousness, Ahab cannot escape it. So, morality is possible only if people assume the responsibility for their actions. The values Ahab has internalized rather than fear of external punishment by a supreme being guide Ahab on his journey towards truth and understanding of the world.
Ardent in his efforts Ahab is often referred to as "mad". Is he really? Paulo Coelho defines the term as "inability to communicate your ideas" (Veronika Decides to Die, 114). Harnessing the power of language, Ahab builds vivid pictures of reality into the minds of the crew and makes them see the world from his point of view. The crew understands him. Therefore, being a Master of language, Ahab is not mad. And yet, because of his insights about the world, Ahab cannot remain detached or composed. Transmuting his goal into an actuality is the meaning of his life. Because he is aware of the inscrutability of the surrounding world, he is so intent upon finding the truth. The zeal to make sense of his own life that makes him look mad. Unlike him, the crew is not so ardent about finding the truth. Deferring to Ahab who incorporates the ideal, the crew is not passionately engaged in the realization of that aim. If Ahab attains knowledge, so will they through him. Therefore, they do not channel their efforts in that direction. And, thus, "By lack of understanding they remained sane." (Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four.163)
The error of free will is what Ahab stumbles upon, however. If he is taking the responsibility for his actions, can he be free? If his mind, intent upon achieving a single aim, controls him, can Ahab have free will? In the Twilight of The Idols Nietzsche claims: "Whenever responsibility has been assigned, it is usually so that judgement and punishment may follow." The concept of free will is a social adaptation, through society can exert influence on the individual rather than a means for self-attainment. If free will only helps to regulate the human interactions inside society, is Ahab's death his punishment in compliance with the social norms? Seeing the dead body of Parsee, Ahab suddenly realizes his responsibility: "The harpoon dropped from his [Ahab's] hand." (Moby Dick, 423) Guilt ridden, he renounces upon his aim to attain knowledge: "I only wish we were where they [cherries] grow" (425). The loss of an aim of life rather than death itself is his punishment. Without an aim, Ahab's whole existence becomes meaningless. Isn't it absurd then that Ahab deludes himself that he is free to choose his course in life, when he cannot extricate himself from the numerous constraints he himself and society create?
Yet, Ahab manages to transmute his goal of understanding the universe. Shortly before he dies, he becomes aware that searching for an ultimate truth is meaningless. He himself creates his world: "It is thou, thou [Ahab], that madly seekest him."(423)He finds the ultimate truth, namely that his life itself is absurd. Having achieved his only goal, is there a meaning for him to continue to live?
Understanding the universe, Ahab attains the power to become better adapted to his environment and increase his chances for survival. Yet, attaining the power concomitant of knowledge leads to only his death. Is Ahab's life meaningless then? Ahab's aim and values instill life into Ishmael, showing him what it means to be alive. On that ship, Ishmael learns to appreciate life and cherish it. Starting the voyage out of desperation or total boredom: "This is my substitute for pistol and ball" (18), Ishmael imbibes the vital forces of the captain and the crew. "Buoyed up by that coffin [the ship]" Ishmael embarks on the journey of his life. Consequently, Ahab's experiences help Ishmael to attain his life. Teaching the crew and Ishmael how to live, Ahab's story is beneficial to other people, because it helps them become better adapted to the surrounding world.
The power to live Ahab gains by identifying an aim leads to death only. His life, dedicated to finding the truth is an absurd game in which Ahab himself defines the rules. Winning and losing this game are equally absurd, because they result only in renunciation of the aim and death. In the course of the game Ahab's values lose their meanings. Embracing the ideal of knowledge of the universe, Ahab aspires to break free from the bonds of ignorance and claim his own life. Assuming the responsibility for his actions in order to extricate himself from the bonds of religion, he repudiates his freedom. Yet, attaining the power that comes from the realization of the absurdity helps other people live. Living for the sake of others: Isn't this altruism moral?
References:
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. Accessed on April 18, 2004
http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html
Coelho, Paulo. Veronika Decides to Die. London: Harper Collins, 2000
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Norton Critical Editions, 2001
Orwell, George. Nineteen Eighty-Four. London: Penguin Books, 1990
| Striking Through the Pasteboard Mask Name: Student Contributor Date: 2004-04-19 16:20:51 Link to this Comment: 9442 |
In these troubled times of the twentieth first century, I see a little of Captain Ahab in the air. Edward Said, in response to these distressing times, stated that the current war on terror "uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick" and indeed it does (Said, 2001). As the United States continues its war against the invisible enemy I hear the voice of Captain Ahab roaring through the waters: "If man will strike, strike through the mask!" But hasn't Melville already showed us that behind the mask there is nothing but an "unreasoning" force? That even if we succeeded in striking through the mask, we would not find the answers we were looking for? Much as George Bush continues on with his war in search for that "accursed" Osama bin Laden in hopes to find a reason for 9/11, Captain Ahab searches for his white whale in hopes to find a reason for his missing leg. This search for the unattainable is nothing more than an illustration of the human desire to make reason out of "unreason". To find truth behind the mask. This paper will examine the function of the mask in Melville's Moby Dick, particularly the Quarter-deck scene where Captain Ahab confesses to the crew his intention to chase the white whale and strike through the mask.
In chapter 36, The Quarter-Deck, Captain Ahab announces to his crew that they are to set sail in search of Moby Dick. He is met with roaring cheer and collective excitement by all those aboard the Pequod except for Starbuck. Starbuck pleads with Ahab to give up on such vengeful fantasies and resume the normal whaling mission of killing whales and extracting their sperm oil. Ahab does not relent and proceeds with his philosophy behind the mission: "All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event – in the living act, the undoubted deed – there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!" (Melville, 140) How can the prisoner escape his prison, Ahab continues, except by charging through the wall? According to Ahab, the mask is this wall that functions to imprison us in the prison of a socially-constructed reality. He cannot accept that his prior encounter with Moby Dick, an encounter that left him without a right leg, has happened for no adequate reason. He expresses a desire to thrust through the unreasoning reality as he knows it, through its pasteboard mask, and come face to face with that which is controlling what he believes the very foundation of existence.
Melville, whom I believe is speaking through Ahab in this particular chapter, states that all visible objects are but pasteboard masks. This implies that all objects, including human beings, are concealed beneath an externalized projection emanating from either the object or an independent source – Melville does not make it clear where the pasteboard mask comes from. In addition to visible objects, he argues that there exists an unknown, reasoning force that gives meaning to existence from beneath what appears to the casual observer nothing more than an unreasoning force. The unreasoning force serves as the mask for the unknown, reasoning force, and Ahab desires to strike through this mask, which in his eye is the white whale, in order to confront the reasoning force that exists behind it. It is not clear what the reasoning force is meant to illustrate – God, higher power, nothingness – but Melville's point is clear: to challenge this unknown, reasoning force is to risk monomania and, in the Pequod's case, even death.
It is interesting to further examine the source of the pasteboard mask. As stated above, Melville does not explicitly mention how these masks are created but he treats the mask that conceals reasoning force in the same manner as he treats the mask that conceals all visible objects. It is possible that the source of the pasteboard mask does not emanate from within existence but independent of it, the source being a representation of a God or higher power. In this case, the mask is a pre-destined externalization that the object has little control over. Ralph Ellison, in his novel The Invisible Man, argues that the source is not a higher power but indeed emanates from within existence, namely from within society itself. In the novel, the narrator has opted for an invisible identity to escape those perceptions that are immediately imposed on him because of the color of his skin. He prefers to ascend from the ranks of visible objects and assume the role of the invisible man, free from the confinements of the pasteboard mask. I would argue that Melville's line of reasoning closely follows Ellison's rationale because he gives no indication that religion plays a significant role in the characters' lives. In fact, his outlook on religion is illustrated in many chapters of the novel, like that in A Bosom Friend where Ishmael reasons that he must worship Queequeg's little black wooden god to do the will of the Christian God, namely, that religion is a matter of loose interpretation and is subject to social constructions.
If the mask is subject to social constructions then the mask itself is loosely defined; it is these very same loose definitions that the narrator in The Invisible Man finds difficult to grapple with. It is these very same loose definitions that puzzle Captain Ahab, and even George W. Bush. What is evil but a mask we externalize from our own personal bias? Did the white whale really threaten Ahab's existence? No, but in his mind Moby Dick was the epitome of evil and that is why he gave chase. In the same manner, the wars with Iraq and Afghanistan are but an opportunity for Bush to strike through the pasteboard masks and find the reasoning force, this reasoning force being his "axis of evil" and the king of all terror, Osama bin Laden, in hopes to come face to face with what drives his monomania. I don't know what he will find if he does succeed to strike through the mask, but something tells me he won't find the crux of all evil waiting to meet with him.
Melville was a master of observation, he saw the inner workings of the world in the simple actions of human beings, and it is a shame that we have yet to learn his greatest observation: Nothing good ever comes from chasing our imaginations.
Bibliography
Ellison, Ralph. The Invisible Man. Vintage Books, New York: 1980
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Norton & Company, New York: 2002, 1967
Said, Edward. "Islam and the West are Inadequate Banners." Available On-line at http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552764,00.html Visited on 4/18/2004
| Counteracting the Lightness of Being; Leaning into Name: Orah Minde Date: 2004-04-19 23:49:00 Link to this Comment: 9455 |
Sena Jeter Naslund's novel, Ahab's Wife, charts the sorrows of people who have lost loves. Ahab's Wife is about the healing process after trauma and loss. Naslund's novel speaks to the imperfect, wounded, restless part of humans, the part that is ever questioning the meaning of existence. It teaches healing that is a reaction to this essential imperfection, this essential doubt. Naslund's novel is written as a response to Herman Melville's Moby Dick: about a wounded sea captain who seeks revenge against nature, against "the ungraspable phantom,"1 the "heartless immensities"2 for wounding him. Ahab seeks to overthrow the power in nature that inflicts such pain by leaving the land, leaving the domain of humans, leaving "that young girl-wife."3 In contrast, Naslund's character, Una, responds to the inflicted sorrows of life by turning toward people, by returning to land, by binding herself closely to those she loves. While Melville's novel charts the lives of those who have been cast out by suffering, those who leave society in response to pain, in a search for meaning, Naslund's novel offers an alternative reaction to hardship; Naslund suggests that the essential healing after pain, the meaning of life is provided by other humans.
The first love that Una looses is her husband to be, Giles. Immediately after Una sees Giles die she goes to her best friend (and Giles' best friend), Kit. Naslund describes the scene immediately after Giles' death,
He (Kit), too, had consolation to offer, but I felt numb as stone. The ship rocked us, sometimes my weight bearing toward Kit, sometimes his body leaning into mine. Only my skin was alive. I was a rock covered with a tissue of flesh. Kit put his hand under my skirt and touched my thigh through the cloth of my drawers. When he said, 'May I?' I said 'Yes,' and unloosed the drawstring and lifted my skirt so that we might be more together.4
This scene describes the desperate need of Una and Kit to counter the great absence left in the place that Giles used to occupy. They demand a physical closeness to each other. Giles' death leaves both Una and Kit with vast vacant spaces within. The love they had for Giles suddenly has no function, festering, it has nowhere to be placed. Una and Kit's coming together is an attempt to relieve the unbearable lightness of Giles' vacant space, the absolute lacking of human physicality left in the space that Giles used to occupy. In this passage the reader witnesses the undulating sway of Una entering into Kit's physical space and then Kit's movement into Una's space. Both are physical enactments of filling a lacking space.
Later in the novel Una describes this same lacking sensation after her mother dies: "It was her absence, not her death, that seemed real. The way the walls of the cabin did not hold her. The vacancy in the air."5 Again Una develops a sexual relationship with a person to counteract the lacking space, the space empty of her mother. This time the sexual relationship is with another woman. Una thinks, "when we cuddled together in sleep, I dreamed I was a mother cat with rows of nipples up and down my body, and she was my only kitten... here was Susan to unburden me of love. Not to be loved but to love lightened my load of grief and gave value and direction to my life."6 Like her interaction with Kit after Giles' death, Una's relationships with people after pain are often interactions of intense physical encounters. Sex, in Naslund's novel, is a response to the painful physical lacking in life, it is used as an unloading of unused emotion onto a body that is present.
In stark contrast to the intimate sexual scenes in Ahab's Wife, Melville's characters seek solitude when they are in pain. Melville opens his novel with Ishmael saying,
Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet ... I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can ... meditation and water are wedded for ever.7
Melville opens his novel with Ishmael's admittance to depression. As a response to this pain Ishmael seeks solitude and personal meditation. He finds the appropriate place for this to be at sea. Ishmael does not seek companionship in his depression. Instead, he leaves civilization and all human inhabited portions of the earth.
Similarly, Ahab, in his crazed sorrow, leaves his new wife to search for his revenge at sea. Toward the end of Melville's novel, while Ahab is being entangled in the gnarled hemp of the fates there seems to be a glint of hope that he might leave Moby Dick, leave the sea, leave his solitude, and return to saneness, his wife, and land. This moment is found when Ahab intimately gazes into Starbuck's eyes. The last hope of the novel is when Ahab says to Starbuck, "Stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God."8 But, hope is lost when "Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil."9 When he pulls his gaze from Starbuck's eye he looses all hope of healing, he succumbs to his madness and solitude.
Naslund writes an interpretation of Melville's Ahab into her novel. In one scene Ahab and Una have just returned from hearing a sermon about Jesus. Ahab says,
I wish that he had preached of Judas ... it may well be that in the heart of man there is a goodness that is divine, that we are Jesus-kin. But that is only half ... the other half is the Betrayer, the Liar, the Murderer, the Fornicator, the Cannibal, the Prince of Darkness. And I know, by thunder, that I have kinship there. It's that half of me that wants to be called brother.10
Naslund writes of Ahab's desire for this companionship. He wishes for companionship in his incompleteness. We are told that our positive attributes are accepted and loved by Jesus and society, but Ahab speaks from a different part of his soul, the part that is cast out, the unaccepted, restless part. Naslund's Ahab recognizes an inherent flaw in his own character. This self-criticism causes Ahab great pain; he feels that it is a flaw that he does not control, but rather has been inflicted into his being. Ahab seeks self justification by leaving Una. He believes that he will find acceptance, or mend this broken part of his being, by going to sea. Naslund's Ahab refuses the healing company that Una offers her husband.
Naslund recognizes that Melville's characters seek answers from non-human sources: either from direct encounter with the unknown, the whiteness, or, not knowing what will offer consolation, they go to the place away from human habitation: the sea. Naslund offers another kind of healing, a healing offered by humans to each other. Naslund's healing comes in the form of forgiveness and companionship. David, another hurting character in the novel, shares his painful story with Una. Later, Una wishes she had offered him company in his solitude. She says to herself, "I could have whispered to him, You are not alone in you infamy."11 Later, Una tells David her restless story and the two are able to coexist in their fractured worlds and in so doing provide each other the needed comfort.
David, too, offers Una healing. David's healing comes in the form of forgiveness. Naslund writes, "He embraced me, around the thighs, as a child might hug his mother. He looked straight up at me, his beard pressed against my dress. 'I forgive you,' he said in his mellow male voice that seemed to blend God and nature. His short arms were strong as tongs about my legs. 'And I you,' I replied."12 Here, David takes on the power that is traditionally attributed to God. David takes control of that which is usually considered a power of otherness, the power of something non-human. David takes on the power of healing.
This relationship, this encounter between David and Una marks Naslund's greatest revision of Moby Dick. Moby Dick is a story in which humans seek meaning in of their existence, they fight for this meaning, grappling with the forces of nature in a futile attempt to claim their great power of assigning meaning. Melville charts the tragic outcome of this battle. Humans are too small, too weak, too mortal, to stand a chance at claiming this power from the powerful allies of time and nature. Melville concludes his epic of the human search, "Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."13 Time and nature are unaffected by the human struggle. They deal sorrows and pain and are unchanging to the throbbing fight of humanity.
Naslund refutes Melville and suggests that there is hope in the search for meaning. Our clutching to the notion of meaning in life is not futile. She argues with Melville across time by responding to Ahab's statement in her novel, "'There is a tragicalness in being human. In the mere being-' Yes, I wanted to say, but that is only one way. There are many ways. We choose."14 Naslund suggests that instead of searching for meaning and comfort in the undulating restless sea, we can find meaning on land, in people, in the space between people, in touch. Human touch fills the absence of meaning.
1 MD 20
2 AW 663
3 MD 405
4 AW 244
5 AW 406
6 AW 410
7 MD 18-19
8 MD 406
9 MD 406
10 AW 343
11 AW 438
12 AW 439
13 MD 427
14 AW 509
7
| The Patience of a Female Author: A Woman's Calling Name: Erin Daly Date: 2004-04-20 01:00:18 Link to this Comment: 9458 |
_In Sena Jeter Naslund's novel Ahab's Wife, there is repetitive reference to "the chaos of the waves (40);" Naslund uses these images of turbulent water in contrast to the precise and patterned nature of stitched quilts. She equates the process of "writing a book" to the "posture of sewing (70)." She asserts "when one stitches, the mind travels...And books, like quilts, are made one word at a time, one stitch at a time (70)." The consequences of making this type of connection within a literary narrative authored by a woman writer are penetrative to the fundamental assumptions about the creation of literature. I put forth, then, the theory that Naslund knowingly mocks the concept that writing, particularly writing to make literature, is primarily a male tradition, the prevailing thought during Una's existence as a fictional character.
_Naslund derives Una from Moby-Dick, takes a peripheral character in a major novel about a man's "war upon the deep (18)," a novel she knows has been marked a classic and has endured beyond its time period, and compels the shadow-figure of the male's narrative into the prominent voice of a female's narrative. What is produced by the male becomes a reproduction by the female. In effect, tradition is usurped, inversed, and woman dominates the text, a text birthed by Melville, a hugely lauded male author. Therefore, man author exchanges positions with woman, becomes impregnated by a story, tells the story, brings the story into existence. The woman author takes the story and retells it, reclaiming it as her own, brings a new story into existence. She overshadows the object of fiction previously created and through intertextuality connects herself to the expanse of literature. She blatantly utilizes the man's text to her own literary advantages, and discovers an act of erecting a memorial for women through "one word at a time."
_The "stitching" of "one word at a time" in direct opposition to the journey of man's mind which "travels...with ax and oxen through the wilderness (70)" explicitly undermines Ahab's journey, his "war upon the deep," whether or not Una is aware of the disruptive quality of her stream of consciousness. Una suggests that "writing a book...which men often do, but women rarely (70)" is actually a task that women are well-suited for, since the domestic instructs them in "stitching" and "sewing," similar to the process of writing, a process that requires patience and the ability to sit still and travel in the mind. She is expressing disillusionment at the idea that simply because men pick up an ax and go into the wilderness, their travels are more memorable, more imperative, more important. She implores "our traveling counted," despite the fact that she cannot be called to sea in the glorious manner that Ahab is called to kill the whale. She says "our" to group women together, to grab their attention to the passage, to make them aware, to educate them.
_"Our" narrative "counted," regardless of the absence of a whale that gnaws at our leg and forces us into "war upon the deep." Ahab is out on the sea having his adventure, while Una is left behind to contemplate and to write. Ahab was not the "I" in Moby-Dick; he was explored in another's narrative, told as a story. Una is the "I" in Ahab's Wife; she explores herself, tells her own story. Ahab was caught up in his own obsessive adventures in the "wilderness," too impatient and restless to craft, structure, frame, stitch his tale. Una, abandoned, unable to be called to an obsessive whale adventures, has the patience, the instruction, to stitch "one word at a time" her narrative, and she does, letting her mind wander, letting her mind travel.
_Una registers that "perhaps the mind as the mouth is a glistening, pink cave," and she refers to the mind as a "wet, pink cave (19)." It is dark, water seeping in through the opening, threatening, foreboding, even disruptive. The "chaos of the waves" can infect the mind, pull at the careful stitching of the words struggling to become a story, and can swallow the pattern meant to establish the structure of a narrative. Ahab, in this sense, infects Una's mind, distracts her, as do other men, Kit and Giles.
_Una confesses to an anxiety over concentration, a threat to the patience, because men can move into the opening of the "wet, pink cave" and capture the attention, rendering her speechless, wordless, without language. Perhaps this is an allusion to the power men have over women; men may have the penetrative authority to create stories in Una's time, and Una may be able to usurp the tradition, but she can also be foiled because of her physical desires, the desires the mind sometimes cannot prevent. The "wet" that is inside the "cave" is the stimulation; stimulation can be caused by effective making of meaning, or it can be clouded by the "chaos of the waves," the stirring of emotions brought on by reflection of the self in company with the productive male.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. HarperCollins Publishers. New York, NY. 1999.
| Mapping the Quest: the Channels of Literary Evolut Name: Lindsay Up Date: 2004-04-20 14:32:45 Link to this Comment: 9487 |
Literature changes. One story creates a niche for another story to come into existence, or be written. What is a literary niche and how exactly does an evolutionary text fill it? Who gets to decide?
This question is easiest to answer by first establishing what a text cannot do: it does not fill in all the missing gaps. Moby Dick created a niche for another book to come into being: Ahab's Wife. In examining the relationship between the two books, one might say that Ahab's Wife functions in filling in all the missing pieces that Moby Dick left. For example, take the opening lines of the two books:
In Moby Dick, "Call me Ishmael." (18)
In Ahab's Wife, "Ahab was neither my first husband, nor my last." (1)
The first sets up a premise; the second could be seen as offering, in response, another story to pick up where the other leaves off.
However, upon closer analysis it becomes clear that trying to fill in all the places where Moby Dick leaves off would be impossible; such a feat could not be imagined in one text. This is because Moby Dick opens up so many niches to be filled, not only responses to its specific text or story such as Ahab's Wife but also places in the succession of literary tradition. For example, it was evolutionary in assigning heroic qualities to characters traditionally seen as renegades. The picture becomes clearer if one regards Moby Dick not as the premise but coming from an evolutionary line itself, responding to the treatment of characters in texts such as the Bible and Shakespearean plays.
When one thinks of how Ahab's Wife works in relation to this line, it is difficult to say whether it actually is an evolutionary text. It does not seem to evolve from Moby Dick at all; it is simply the same story. The reader may not realize this until near the very end of the book, when Una addresses Ishmael:
Do you mind we write the same book? (663)
To come to any conclusions about what kinds of niches a text might fill it helps to look at other lines through which texts have evolved. John Gardner, a modern academic novelist, wrote a book, Grendel, which complicates the monstrous villain from Beowulf. In discussing evolutionary literature, Beowulf is interesting because it is the first known recorded work in English. It is, in a sense, a sort of literary Homo erectus. But Beowulf itself had to evolve long before it could ever have taken on the alternative title of Grendel. Scholars believe that the text was written in Old English around the year 1000 AD. However, Beowulf in its time would traditionally been sung or recited by a scop, or bard, at the courts of royalty. In this way, the story would have changed with every telling before it was even recorded on paper. At some point, it must have been translated into modern English, to be printed and read by high school seniors everywhere—long before Grendel was even written.
So it is evident that there are many different kinds of niches, or relationships of one text to another. There is the one kind of niche filled by the "other," as in Ahab's Wife to Moby Dick, or the evil Grendel as opposed to the heroic Beowulf:
Ah Grendel! You improve them, my boy! Can't you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last. (Gardner 72)
In some sense, these texts depend on each other for the definition of their existence as the dark defines the light. These types of texts mirror one another but essentially tell the same story. They take place in the same world.
Other texts might evolve around the axis of time. In each modern setting, there exists a niche for an adaptation of an old text. For example, West Side Story is a modern version of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: the two tell the same story. Unlike Ahab's Wife and Moby Dick, the two do not exist in the same world of the same characters, but differ in time and setting. In addition, there is a linear dependency from one story to the other; the Shakespeare stands alone but West Side Story could not have been created without it. Likewise, Romeo and Juliet could not have come into being without its predecessor, the Greek myth of Pyramus and Thisbe. In these three stories, there is a line of descent. It is a different kind of relationship from the dependent one of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife.
Whichever way a series of texts relate to one another, one can suppose that
In learning, one thing always has something else in it, or leads to something new (Naslund 408).
Lines can be drawn connecting literary works in an infinite number of ways. Their relationships to one another are never static or stationary. There is no system defining their lines of descent. The niches they occupy are not arbitrarily determined for us. We choose.
Works Cited
Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2002.
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc, 1999.
| An Investigation of Literary Greatness: Still a B Name: Julia Eddy Date: 2004-04-20 20:01:30 Link to this Comment: 9493 |
"'I am an experienced writer and have some sense whether an idea can work or not...I wasn't sure it would work and I really thought about it for nine months before I put pen to paper. But I didn't feel intimidated by Melville's accomplishment. I felt inspired by it.'" Naslund quoted by Jamie Allen (CNN Interactive Senior Writer)(1999)
For most people the mention of "great literature" stirs up the classic images of such authors as Shakespeare, Twain, Hemmingway, Salinger, Fitzgerald, and Melville among many others. Without belittling those very talented authors I would like to question their superiority over lesser acclaimed or widely known authors. What makes great literature and who gets to decide what qualifies? Perhaps a book such as Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund could be a "greater" book than its famous precursor, Herman Melville's Moby Dick. But who can one say that one book is greater than another? In the end the question of greatness comes down to who is measuring it.
Well first off, what does it mean to be great at anything? Perhaps it means to have succeeded gracefully at whatever goal there was in mind. Perhaps it is to be liked by others, or to be meaningful. Perhaps it is represented by being carried on through time. Or perhaps greatness is whatever people make it to be and can never be fully defined. Most likely any or all of those things contribute to greatness.
Given a flexible definition of greatness, what is great literature? Is it literature that has meaning (doesn't it all), invokes thought, is it defined by being likable, or achieving the authors goal, is it marked by the span of time and influence that the story has, or is a broad equation encompassing any or all, perhaps even none, of those characteristics?
Many would say that Melville's Moby Dick is great literature. Moby Dick is a classic novel that surely has had, and continues to have, a huge influence on the collective evolution of writing and literary thought. Melville's story of madness and obsession combined with his realistic old English style of writing has been mimicked and transformed to give rise to hundreds, possibly thousands, of new stories and an infinite number of thoughts have been born. There is no question that Moby Dick has been a very influential book. Does that mean it's great? Well perhaps, but does it mean it's greater than a story not as wide spread or mimicked? And what is it that is so great about this one book? Well some say Moby Dick is great because it invokes thought; while it is fantastical and adventurous, there is meaning in it that comes through to every human being who reads it. The book is praised for its openness to multiple interpretations and depth that can be achieved in those interpretations. It could be said that the greatness of Moby Dick lies in between the lines of writing, in the interpretations, and what is unanswered by the author.
Of the many stories to branch from Moby Dick, one such transformation inspired by Melville's famous tale was Naslund's book Ahab's Wife, which cleverly creates a female compliment to Moby Dick. Naslund creates a story that follows the text of Moby Dick, delves into many of the interpretations of Moby Dick, and spotlights the female experience with the main character being "the strong, adventuresome, intelligent, sensitive, successful woman -- successful in a very ordinary sense in that she feels fulfilled her life" (Naslund qt. by Allen, 1999). Ahab's Wife can be read as a supplement to or an expanding of Moby Dick or an entirely independent entity. Naslund herself says, "One of the most important things I want to say about the book is, you don't have to have read 'Moby-Dick' in order to enjoy 'Ahab's Wife.' 'Ahab's Wife' is designed as an independent, stand-alone reading experience."
When comparing the two books standing on their own, they appear very different. Melville writes a powerful archaic, gruff, and vengeful sequence of events along a short span of time, while Naslund writes a colorfully vivid, emotional, and romantic life story. Both books have adventure and passion but in very different contexts and styles. Is either style the example of great writing? Because Naslund's style is differs so greatly from Melville's does that mean it is less powerful, meaningful, or noteworthy? I think not! On the contrary, I found great pleasure in reading the sensual descriptions that Naslund used on every page; I was engrossed and quickly invested in the life of this woman. I saw clear pictures saturated with color and emotion, and I felt deep sorrow and delight (among other emotions) during my read. This was not the case at all with Moby Dick, during which I felt some emotion of sorrow and exhaustion but not out of a connection I felt with any of the characters. During Moby Dick I found myself searching for answers and meaning while during Ahab's Wife I found myself experiencing. Does enjoyment of a story not equate greatness? And a new flood of questions arise, was I just identifying with Naslund's book because she, the main character, and I were women, or was it just the style? It was most likely both, but was my enjoyment of the style in a correlation with the identification with the femaleness of the book?
It wouldn't be fair to say that a female reader will always automatically identify more fully with a female author and/or main character (or the opposite for men), nor would it be fair to declare that there is a masculine and a feminine way to write/think, however, it would make sense that there might be some differences in the way opposite genders approach a topic. Sharon Begley in the Newsweek article, Gray Matters (1995) attributes many of the differences between men and women behaviorally and psychologically to physiological differences in brain structure and function. She sites research that alludes to a clear difference in brain function among the sexes, such that women react and think differently than men in various situations. Perhaps, this means there are gender-defined ways of writing after all (to a point and not exclusively).
Whether or not there is a gender influence at play in the two novels or not, there are countless variations in the way each author approaches similar situations in the two books. While not entirely fair given that the excerpts are not from the same time or circumstances and no one ever really knows what an author's intentions are, the attitudes toward whaling might be used as an example of different approaches. Melville (a man) spends a chapter with Ishmael trying to glorify the act of whaling. Melville writes on page 100, "Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! ... No dignity in whaling? ... I know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales. I account that man more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns." Naslund (a woman) depicts the main character, Una, as having a very different take on the lifestyle of whaling,
As for the innocent blood of the whale... I did my duty. I suppose many a soldier tells himself the same, and thus assuages guilt...I do not think dragons drained such sad blood. Nor were dragons female, and this whale evidently was for I saw her calf...grow frightened and swim away...Already Kit anticipated that a bloody reality would replace his fantasy of whaling (183).
There seems to be difference here, possibly related to gender, but getting back to the real question, is either of these more effective? Is one better literature? Who is to judge?
In 1999 Jamie Allen of CNN.com wrote a response to the list of 100 best books of the century put out by the Modern Library. In her response Allen wrote,
Aside from the usual brickbatting that accompanies any list that tries to encapsulate a century, the Modern Library's rankings has rankled both women and people of color... Only eight female authors were represented in the top 100, and minority authors were noticeably scarce, despite a considerable presence in literature over the past 100 years.
Is the rating system sexist (and racist)? Well, one can probably guess what sort of judges comprises such a group as the Modern Library... old, rich, white guys. After decades of "equality," it seems the battle rages on against the patriarchal society.
The point here is that members of the human race see things differently based on the human experience, sometimes as a result of biology and sometimes culture. As a result, each person's view of greatness might be different, and it's impossible to find a completely neutral party or fully encompassing and fair guidelines in order to judge. It seems that there are still a lot of effective and meaningful unrecognized authors out there. Interestingly all the "great" authors I (randomly) rattled off in the beginning of this paper were men, and I'm obviously not the only one who notes this still existing male domination. Perhaps female authors just haven't had enough time to spread their messages and see their influence, but one thing is absolutely clear in my mind, the explanation is not that men are just "greater" writers.
Works Cited
Allen, Jamie. (November 8, 1999). 'A 20th century response to a 19th century novel'. Retrieved 4/17/04 from CNN.com book News: http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9911/08/Ahab.wife/
Allen, Jamie. (May 6, 1999). The Top 100? Retrieved 4/17/04 from CNN.com book News: http://www.cnn.com/books/news/9807/21/top.100.reax/index.html
Begley, Sharon. (March 27, 1995). Gray Matters. Newsweek. Retrieved 4/14/04 from Lexis Nexis Database.
Melville, Herman. (2002). Moby Dick (Norton Critical Edition, 2nd Ed.). Parker, Hershel and Hayford Harrison (Eds.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Naslund, Sena Jeter. (1999). Ahab's Wife. New York: Harper Collins.
| Adam and Eve, Ahab and Una Name: Emily Sene Date: 2004-04-22 12:19:20 Link to this Comment: 9544 |
Throughout my reading of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife, I was bothered by the fact that the most tempting way to situate the two novels in a relationship was to categorize them as "male" and "female." Moby Dick was, of course, the man's story and Ahab's Wife was its womanly counterpart. This comparison makes sense when you consider the gender of the authors, Melville and Naslund, the gender of their respective narrators, Ishmael and Una, and the experiences portrayed throughout the texts. Many readers argue, "There are no female characters in Moby Dick- how could it be anything but a man's story?" In that context, it is easy to position Ahab's Wife at the opposite end of the literary spectrum because the novel is told solely from a feminine perspective. Viewing the texts in this way indicates that our conceptions of gender have not changed much since the days of Adam and Eve. In that story the man, Adam, came first and provided the foundation for humankind. Eve was an afterthought, borne from a single rib. The rib that became Una can be found in Moby Dick- a single reference to Ahab's spouse back in Nantucket. Adam and Eve represent a clear division between male and female that established the gender binary we now impose on these two texts.
I find this dichotomy troubling and ultimately inadequate for several reasons. First of all, I don't agree with the spectrum concept that places maleness on one side and femaleness on the other, then locates Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife at these opposite poles. However, this formula exists in almost every field of study. The scientific term for the differences between males and females of a species is "sexual dimorphism." It implies two separate and opposing morphologies, or sets of characteristics, based on sex. This term reinforces the Biblical notion of Adam and Eve as counterparts of the same creation, and the literary interpretation that divides "male" and "female" texts. I don't feel comfortable viewing masculine and feminine as diametric variations of the human species that are isolated at opposing ends of the human spectrum.
The second objection I have to the Adam and Eve analogy to Ahab's Wife and Moby Dick is that it diminishes the female story by making it completely dependent on the male story. It's true that without Moby Dick, there would be no Ahab's Wife, but I am resistant to the generalizations that can be drawn from gendering this relationship between the texts. One novel may have evolved from the other, but there are many possible stories that could stand on the shoulders of Moby Dick- Queequeg's tale, for example. There should be a separation between the gender affiliations of the texts, if they exist, and their location in time and space. The gender binary as we are familiar with it cannot contain these works or explain their interaction.
The imperative readers feel to assign a sexual identity to a particular text parallels the experience of individuals who are forced to the margins of society because of their inability to conform to the rigid binary. Transvestites, transsexuals, and intersexuals are striking examples of groups that exist somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of male and female. In the case of transvestites, a person who possesses male genitalia will dress as a female, or vice versa. These people are biologically defined as one sex, yet they have a psychological identification with the opposite sex. Although they cross dress and express feminine mannerisms to varying degrees, men who are transvestites have no objection to their "ultimate insignia of maleness." (Garber, 2, 362) In other words, they will not undergo surgery to physically become female because they are still proud of their male genitalia. Biologically speaking, transvestites are at one end of the spectrum, but many of their personality traits are at the other.
Transsexuals are an example of a group that moves from one end of the spectrum to another in both the physical and mental sense. They feel such a strong identification with the opposite sex that they undergo gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. However, they are still emulating a sex that they were not born with, which confuses the binary.
An interesting note on both transsexuals and transvestites is the orientation of their subjectivity. To them, genitalia are not an incidental characteristic of their anatomy, but an essential, in some cases the essential, factor in determining their identity. If it is possible to take hormones and alter dress and mannerisms to appear exactly like the opposite sex, why is the presence or absence of certain genitalia so important? Also, it was once presumed that gender roles were constructed and would align themselves with given genitalia due to social pressures. The binary is further confused if gender is as innate as biological sex and the two can, in fact, be incongruous.
Intersexuals present the most striking opposition to the gender binary. These individuals are born with two sets of sexual organs, thus they fall near the exact center of the spectrum. Although transvestitism and transsexuality are social taboos, intersexuality is virtually erased from the population altogether. Medical texts on the subject talk about the need to "classify and categorize" intersexual individuals by arbitrarily assigning them one gender. (Slaughenhoupt, 138) The surgery itself is invasive and often confusing for patients and their families, who have no say in the gender chosen, but often have questions about the validity of the doctor's decision after the patient reaches puberty. Intersexual individuals suffer the strongest social prohibition of their condition and, as a result, are forced to undergo the most drastic measures to place them in one category of the binary.
In light of this information, it is obvious that there are many variations on the rigid "male," "female" binary. Instances of transvestitism, transsexuality, and intersexuality are not as rare as traditional social wisdom would lead one to believe. Although stepping outside the norm remains a taboo, individuals are becoming increasingly active in expressing their opposition to social pressure to conform to one category. Their flexible perceptions of gender identity are useful to a discussion on Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife because once readers learn to look at the middle of the spectrum instead of limiting their view to just the opposite poles, they will come to see the male within the female and the female within the male.
Moby Dick, for example, may not contain any female characters, but there are strong undertones of homosexuality in several sections of the book that do not fit with a traditional definition of masculinity. And although Ahab's Wife is written with a female narrator, it provides a new perspective on the male characters from Moby Dick, Ahab and Ishmael. Una herself takes on a male role when she goes to sea aboard the Sussex. She is hardly the archetypal image of femininity. There is something to be said for a gendered reading of these two novels, and comparing them based on the relationship between male and female can add layers of meaning to the text. However, there are limitations to this kind of analysis. By forcing a novel to conform to a male or a female role, readers are in danger of over-simplifying and ignoring ideas simply because they are incongruous with one set of norms.
As for the image of a time line with Moby Dick, the Adam-like male story, at the base and Ahab's Wife, Eve, ascending from Melville's text in a linear fashion- I would suggest an alternate visual representation of the relationship. Rather than a single line, I prefer the image of two parallel lines. However, Ahab's Wife is not it's own independent thought, but is inexorably linked to Moby Dick. The image I ultimately decided on comes from the final chapter of Ahab's Wife. Ishmael says, "Think of the Cathedral of Chartres. This of its two towers. They do not match at all. Built perhaps a century apart, or more; but without both spires, our Chartres would not be Chartres." (663) In this analogy, Melville built the foundation of the cathedral and the first tower. Then, Naslund erected a second tower which is supported by Melville's base, but also a stylistically and architecturally independent structure. Her tower stands side by side with the other and originates from the same fundamental story of Ahab and the white whale, yet it has a defined sense of self separate from the rest of the structure. When you gender the two towers and make one female and one male, they still have the base in common. Ishmael continues, "Small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the finishing to posterity." (663) Just as Melville left room for Naslund, she has opened the door for more stories to emerge from Moby Dick and more towers to be constructed.
Sources
1.) Chase, Cheryl. "Hermaphrodites With Attitude: Mapping the Emergence of Intersex Political Action." from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions" readings packet, 130-141
2.) Garber, Marjorie. "Spare Parts: The Surgical Construction of Gender" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions" readings packet, 361-368
3.) Slaughenhoupt, Bruce L. "Diagnostic Evaluation and Management of the Child With Ambiguous Genitalia." KMA Journal 95 (1997): 135-141.
4.) "Ambiguous Sexes" from "Questions of Gender/Engendering Questions" readings packet, 96-118
(Note: Bibliographical information was not available for sources 1, 2, and 4 so I did the best I could to locate title, author, and page number whenever possible.)
| De-Mystifying Death Name: Perrin Bra Date: 2004-04-22 18:08:38 Link to this Comment: 9555 |
Nineteen years of my life has passed. By age nineteen, Una Spencer of Ahab's Wife had experienced numerous cycles of contentment and isolation, safety and loss. I cannot pretend to say that I have lived even as marginally an emotionally tumultuous life as Una's, but like most people, I can say something of loss and sacrifice. One of the last things my grandmother said on the hospital bed in which she died was to ask my mother whether I had been accepted to my first-choice college. I was not with my grandmother when she died, but the fact that she had asked about something so inconsequential and irrelevant about my life reveals the way viewed her own life and death: without idealization, regret, or fear. She instead left my family with a legacy of love, selflessness, and beauty.
"Don't ask when you will die. Ask how you can live more fully...Am I dying? No. I am living until I can't live anymore" (Caputo). Stated by a writer with terminal cancer, this quotation encompasses how I want to live my life, which is why I have a difficult time understanding the characters of Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife, particularly those of the former. Many of the crew on damned Pequod knew that their ship was destined for death, yet they did not protest their lot, but rather accepted their inevitable fate with an emotionless resignation as though they had died even before they stepped foot on the ship. They died as if to avoid the pain of living; a passive suicide. The crew of the Sussex, however, was less overt in their willingness to end their lives because they had led a comparatively gratifying existence. Giles and Kit had their companionship to savor on quiet nights, while Captain Fry had Chester to love. These characters were not emotionally-devoid, just weak of spirit—too dependant on ephemeral quiet
waters to keep them safe.
Death seems to be a recurrent presence in both novels. Almost all of the characters of Moby Dick perish by the end of the novel, while many of the people whom Una loves are abruptly taken from her life. However, there is a discrepancy in the manner in which the various characters meet their end. Both captains are suicidal, but there is a much larger element of sadness in Captain Fry's death. He sacrifices himself for a tangible cause, to spare the life of his son, whereas Ahab dies while pursuing his own personal vendetta against Moby Dick. The selfishness of Ahab's death is evident, but Fry's suicide also contained a component of self-interest. He killed himself so that others would eat his carcass instead of that of his son, but in doing so, he neglected to give Chester the freedom of choice as to whether he would have lived or died. The only genuinely tragic casualties in the novels are therefore those of the two children, Pip and Chester. Upon learning of his death, Chester responds, that "it is as good a fate as any." As opposed to his father's decision to kill himself, Chester is chosen to die, revealing his acceptance of death, rather than yearning for it. Pip is given no such choice, but his death provides an escape for an addled mind. Both died young, having not enough life experience to realize what they were sacrificing by accepting death.
It is life, not death, which seems to be so frightening for the characters in these novels. There is an essential loneliness that is common to both Ahab and Una, for they each carry within themselves a burden which they feel that they cannot share. There is a certain safety in evasiveness because honesty often precludes emotional vulnerability, but Una proved herself strong enough to be able to speak about her experiences on the Sussex. Thus, she recovered because talking proved to be an emotional catharsis—divulging her experiences and moving on with her life. Ahab, however, was not capable of talking. In Ahab's Wife, he seems to take pride
in a strong masculine identity, which might have rendered him incapable of divulging his thoughts. Ahab stands alone as if he was punishing himself; he is a masochist in every sense of the word, pursuing his enemy until he was ultimately consumed by his hatred. He lacked the capability to forgive what had been done to him, clinging to the hatred which kept him alive. For years, Ahab and Una had been punishing themselves for an act that was beyond their control and they seemed to almost relish in their tragedy. A less powerful emotion that Ahab's passionate hatred, regret was Una's maxim for life for several years after the Sussex was stove—she regretted that she partaken in eating human flesh and had thus lived while others had perished—but she was able to transcend that regret because she found love in unexpected places.
Almost each individual has their own White Whale that bears the brunt of their own personal pain, be it Moby Dick, a parent, or G-d. It takes a very unique person to be able to create something beautiful out of loss, which Una was able to accomplish by bringing new lives into the world. I think our infancy consists of a tremendous blind spot which we chose to fill with experiences that reflect our individual life outlook. Ahab instead chose to fill his blind spot with his all-consuming hatred which ultimately led to his death. I never fully understood exactly why Ahab chose to dwell on his pain instead the good things in life that he possessed, like his wife in child on whom he should have focused his energy. With such a wasted life, death would probably be a most welcome friend, but I can only hope that when I look back on my life when I am older, I will face my death like my grandmother did—ending her life with peace and without regret.
Bibliography:
Caputo, Kim Zorn. "Foreword." Blind Spot April 2004.
| Fluidity of Meaning Name: Mary Ferre Date: 2004-04-24 18:38:33 Link to this Comment: 9579 |
This paper will be about the fluidity of Meaning. It will be a shallow dive into deep water; an analysis of an abstract concept in a three page paper. I will explore meaning by looking at its symbolic form, the word. The word 'meaning' is not necessarily a solid symbol, words never are. Words are symbols of ideas and ideas change over time. Lastly, this essay will comment on the fluidity of meaning as portrayed by Herman Melville in his novel Moby Dick.
Meaning - noun
1. what is intended to be, or in fact is, signified, intended, indicated, or referred to, or understood; signification, purport, import, sense, or significance
2. psychological or moral sense, purpose, or intention (4)
This definition seems to say that meaning is not necessarily a steady thing. It could mean either fact or intention. Some meanings are true and some meanings are based on our intention of what something means. It is interesting that we use the one word for two very important distinctions. Why does this word have a fluid, changeable definition?
The concept of meaning has moved along the current of time. Today's definition of meaning seems to contain some of Ancient Greek philosophy, some of Modern Western philosophy and today's Postmodern philosophy. Plato's philosophy of forms was that the true meaning of everything is essential, unchanging and beyond human observation (factual). The Modernists believed that truth could be attained through science and reason (factual through human observation). Postmodernists believe that meaning always involves self-serving human perceptions (intention).
Perhaps this plural dictionary definition of meaning as fact and intention is an artifact of the evolution of social thought. One word now representing two very distinct ideas could be informative of our concept of meaning evolving beyond the essentialist philosophy of Plato through the Modern philosophy and towards a more postmodern philosophy that caused expansion to the contents of the linguistic symbol 'meaning'.
Postmodern thought does not take for granted that true meaning exists at all. Will that further change the contents of the linguistic symbol 'meaning' to contract and just refer to intention?
Today, many thinkers sharply criticize Modernist philosophy for its adherence to the illusion of an "ultimate truth" via the scientific method and rationalism. Postmodernism states that reality is plural and is beyond the scope of science and rationalism which develop from our pragmatic perceptions (1). Any meaning that exists is actually an intersubjective representation, a referent based on our combined generated meanings, which emerge according to a multiplicity of human needs and an incomplete factor analysis due to plurality. Richard Rorty says it this way, "Postempiricism replaces the philosophy of knowledge with a sociology of truth" (2). What will become of 'meaning'?
We are losing our stake in the ground as meaning is becoming less factual. At this point in time, we are just beginning to drift into fluid meaning. We have only a fading illusion built by our limited biological brains to keep us buoyant.
Further into the water with the postmodern lessons of Melville
Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick is a reflection of the postmodern trend towards an expansion of 'meaning' and away from the essentialism of Plato and absolute truths of Modernity. I witness Melville's liberal, postmodern definition of 'meaning' when at the very opening of his book he gives us the multitudes of different words for whale from world cultures. The supplier of this etymology of whales is a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School. This etymology humbly expresses right from the beginning of his creative linguistic effort that words are symbols created by people, they may mean something, but their meaning is subjective and also changeable. One further heartening lesson from Melville's etymology is that everyone's view should be incorporating in meaning for the best effect.
On the second page of the book, Melville provides some quotations about whales. These he says are supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian. In his postmodern way, Melville writes, "
...Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable and entertaining, as affording a bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including your own.
Melville's words sound like the postmodernist warning against finding gospel truth in authentic statements, from science for instance. Also, he advises that words of generations, nations, and individuals only offer a bird's eye view of anything. That is only the second page of his novel.
Melville goes on. He awesomely packs his tale full of intricate patterns that we all share. His narrator Ishmael is a very open-minded character who takes the reader on a whaling adventure. Although we go from solid land to the fluid sea, Ishmael's skillful observations throughout the story are made up of stuff of life that we all experience, and so we stay at home in our mind and think about the meaning of things, of life. Ishmael weaves possible meaning into the tale, but most attractively, he leaves space and stimulates the reader's meaning-seeking mind in ways that encourage one's own interpretation of the intricate nature of life's experiences. In addition to a reader's invitation to join in the creation of meaning, the narrator Ishmael models a postmodern individual who has his mind wide open, and ends up swimming in the ocean with nothing much to hold onto.
Thar she blows!
References
Cahoone, Lawrence, E. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Fuchs, Stephan. The Social Organization of Scientific Knowledge. Sociological Theory, 4(2), 126- 142. 1986.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick (1851). New York: Norton, 2002.
New World Dictionary of American English. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
| Starbuck's Evolution Name: Katherine Date: 2004-04-24 23:14:09 Link to this Comment: 9584 |
Starbuck made his first appearance in Herman Melville's book Moby Dick as the first mate to Captain Ahab aboard the Pequod. Little is told about the character and life of Starbuck within the pages of Melville's book. From bits of conversation and narration certain facts are learned about the first mate. These few passages indicate that he is a man from Nantucket who has chosen a life on the sea. He hunts whales vigorously and fearlessly with his crew; and when he sets sail he leaves behind (on land) a wife named Mary and small son. These sparse facts do not carry the reader deep into the development of his character. Most of his thoughts and ambitions are left unexplored. The lack of attention given to Starbuck in Moby Dick, however, is made up for within the pages of another novel. The same first mate appears again in Sena Naslund's novel Ahab's Wife. Naslund chooses to elaborate on the life and character of Starbuck, evolving him into a far more complex and graspable (human) character than in his novel of origin.
Within the pages of Moby Dick, Starbuck is given few places in which to comment or add his own dialogue. Mostly he is a silent character who is full of action. He rides the ship commanding the men on the Pequod while also loyally following the orders of his Captain. He rises out of the pages to take charge in the moments of chase, when small boats are lowered in pursuit of a whale. At these points he stands forward in the novel, just as he stands at the head of his crew, bold and energetic. He urges his crew forward with threatening shouts and hearty encouragement. "Spring, my boys, spring! Every man look out along his oars!"
In Ahab's Wife, however, Naslund sees Starbuck beyond the role of first mate and coxswain, as a man of both action, words, and feelings. She presents Starbuck as a sensible and sensitive man who longs more for his home and family than for the blubber of a whale. In the extracts which begin her novel, Naslund chooses to introduce both her book and Starbuck with a quote taken from the final chapters of Moby Dick. This quote captures just an inkling of the sensitive Starbuck which appears in her own novel. As Starbuck steers the Pequod he questions his captain, "...why should anyone give chase to that hated fish!...-this instant let me alter the coarse! How cheerily, how hilarious, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again!...my Mary...promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail!" This extract from the pages of Moby Dick pulls back, for a moment, the screen which keeps Starbuck's character shallow and distant. In this moment Starbuck breaks his silence and his actions turn to thoughts. Here he is a man with his own mind, not a coxswain with his entire focus on the goal of the group. He remains loyal to his captain's wishes, but there is a resistance and opposition to the orders. The focus of Starbuck's thoughts lies far away from the ocean, on land, in a little house in Nantucket. They are not murderously directed towards hunting a whale, but tenderly turned towards his home and family. In this moment he is a family man, a lover and a father.
Naslund pounces on this temporary drawing back of the curtain. She pries, from this dialogue between captain and first mate, Starbuck's tenderness, his longing, and his love for his family. Though Starbuck is essentially the same man within the two novels- a sailor and first mate to Captain Ahab- his presence and character evolves between the two stories. The molding of his new character begins as Naslund continues the conversation started between Ahab and Starbuck in Moby Dick; only this time, the conversation about Mary and their child takes place between Starbuck and Una (also known later as Ahab's wife).
"Have you and Mary children, Mr. Starbuck?" I asked.
He patted his shirt, and I heard the crinkle of paper.
"I durst not take it out lest the theiving wind make off with it," he said. He smoothed his chest with the palm of his hand.
"She writes you of your children, then?"
"My boy."
"When did you see them last?"
"Two years ago waved good-bye to Mary. [My son], I see him only through her words, first and last...This is the second [letter], in as many years."
No wonder he treasured it next to his skin!
In the conversation between Ahab and Starbuck we caught a glimpse of Starbuck as a sensitive, homesick man; through conversation with Una his actions and thoughts are coupled to give an even better picture of his character. Here he evolves from a man holding the wheel of a ship to a man holding a letter to his heart. The letter, as we learn, is one of two he receives, while on his journey at sea, from his wife in Nantucket. In the absence of his beloved wife and son, this physical object is the closest that he can come to being with his family. Perhaps as he handles the letter, he imagines his wife's fingers holding pen to paper. Perhaps he sniffs it, trying to find the scent of her hands and her hair. This does not seem absurd, since he treats these letters, which stand for the bodies of his wife and son, with the same care as he would give his family.
This letter, the physical representation of Mary and their son, remains held close to Starbuck's heart. As it rests against his skin he continues to feel it, pat it underneath his shirt and smooth it with his palm. The feeling of the paper on his skin, the edges which scrape his chest and the creases which press against him, constantly remind Starbuck of those he left behind. He is not content to leave his family and never think of them until re-entering the harbor. Even in the middle of the Atlantic, his thoughts drift to them and he cares for them with unending passion. The feeling of the letter against his chest seems to comfort his soul. Holding the letter is the closest that Starbuck can come to embracing Mary and hugging his son. With this lifeline his soul is a bit more at ease, less anxious and forlorn.
The rarity of receiving a letter on the sea makes it an even greater treasure. He takes pleasure in telling Una about his wife Mary, and the son that he has never seen. Far from being an apathetic father, Starbuck, when questioned about his children, proudly speaks of "my boy." Though he does not know the name of his son, "[Mary] does not tell his name but calls him 'Baby,' and 'Beloved Child," and 'Puck...," he cares more for the boy than do many land-living fathers. He brags about his child, recounting to Una Mary's story about the toy boat that "Puck" sailed across a puddle. He speculates joyfully on the name of the child and laughs at the playfulness of Mary's letters. The joy that Starbuck finds in her words and in her images of their son shows a man who is full of hope and life. He loves the flirtatious game that Mary plays with him, withholding the name of their son- just as other things are withheld by distance. His imagination in which he sees "Puck" tells of a man who believes that one day the child will be standing in front of him and not only in his mind.
Starbuck was born from the imagination of Herman Melville and sailed upon the ocean in Moby Dick; but this man was Starbuck the silent sailor and first mate. Starbuck the father and lover evolved later. Naslund plucked from Melville this sailor named Starbuck and, within the pages of her own novel Ahab's Wife, she created a new person- the father and lover. She set aside his place at the head of the small whaling boat and whisked away his captain and crew. In their place she inserted a letter from Nantucket and the images of a wife and young son. With these small changes Naslund encouraged the evolution of a new Starbuck. She grew from the old soil of Moby Dick, a gentle and funny man who loves his wife, cherishes his son, and hopes eternally to be safely reunited with them at their home in Nantucket.
| God is Irrelevant Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-04-25 16:50:44 Link to this Comment: 9592 |
In his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Dennet appears to be the quintessential materialist. In this paper I will use the material and the spiritual not in their ethical contexts but as belief in only the physical world or in the interaction of some other powers, such as God or magic, with the physical world. Of course, Dennet's being a materialist does not prevent him from believing in constructs of the mind, built of memes. He simply believes that these constructs are based in the physical world and follow something like its rules; these constructs are made of memes and evolve like gene-based creatures do.
In the very first chapter he completely dismisses creationism, calling it "a pathetic hodge-podge of pious pseudo-science"(18). He says that "an anthropomorphic Handicrafter God"(18) cannot coexist with Darwinian ideas. Later on the same page he acknowledges that scientists often do find things sacred, but he suggests things like intelligence, beauty, or a vague God that will not compete with evolution. He does not say what he believes in, beyond saying that he looks fondly on simple and trusting religion but has "outgrown" (18) it. Religion in Dennet's eyes is perfectly reasonable, but it cannot conflict with evolution. If they battle head on, religion loses.
This is because religion is this nice but nebulous thing, but evolution is to him a cold, hard fact. He admits that there are a few controversies still surrounding it, but insists "the controversies concern issues that are 'just science' [...] the outcome will not undo the basic Darwinian idea"(19). The basic idea is a fact, not a theory. It cannot be challenged, and certainly not by pleasant but powerless religion. Evolution seems almost to be Dennet's religion; he talks about it in the glowing, universal terms in which religion is often presented. It is "the single best idea anyone has ever had,"(21) and it "unifies the realm of life, meaning, and purpose with the realm of space and time, cause and effect, mechanism and physical law" (21). What need for some antiquated father figure when one has a proved theory that unifies meaning and science? Evolution encompasses everything with no need for the aid of the spiritual, and Dennet sets out to prove that.
Skyhooks, which are the deus ex machina requirements that he says invalidate many of his opponents' arguments, are what spirituality and its ilk are based on. Dennet shies away from the idea that there might be anything other than the physical world, with all of life's grand variation and the behavior and thoughts of living things produced by evolution alone. He flatly denies that anything else might be needed to explain anything that happens in the universe. Deities, spirits, and souls are all impossible to prove and therefore cannot be used to prove or explain anything else.
This is a point of view that frightens a lot of people for many reasons. For example, the absence of the spiritual would mean that there is no life after death, and therefore death is complete oblivion. Upbringing makes many people resistant to pure materialism; people are instilled with faith in the spiritual at a young age and the inability to prove it means that it cannot be unproven either, and so they flatly resist Dennet's point of view. There is also the fact that if free will is thought of as a spiritual thing then everything being material would mean there can be no free will, only various chemical reactions in human brains. Also, if there is nothing but the material universe, and the universe is expanding from a point, then the universe must be finite, so everything must be finite, which some people find to be an inexplicably awful thought.
Dennet, unlike the people who follow the reasons above and many others, seems terrified by the thought that everything might not be material. He is driven to come up with an explanation for everything, one that can be tested and proven, and shows terror at the thought of true inscrutability as well. On pages 381-383, he discusses the idea of cognitive closure, that there might be things that human brains simply cannot understand. He rejects it, saying that if we understand a question, such as "what is free will?" we must also be able to understand the answer. He will not even consider the possibility of this idea unless his objection is countered with physical proof, "animals (or people) who can be baffled by questions whose true answers could not unbaffle them, they have given us no evidence of the reality or even the likelihood"(383) of there being mysteries that human beings simply cannot comprehend.
This makes Dennet's refusal to deal with the spiritual perfectly sensible. The very nature of the spiritual is to be untestable and mysterious. Dennet rejects the possibility that there is anything that humans cannot understand, so the spiritual is anathema. So he strives to prove everything via the physical world, proving that the spiritual is not needed and cannot be found.
Evolution is a concept that does exactly what Dennet wants concepts to do; it explains the world without using spirituality. There is no need for a Creator; speciation is natural. Starting with nothing but the laws of physics and the matter and energy in the universe, it should theoretically be possible to work up to evolution. Of course, even though humans have some grasp of both physics and evolution, it is very unlikely that we will ever be able to do any such thing, but it should theoretically be possible. This delights Dennet, who is convinced that the entire world must work this way, and so in Darwin's Dangerous Idea he sets out to prove that it does. He happily develops grand philosophies that require nothing but the principles of evolution. Culture has evolved, with units of memes as living creatures evolve with genes. And this can be traced back to biology because memes move through our organic brains, and our brains are made up of various organic chemical interactions, and the chemicals are all made of atoms which follow the rules of physics. Thus human culture, including its highest ideals like morality, can be traced back to basic physics without need of the aid of God or anything similar because of the wonderful mechanism of evolution.
Dennet's zeal to exclude any need for the spiritual from the world can be slightly unnerving. A principle reaction to these kinds of ideas is denying them, saying that anyone who wants to explain the world in nothing but the material is at best foolish, and finding some chink in these theories in which to insert the spiritual or the infinite, or possibly just dismissing these theories.
This is not really necessary. It may be necessary to put some buffer between oneself and these materialistic theories, such as treating them as thought experiments or assuming that they deal with what is material and simply neglect to deal with spiritual things, rather than denying the possibility of there being spiritual things. But it may be best to follow Dennet, to research the whole world until we run into things that can't be explained simply on the basis of the material. After all, if the spiritual is real, then should it not stand up to research? Simply refusing to look closer at one's beliefs shows a lack of faith in them, a suspicion that they are not true and will not hold up to scrutiny, and that does not seem like real faith.
| Elemental Personalities Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-04-25 16:52:21 Link to this Comment: 9593 |
The scientific way of organizing the world is wonderful for understanding chemical reactions but very poor for making good stories. Stories need connection, give and take, and a level of simplicity and elegance in the basis of their world. My favorite basis on which to organize the world for a story is the old four elements; fire, water, earth, and air, which appear most obviously in Ahab's Wife when Ahab says they constitute nature the night he and Una marry (356), but they are found throughout the book. People have elements woven into and echoed by their personalities, in the way they behave and the places they are happy, and the very events of the book reflect them.
The element that first strikes me as having the most power in this book is water. Water is, I think, a mysterious, changeable, and sometimes treacherous element. It has in itself, and gives to others, free movement, which delights Una off seeking adventure, and indeed most of the people in this book who put to sea seem on some level to be looking for the freedom of water, as well as the adventures hidden in its mysterious depths. Some, like the mustachioed captain, have rather forgotten this desire for freedom and adventure, running a shuttle between various ports. But the whalers are out to be carried into the element that hides so much within it and that humans know so little of, to see if they can take it on.
Una runs out of this desire to freely explore the mysteries of the deep when she loses a fight with it. It doesn't seem so surprising to me that she loses; as much as the sailors want to take on nature, they are a small part of nature, and to fight it is to fight themselves, and the whole bulk of the world besides. They cannot win this battle. Nature is greater than humans, and will win in any head to head competition.
Una was not really water-spirited in the first place anyway, in my opinion, so when she has had some exploring adventure she runs low on interest for the element and forgets it, which is common for the element that I think she contains most; air. Una has the internal freedom that air has. She makes descisons on the spot, from things like whether she wants to haul her suitcase around the woods to whether she shall got to sea and leave her current life behind her. Having picked her road, she happily follows it, largely unaffected by the way she was before, like some air going from indoors to outdoors, neither leaving nor keeping a mark of what it was. She has a love of freedom, good for a sailors wife who is given so much, and freedom is one of the most important markers of air, which is always so mobile.
Her relationship patterns are very air-like; she tends to define herself by those she is attached to, the way air is the shape of whatever vessel it is in. First with her father who defines her as not as religious as he is, and later whether she shall be Kit or Giles' wife, and then as Ahab's wife, which the book names her as. She is the title character, but only as she relates to someone else. But the element we are like is not everything, and she develops the ability, slowly but surely, to define herself by something within her, which is of no element but rather uniquely human.
When she tells David to carve her maiden name, Una Spenser, into the tree (437), it seems a point where she has taken a large step forward in finding her own shape rather than fitting herself in the vessel of her friends and family. The name Spenser is still her father's, but she seems to have freed Spenser of meaning someone else. Her childhood, with its rejection from her father and isolation on the island, is cut away from her now that her parents are dead and her farm being sold, as well as her aunt's family moving away from the island. Perhaps more important, the last trip away from her first home is full of symbols of renewal, with spring catching up to her (427) and her feeling of being an unsexual girl again because she is not menstruating or pregnant (431). Interestingly, both spring and girlhood, in my mind at least, are attached to the element air. I always find it pleasing when things circle around like that, like the ourobouros, a snake eating its tail which is an ancient symbol of eternity.
Fire and earth are less obvious in this book, but they are still there to be found. Fire is of course present on the wedding night of Ahab and Una, in its place as changer. Fire destroys the old to make way for the new, like when a forest fire burns up the choking undergrowth to allow for new plants. The day of the fire is a day of purification. Una learns her husband Kit is never coming back (346), freeing her of the last external tie to childhood loves and the horrors of the open boat at sea. Mrs. Macy bathes her (347), a traditional purifying ritual before marriage; Mrs. Macy calls it a bridal bath on page 372, and during the bath itself compliments Una on her body's ability to bear children. But water, for all its cleaning powers, cannot really purify Una for her transition from a child married to a mad childhood love to a woman in the marriage the book is named for. A closer look at the elements, however, can guide us through her transition.
As I said above, I correlate air with girlhood, often called maidenhood, because of the intervening step of the season spring. The ancient female stages of life, older than the elements even, are maiden, mother, and crone. So air is spring's maiden, the burst of new growth. Autumn, when the plants are full of fruit and the year is older, belongs to the mother and to earth; really, the 'earth mother/mother earth' archetype. Finally, when the year is winding down and the plants are dying, is winter, the crone's season, and watery, though I'm not sure why, perhaps because I grew up somewhere where winter meant rain every day, or perhaps for some deeper reason I cannot remember. But what of summer, and fire? The heat of summer months surely meets fire, but there's no stage of life for it. Really, I think there is, a stage of life that was not allowed to women back when the stages were thought up and women were married in their teens, going from child to mother so swiftly. The middle stage, of becoming an adult without having to care for others, was not common in the old days, neither those when the stages were thought of or those in which Una lived, so she does not get much time there but passes through the fire stage in one swift night, when part of the town goes up in flames. Flames symbolize the destruction of Una's attachments to her childhood and allow her to create new attachments to Ahab, who will be the father of her first child.
So, where is the mother in this book? Where is earth? The question may seem hard at first glance, but earth is back with Una's mother, in Kentucky. Earth is in the woods full of growing plants, and growing Una, once. It is where Una instinctively feels it would be best to have her child, but she is a creature of air and water and the traditional mothering role will not fit her. She fails the first time she tries to be a mother, losing her mother and her child, but she is not left alone. A friend, Susan, brown as the earth, comes from nowhere and helps her through sadness, and then they get Susan safely across the river and closer to freedom, so Una does manage to help create something. And after she stays alone in the cabin for a while, in the grip of the crone's winter, she is led out of that old life, touched by renewal, and begins to find herself independent of anyone else, because we have run into the ourobouros again, and start again at her new beginning.
| The Imaginary and The Symbolic: Melville, Nasla Name: Lauren Fri Date: 2004-04-26 13:04:42 Link to this Comment: 9601 |
It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men. – Virginia Woolf (132)
Gender difference pervades language, literature, and our understanding of human interaction. Nasland's Ahab's Wife, written using an undeveloped character from Herman Melville's Moby Dick, is not a "woman's book" simply because the author is female, the protagonist is female, and the probable readership is primarily female. Its femininity is grounded in psychoanalytic theories on the consequentialities of gender difference. As defined by Jacques Lacan, "the imaginary" indicates "no clear distinction between subject and object or self and other selves" (Abrams 252). The Imaginary dictates a matriarchal "and unsystematized signifying process," also labeled as "semiotic" (93). This is polarized against "the symbolic," the so-called "law of the father," which lends itself to a more diametrical and dichotomous approach to language (252). While Moby Dick, with oppositional pairs driving much of the story (Ahab / Moby Dick, Queequeg / Ishmael, etc.), can be coded as linguistically symbolic, Ahab's Wife, with its weblike center (Una / Kit, Una / Giles, Giles / Kit, etc.), showcases the typically female imaginary.
Nasland's approach to ordering plot and arranging characters marks her book as female, but her use of language and the style of her prose reinforces it. Her writing tends toward the overwritten, the shamelessly emotive, the deeply personal, the occasionally melodramatic. Any possible masculinity of tone is lost with lines such as, "Felicity! How glad I was that I had given only a part of my heart to Kit and surely could reclaim it" (Nasland 123). Since Moby Dick served as a jumping off point, it is possible that Nasland aimed to jump as far from the patriarchal Symbolic as possible. Her vivid sensory descriptions of Una's experiences resemble the essentially female voice that Virginia Woolf describes as "feast[ing] like a plant newly stood in the air on every sight and sound that came its way" (Woolf 139). In the realm of the imaginary, where nothing need be prioritized, no details are omitted.
Her prose successfully falls into a semiotic voice, "rhythmic, unfettered, irreducible to its intelligible verbal translation; it is musical, anterior to judgement, but restrained by a single guarantee: syntax" (Kristeva 50). The sheer musicality of her text marks it as language in the realm of the imaginary. Indeed, even her syntax, while abiding by the same basic grammatical rules as Melville's, is meandering and sprawling, wary "of the signifier that would take [one] back to the authority of a signified" (Cixous 91). Sentences sing, not with a directional beginning, middle, and end, but rather as balls of yarn, unravelling unpredictably: "In her sudden gesture, a salute to measurement, there was such spontaneity, such unconventional desire to instruct, such speed, perhaps even haste to make clear the point, that I determined I should have a very interesting time coming to understand her nature" (Nasland 461). It seems that as Nasland begins her sentences, she is not sure where they will end, or how she will get there. The essential trait of semiotic text, that marked by "unsystematized signifying process" (Abrams 93), pervades Nasland's prose throughout the novel.
Ahab's Wife can stand alone as a story, but its existence fills a hole left by Melville when he wrote Moby Dick, in which he refused to dignify a woman with a role in his epic tale. Many of Nasland's stylistic innovations and her novel's adherence to semiotics can be attributed to this omission. Nasland saw the lack, and she filled it, imposing the Imaginary on a world that had only been represented as Symbolic. This act is significant in part because it is "marked by woman's seizing to occasion to speak," and part of Ahab's Wife's extreme difference springs from the fact that Nasland, as woman, "cannot fail, in seizing the occasion to speak, to transform directly and indirectly all systems of exchange based on masculine thrift" (Cixous 83). Once the ordered world of the symbolic is ruptured, Nasland is free to snatch pieces up and reassemble them according to the Imaginary, "for once she blazes her trail in the symbolic, she cannot fail to make it the chaosmos of the personal" (Cisoux 88). In feminizing Moby Dick, Nasland created a world that diametrically opposed the Melville's world in style and in substance. Nasland's "language does not contain," as Melville's does (tangents, philosophical tracts, epic monologues), rather, "it carries" (89), moving forward swiftly.
Not all books by men must exist in the realm of the symbolic, just as all books by women need not exist in the imaginary. However, Ahab's Wife, as contrasted with Moby Dick, provides an apt example of when this alignment of gender difference does in fact occur. While "it is impossible to define a feminine practice of writing... [that] doesn't mean it doesn't exist" (Cisoux 84), nor does it mean that seeking to understand the Lacananian tendencies of this practice is futile.
Works Cited
Abrams, M.H. A Glossary of Literary Terms, 7th Edition. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.
Cisoux, Helene. "The Laugh of the Medusa." The Women and Language Debate: a sourcebook. Roman, Camille, Suzanne Juhasz, Chirstanne Miller, eds. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Kristeva, Julia. "The Semiotic and the Symbolic." The Women and Language Debate: a sourcebook. Roman, Camille, Suzanne Juhasz, Chirstanne Miller, eds. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1994.
Nasland, Jean. Ahab's Wife. New York: Harper-Collins Perennial, 2000.
Woolf, Virginia. A Room of One's Own. London: Hogarth Press, 1929.
| The Story of My Evolution and the Evolution of My Name: Diane Scar Date: 2004-04-29 14:04:24 Link to this Comment: 9686 |
Culler, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
It is a Tuesday afternoon and I am 7 years old. I sit on the porch swing beside my mum who is reading a thick book. She is home with me on a week day because she doesn't work. In fact, she has never had to work. However, she has made quite a career out of tea parties, mink coats, and social registries. She never went to college, which was confusing for a 7 year old who grew up mostly in the company of Ivy Leaguers. Yet her lifestyle still seemed so elegant to me, almost as elegant as the pink, shiny paper cover on her hard back book. I remember each of her books resembling this, with slight variations. Sometimes the color changed or the artist included a picture of a martini glass for effect. Regardless, the cover was meant to attract an otherwise unattractable audience. My mum's books looked nothing like my father's books, which had a plain appearance and seemed used. My mum's did not look used. I think she carted them around with her to add a splash of color to the seat of her black Mercedes. For years I thought that this was what women used books for. Nothing. My mum never demonstrated anything different for me. The discrepancy between my parents' books was unsettling when I began to realize that someday this 7 year old would become a woman. My mum demonstrated that women were relegated to the sparkly book cover world. My seven year old self quickly began to suffocate beneath the shadow of my mum's career.
As the years desinigrated I began to act out. At sixteen my mum found me reading Dostoyevsky on the beach (52). I proudly devoured my masculine copy of the text, as my father did to his books, with expectation. When she found me there I asked if she would read it with me. I did so because I wanted to better her. As I read aloud she seemed unaffected by the powerful lines that I quoted. It was then that I realized a work of literature is something that is worth reading (27). I read the book because I expected it to be worthwhile, to add to my life, yet my mum's reaction taught me that a book could not add to anyone else's life in the same way that it added to mine. I was forced to accept the notion that my mum's books are literature because, for her, they are worth reading. But this didn't mean that they had to be worth my time.
I no longer have to fight any trace of my mum that I see in myself. Fortunately, for both my mum and I, literature allows the reader to assign a book its value. Value is not static, no text is exempt from this law. And so, just as my mum plotted out her story with her books, as was I able to plot out my own story with my own books. I do not struggle with judgment anymore, my mum has taught me that I do not have to.
Dennett, Daniel C. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Touchstone, 1995
I was in 8th grade, Tyler was in 7th. Looking back I realize that my relationship with Tyler was a foreshadowing for all of those to come. He is the "pattern in spite of the noise" (358). Tyler was wrong for me. I was attracted to his age because of what it symbolized. He was happy and carefree, not serious and anxious like I was. I used to like to borrow his character when he was around. Tyler was tall for his age, with broad shoulders and dark hair. His look asserted a strength which was appropriately echoed by my similar personality. Tyler thought that I was smart, which made me smile.
We had been friends since childhood. We lived down the street from one another. Our fathers would laugh about when to start planning the wedding. At 6pm on March 26th we shared our first kiss. Standing deep in the marshes beside our homes he bent down to lift me up. No other memory is as clear as this one, and no other drug has been able to duplicate this feeling. I remember the rough material of his blue and white collared shirt and how sweet he tasted. We could not breathe.
We dated for three years after this experience. I still couldn't breathe that entire span of time. I feared that if I did I would wake up. On December 23rd, that following year, we slept together for the first time. The pain was so beautiful that I was forced to gasp for air. I didn't mean to breathe. The following day he had told our friends. He wouldn't speak to me after that. To this day I don't understand why.
Tyler was my skyhook. He was my "imaginary contrivance for attachment to the sky" (74). Tyler took me someplace that I didn't know I could take myself. It was a breathless world of passion. I didn't know at the time that I did not need someone else to lift me to this state. Occasionally I forget this. I still find myself clinging to skyhooks, but they never take me to where I need to be. So I jump off. At the end of each of my torrid, ephemeral affairs I always notice something that still carries me. It doesn't always take me as high as my plethora of imaginary skyhooks, but it exists. It is a crane. And I am that crane, and "I am no less excellent as a lifter, and I have the decided advantage of being real" (75). I did, however, learn something invaluable from my first skyhook. The essence of this crane is not always readily detectable, but when you strip away the fantasy of a blanketing skyhook it is invariably, unquestionable there. My soul cannot be squashed. And since Tyler I have been sure to experiment with as many skyhooks as possible, without becoming discouraged, in order that I may reconnect with my crane. And it works every time.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
My life started at Barnard. It was the summer before my senior year. In addition to my courses in the History of Art I spent much of my free time volunteering. This has always been a passion of mine. Both of my parents avidly volunteer and they raised me with the understanding that a life of privilege requires you to give back. I fondly refer to this as Jewish guilt. Nevertheless, I am a woman who passionately throws herself into each of her endeavors, and volunteering is no exception. Rather than earning money, like normal teenagers, I chose to work with a group comprised mostly of men who were forced into this as parole. It was anything but glamorous.
On the weekends I would work at Coalition for the Homeless, an organization that delivers complete, nutritious meals to homeless people each evening. I wanted to have this experience. So did Angie. Angie and I looked very similar on paper. We were both teenage girls who attended high school and we both identified strongly with our heritage. We got along famously.
The work was physically and emotionally draining. In retrospect it was unfair to ask this of myself at such a young age. We mostly fed families. The organization ran solely on donations, and we would often run out of food a few stops into the evening. Mothers would look at us incredulously as their babies cried in their arms. Barefoot children would search our van for what they believed was hidden food. Their expressions were painful and their faces were dirty. They were sick, too, which became a reality for me when I learned that I contacted Tuberculosis from the job.
Angie was more expressive about the emotional way in which our work affected her. She was easily upset by the circumstances we would find these people in and vocalized her rage at the government and our culture. Angie made every attempt to demonstrate sympathy for these unfortunate individuals. At times her remarks bordered on pity. Admittedly, her need to communicate her kinship with the people we were helping, many of which were drug addicts, atheists, and criminals, did strike me as excessive. It was as if she were trying to compensate for something that she did not truly feel. I justified my reaction to her with my more guarded nature, but I figured her out eventually.
Those who had been delivering regularly for years made it clear to the newcomers not to wear jewelry or anything that could be misinterpreted as offensive. One Friday night after services I neglected to remove my Star of David, and so I quickly tucked it inside of my shirt before we left the van. Angie had noticed this. Later that night, after work, she confronted me. She wanted to know why I had lied to her. I told her, "You didn't ask." She said that I did not look Jewish and grilled me as to why I did not have a Jewish last name. I told her that "Scarpa" is a Sephardic name, and that Sephardic Jews settled in Spain, Italy, and Portugal, which is why their names sound different from the names that originated in other parts of Europe. She informed me, ever so kindly, that my blood was poisoned and that her church could save me. I began to walk away. She called me a "Kike," told me that I would be sorry in an admonishing tone. I already was sorry. I began to walk faster and did not stop to look back until writing this.
Angie was insisting that our difference was genetic. Mayr's text has since taught me that this is an illogical argument. Her plea to dissuade me from my life was therefore futile and thoughtless, for genetic material is constant and cannot be changed by the environment (91). This means that even if I had been willing or able to change who I was for her it would not have been sufficient because I could not alter who I was genetically. I have learned this much: our species, like every species, is comprised of a number of populations (75). And so my experience can thus be generalized and likened to the experiences of any organism. My volunteer position was a metaphorical hybrid belt. My people and her people split long ago and the two of us, due to ineffective isolating mechanisms, met again (182). It was no one's fault but our own. However, if it is true that we are both faulted for this encounter, an explanation for our differing reactions is needed. My human mind demanded "why" she reacted in this manner (73). For now the only answer I can offer is "why not." This is because "Darwinian evolution, being a populational phenomenon, must always be gradual" (87). It comforts me to think that Angie's attempt at kindness was unsuccessful because of the inextricable baggage that came with her upbringing. It would have been unreasonable of me to expect that she could ignore what was essential to her being. Not enough time has passed for us as humans to evolve entirely from such interactions. It was at Barnard that I woke up to this. I woke up.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002.
I was 18 and invincible. It was before I felt lost for the first time. Looking back I felt what was about to come, it could not have happened any other way. But I packed the car, drove to Manhattan, and set up my brownstone on Park Ave. I had long been accustomed to skirts below the knees, kosher meals and monthly mikvahs. I was not raised Orthodox, but I lived by Kabbalah.
I don't remember much past arriving at Yeshiva. In truth, the experience was just something that I survived. When I reflect on it I have the illusion of walking up to the school, walking through the year, and walking into Bryn Mawr. I ran from that place like Ishmael ran to the sea (18). From girls who searched for a husband to love to women who search for themselves. From this different species who had no interest in my subversive soul to a place that recognizes that you "cannot hide the soul" (55).
They didn't want me there. The students and faculty were not as comfortable with my different lifestyle as I was with theirs, and my time spent at Yeshiva was characterized by confronting reminders of this. To them, I was just as tainted as Angie though I was. Somehow this surprised me. I had become so accustomed to defending my beliefs to people whose religion differed from mine that I was never prepared for the possibility that my own culture would be capable as asking me to prove myself. Suddenly it was Jew vs. Jew. It became an internal struggle, within the community and within me. The school thought it had won, and so did I. The truth is, I left because neither of us wanted to fight anymore.
Like Ishmael, I now know that "there is no steady unretracting progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations" (373). My freshman year of college stunted my progress and personal evolution. However, since last year I have grown exponentially. It has shown me what I'm not, perhaps which means that I am less Jewish, but also a bit more complete. But it served its purpose. It brought me here.
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. New York: Perennial, 1999
Tyler was neither my first boyfriend nor my last (1). It was April 17, 2004. I knew what had happened when he casually handed me a tissue. I looked down at my lap to find a rainbow of shredded condoms and semen. It took an instant for him to make my temple a sordid river.
I got to the health center at 11:30pm, about three hours after it happened. I had to be buzzed in because it was after hours, which made me feel nervous, like a date that I did not have time to get ready for. I stood there for a moment, expecting to wake up. The nurse met me at the door and rushed me inside. She was expecting me because we spoke earlier to make arrangements.
The health center was as empty as my uterus would soon be. She read me the possible complications. Heart attack. Stroke. I took the four pills anyway. My next two days were filled by body ache and vomiting. As I lay in bed I could feel part of me dying. He didn't know. I never spoke to him again.
I didn't ask him for cash, or a kind word. I didn't feel any guilt for what I had done or how I'd decided to correct it. He could have called the following day to ask how I was feeling. He could have called the following week to say hello to this old friend, I would not have mentioned the incident. Or he could have climbed off of me when he realized that it ripped, rather than waiting to finish. None of these things happened.
Time placed distance between myself and the event. It wasn't until my walk through the campus center that I was reminded of it. The Pro-Life group set up a display juxtaposing pictures of the Holocaust and aborted fetuses. The pictures were intended for people like me. I am Hitler to them. I was meant to equate my actions with the genocide of my people. It was then, dear reader, I realized that had I let it grow inside of me I would become just as dead as my ancestors in those pictures (662). I realized that the part of me that perished was not nearly as significant as the part they wanted me to sacrifice. And I smiled.
| Ahab's Wife: Rewriting the Cannibal Scene Name: Student Contributor Date: 2004-05-06 14:39:01 Link to this Comment: 9800 |
The Murdering. We shouldn't. Voices cracked as lips and tongues. We must. Who wanted to wait, to debate at night? Wait. Night was the time to sleep. Not yet. I still knew that. There was the Big Dipper anyway, bringing me water. Soon.
--
Chapter 43 The Decision
We decided. They said. In the night.
In the night all things seem less real, more dream-like until it feels that all dreams become reality and all reality becomes dream. Is that a whale spouting water in the distance?
Oh, Leviathan! Have you come to swallow us whole? There is a whiteness to the whale that is strangely comforting. Have you come to take me home? To the Lighthouse? It is leaving. Soon it will only be a speck of white dust lost in the watery horizon. Come back. It is gone. Was it ever there?
There were four upright marks crossed with a diagonal. Giles takes his jackknife and scores the gunwale. A fifth upright mark. Or is it a sixth upright mark? My senses are deceiving me. Am I dreaming? Is Uncle Torchie telling a story? Frannie should not be listening. This is not a story for children. I can hear the song of the Lighthouse. I can smell the salt from the sea in the air. Frannie and I are next to the Lighthouse. Apron is butting against the walls. Frannie and I are laughing at his fruitless attempt to bring down the concrete.
What happened to the carcass of Apron?
I'm not sure.
Well, did you have goat stew soon after?
I reach over to touch Frannie, to hold her in my arms, but am surprised to find Chester within my grasp. He recoils and I am left alone.
We decided in the night.
"Suppose we're rescued? It could be the next hour, the next day. Wouldn't you rather wait?"
"Do you see a ship?"
"Would you have everybody take part? Even the cabin boys?"
Regardless of size or condition.
Kit asks me, "What would you?"
Foot? There are two of them. Surely, I would not miss the one if there were the other. What of walking? Running? Will I ever be able to run in the forests, through the wet grass, feel the dirt of the floor? Surely, I could ask a carpenter on shore to make me a foot, a manmade foot! What is flesh and bone but derivatives of clay. Clay? I shall replace it with a manmade foot made out of slabs of ivory. Yes, ivory! His name will be Prometheus, my carpenter, and he will wield the fires of heaven and breathe life into my missing limb. No not heaven. The fires of the earth.
Zeus, why do you shudder so? I would eat my own liver.
Hand? A manmade hand will never learn how to sew. I thought of my mother's quilt. All her love and hopes poured from her fingers onto the fabric where it produced the most vibrant colors, the most vibrant dreams for me. We are but the tips of our fingers. I will not give up my sewing.
Are you ready? Yes. My foot. Right or left? Having felt that most people would choose the left leg, I indicated the right.
Kit brings the tip of the captain's saber down on my right foot. Before I could feel it strike, I lose all consciousness and all sense of reality, or what little reality I am able to recognize and dream of the Lighthouse. I am standing in the lantern room. There is a shrill and piercing cry coming from the sea. It is an eagle swooping close, veering towards me. Aunt and Frannie are yelling from the bottom of the Lighthouse to fight against its cruel beak and feathery fingers, but before I can raise my bonnet to strike the sea eagle it grabs me by the collar of my dress. It takes me out to sea, far away from my home and out into the open water, leaving Aunt and Frannie behind, the both of them crying in the wind.
Chapter 44 The Rebirth
Someone puts a finger in my mouth and I suckle. But I know. I will always know.
"Una..." Giles whispers. He is crying softly.
I am drinking my own blood.
--
No one spoke as we continue to eat and drink. At one point I look down to the floor of the open boat. There is a sharp pain near my right ankle. I must have looked alarmed for Giles reached over and pulled me close to him.
"It is gone. You have eaten it." Giles voice became higher pitched the longer he spoke. "My hand, my very own hand, is sitting in my stomach." I noticed then that Giles' left hand was missing. I looked around the open boat and noticed all the others on board were no longer wholly intact. Either missing a hand or foot. Chester cried softly as he leaned against his father. He was missing his left hand. Captain Fry held Chester close to his chest, staring absent-mindedly toward the horizon. He was missing his left foot.
Giles tore some cloth from his sleeve and bent down to where my right foot had once been. It was covered in cloth, my red blood soaking through the fabric. He wrapped the newly torn cloth around my ankle and tied a knot. He used as much pressure as his malnourished body could supply and I cried out in pain. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he applied even more pressure until I was sure I had slipped out of consciousness again.
When I awoke, I do not know how many hours, days, later I asked Giles, "Why does his body lean so over the water?"
"He is dead," Giles whispered through his cracked lips. "There was too much bleeding. It wouldn't stop. He is dead." Where the left hand of the dead sailor had once been was now a pool of blood that spread through his sleeve all the way to his shirt collar.
"Was there nothing we could have done?"
"No. Nothing." Giles' eyes were wide and staring at the corpse the way a dog stares at a bone. Captain Fry is clinging to his son and staring intently at the surrounding water. No one speaks save for the water. The sea is crashing wildly against the open boat and I imagine it is whispering something. To me. Una. But before I can make it out I hear another voice.
"Cast him overboard," the Captain softly mutters to no one in particular.
"No." Someone is speaking.
"We must cast him overboard," the Captain says louder.
"No."
"What do you mean, no? What would you have us do?"
"He would have wanted us to." I can not figure out who is speaking.
"You would have us turn cannibal? You would have me eat one of my own men?" Captain Fry is close to tears. He hugs Chester closer to his chest but his eyes remain fixed at the man who is speaking. "Cast him overboard. Let him rest in peace."
There is movement. Yelling. Cries. Then silence.
The sailor's body is drifting away from the open boat. The sea water will consume him now. His final destination not his family home, but his earthly home. It is the way it should always be.
Chapter 45 The Alba Albatross
I sleep and dream. Many times I try to reach down but Giles, or maybe it is Kit, holds my wrist so that I can not. Upright marks continue to be scored on the gunwale.
It is decided, again. They said.
"But maybe there is a ship nearby? We should wait."
There is no ship.
This time Giles brings down the tip of the saber. The absence is growing higher and higher up my leg. I sleep. And I eat.
Captain Fry and Chester do not survive the second time. Chester screams as the saber is about to be brought down and his father holds Kit back. Chester is holding his left limb, shortened to the wrist, and sobbing. He can not do it again.
"Strike a little higher. I will feed my son." But Chester shakes his head. His face is growing red and he begins to cough loudly. Blood is pouring from his left limb. Giles reaches over to tighten the cloth around his wrist but Chester pushes him away. It is only a matter of moments before Chester stops moving. He is dead.
The captain pulls the saber away from Kit and, holding it low, opens his own throat. He tosses the saber to Giles, who catches it and stands in disbelief. The captain falls among the men straight, like a cut tree. He is about to be devoured when Giles steps forward.
"Cast them overboard." His voice is fixed, his stare is hard.
Son, born of Father, there is no quarrel this time. Their bodies drift away from the open boat, arm in arm, Father leading Son.
Those days passed in shadow.
She began to speak to me again. Her voice, slippery and soft, whispering my name. Una. Una. At first I thought it was my young cousin for the voice was gentle and had a child-like quality.
"Frannie!" I cried and lifted myself so that I could look out beyond the walls of the open boat. I expected to see her floating above the water, an image I conjured only because I longed to see her. But there was nothing. Nothing but stretches of water that seemed to have no end. A few of the men stirred in their sleep, their unconsciousness. I was about to return to the floor of the boat when I heard the whispers again. Thinking it might be God, I cried out "Leave me alone! You are no friend of mine!"
The waters crashed against the open boat causing it to rock back and forth which awoke some of the men. Before we could panic, the crashes ceased and soon the waters were lulling those awake back to sleep. I am losing my mind, I thought to myself as I closed my eyes to the world around me.
I fought hard against the urge to relieve myself. Somehow it was more painful to let go of the wastes my foot produced than the actual foot itself. Eating my own flesh, drinking my own blood, I felt strangely content with the knowledge that my missing limb would return to my body in some shape or form. Either as blood for my thirsty cells, or fat underneath my stomach. My body was no strange territory and would except my soft tissue with open and grateful arms. With the sacrifice of my right foot came the opportunity for life. It is not uncommon for a smaller part of a whole to sacrifice itself for the love of the whole. Countries were willing to sacrifice young, naïve soldiers in battles and wars that the soldiers' immature minds could only begin to understand for the sake of the country. Mothers were willing to sacrifice themselves in child-birth for the sake of the infant-baby so that their fleshy child could grow up to have a life of her own. I, Una, was willing to sacrifice my right foot so that my body could live. So that I, who loved life and who was determined to survive, could live. All this I knew was necessary but still I was reluctant to let go of any form of me, even if my very own body proclaimed that it was no longer needed.
"Look! Look!"
Why, I could still read!
A ship. The Alba Albatross. Distant. Closer. Closing.
Ahab's Wife, Rewriting the Cannibal Scene: Commentary
There is a striking shift in the book's plot once Una and her shipmates are stove by a whale. Before the cannibal scene, the book is largely concerned with human relationships, namely the relationships between Una and her family members. The tone is light, and at some points in the narrative even optimistic, and we learn to appreciate Una for her intelligent, yet overtly feminine, nature. Once Una, disguised as a cabin boy, and a handful of fellow shipmates are forced to sail on an open boat the book's tone and the general plot changes. Its change is so apparent, and so bizarre, that it was hard to forget as I continued to read the book. The cannibal scene disturbed me. It disturbed me so much that I decided to rewrite it in hopes that I can shake away the grotesque images that Naslund creates for us in Chapters 43-46. The grotesque images were not the source of disturbance; it was the readiness to collectively kill one of the members on the boat in order to save the rest. To consciously put more value on life, your own life, rather than on humanity or companionship is a disturbing thought. A desire to live should not transcend love and respect for all humanity. There are always other options.
I decided to emulate Naslund's writing style for I believe it captured the severity of the experience well. The tone is dark and brief, similar to Una's experience on the open boat. She is drifting between reality and dream, unable to distinguish between the two, and so the scene takes on a dream-like quality as if it only exists for a mere few moments. It is dark because even in her dream-like state she is able to understand that she has committed a very serious act.
It is hard to say if Naslund's cannibal scene is more likely to have occurred than the one I've produced. Cannibalism in dire circumstances, such as sailing in an open boat without food or water, was not uncommon. In fact, Naslund probably got the idea from the story involving the Essex, a ship that was wrecked by a whale where "two of its crew had died delirious, & furnished food for the survivors" (Melville, 573). However, in Naslund's scene, a situation was created where the crew drew strings to decide which among them would die in order to save the rest. In this scenario, which I find to be the more disturbing, one on the boat must willingly sacrifice himself to save the rest on board. If, say, the captain or anyone else on board died delirious, or of hunger, and he was eaten then it would have been a different scene. In that case, the men took no part in collective murder and only did what was necessary for their survival. It can be argued that the men were only acting out of necessity in Naslund's scene, but their willingness to take part in murder makes it all the more disturbing.
The scene I've produced does not prevent the death of the captain and his son. In fact, I tried very hard to reproduce the same situation at the end of the cannibal scene so that the very same characters that were taken up by the Alba Albatross were still alive. You will notice that a few more sailors have survived as well and I think their part in the novel is of little consequence and would not have an impact on the novel if they were to survive. The reason Naslund only had three survivors at the end of her scene, Una, Giles, and Kit, was because she did not want the survivors threatening to tell of the cannibalism that occurred. She wanted to created a scenario where Una could selectively tell those whom she trusted after Giles and Kit's deaths. Because there is no cannibal scene, at least none where eating of other human flesh occurs, there is no reason why the other sailors should not be permitted to live.
My decision to rewrite the scene illustrates the notions that have been encouraged in the class. There are many ways to "read" texts, events, observations, and the decisions we make as what our interpretations of the object in question will be is dependent on who we are as individuals. Meaning is something that we bring with us to the table as opposed to having it sprout on its own from the object in question. Naslund externalized her meaning of life in relation to others in Chapters 43-46 and learning from what she had to offer, I now offer my own meaning. To sum it up plainly, my meaning of life lays not in survival of the flesh against all odds but the survival of humanity against all odds. You can make with it as you will.
It is all part of the evolutionary trend.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick. Norton & Company, New York: 2002, 1967
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. HarperCollins, New York: 1999
| Scripts of the Sea Name: Orah Minde Date: 2004-05-06 17:40:15 Link to this Comment: 9802 |
Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick opens with Ishmael's explanation of why he has decided to 'get to sea.' The sea is a place where destiny does not seem to be set solid. Ishmael is repulsed by the predestined, limitation of the land, so he 'gets to sea.' It is here, at sea, where the fates seem to be in their most malleable states, vulnerable to the shaping of the human will. It is here, at sea, where the battle of human destiny takes place. Trying to escape their destinies, the sailors on the Pequod run away from that which is predicted to come: "nothing particular to interest ... damp, drizzly Novembers in my soul ... coffin warehouses ... funerals." About a century after Melville's publication of Moby Dick, Jack Kerouac wrote about leaving the stagnant, pre-formed, comfort of the home in search of a self-coded destiny. In both novels, Moby Dick and On The Road, characters seek to write their own destinies, escape the futures imposed into their identities. Other characters seek to battle that which has imposed limit upon them. Both sets of characters enter into this tussle by embarking on journeys into the wilderness. In both novels, the characters find themselves fulfilling the fates that they started with, but with different experiences.
Both Melville and Kerouac write of the unknown as a place where people can do battle with the fates. Comfortable, in a home, on steady land, people are limited to that which is prescribed to them. With the stagnant sensation of comfort and firm ground, people are not strong enough to cast off that which is placed into their futures. But, Melville begins his novel with the illustration of men and women being enchanted by the limitless. He writes, "here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land... they must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in." These inlanders are drawn to the sea. These are men and women, who accept the boundaries that the land provides, gaze at the sea as if something within them does not fit, as if something within them is not satisfied with their prepackaged firm fate: what they know is to befall them.
Melville suggests that there is something within each person that is limitless, something that yearns to change what she knows is to come of life. At the root of this desire to enact this limitlessness is a desire to escape death: to embody limitlessness. Whether or not one chooses to "get to sea," whether or not one chooses to accept the confines of the fates, there is something within all that aches for the limitlessness of the soul. One of the reasons that Ishmael decides to "get to sea" is because he has become obsessed with death. At the opening of the novel he finds himself "involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral." At sea, Ishmael losses this obsession, seems to dodge the ever-present reminders of death found on land, an eventually does escape one encounter with death.
Melville writes of this human desire to embody the limitless in his retelling of the "story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all." Here, in the first pages of Moby Dick, Melville identifies "the ungraspable phantom of life" as something that is within each person. Throughout the novel Captain Ahab seeks to control this "ungraspable phantom" by attempting to kill Moby Dick, by dominating that which arbitrarily inflicts pain into the lives of humans. Subtly, in these first pages, Melville suggests that Ahab is not necessarily seeking to conquer something that is completely other, rather, Moby Dick, "the ungraspable," is something that lurks within Ahab himself, and within every person. It is something that one may spend his whole life trying to know, trying to grasp, trying to limit, or conquer.
It is the unfathomable idea that the limitless dies. Death, a containment of human existence as we know it, is a part of what defines a human. But, this entity, this fact is essentially ungraspable to he who sees the limitlessness of his soul reflected in the water. The impossibility of conquering it, the impossibility of holding these two contrasting notions (death and limitlessness) in one's head at one time, is a reason why this phantom is ungraspable. This is why humans inevitably fail, this is why Narcissus, "plunged into it and was drowned." Ishmael escapes death once.
This "ungraspable" entity seems to hold its hypnotizing power in the sea. People battle this phantom at sea. There is something about the limitation of the land that makes people accept their prescribed destiny and the fact that they are going to die. There is something about the land that disallows one from engaging in the great tussle with this essential entity. But, everyone feels the pull to the sea, to this struggle. It is only those who refuse to merge willingly to their fate, who are drafted into the doomed battle, who are sent to sea. These homeless orphans, wallowing in a landless abyss, are the soldiers that fight the battle against predestination and limitation.
About a century after Melville, Jack Kerouac continued to write of this essential human battle fought by those who do not belong. On The Road, though set on land, speaks of the same search of those who "get to sea." Kerouac writes about a new generation of seekers. For Kerouac, it is being on the road, being without home, which is equivalent to being at sea. It is this standing on the undulating, this reliance on nothing, that forges the perfect battleground with the ubiquitous, ungraspable entity.
Kerouac writes in the first pages of his novel,
I woke up as the sun was reddening; and that was the one distinct time in my life, the strangest moment of all, when I didn't know who I was – I was far away from home, haunted and tired with travel, in a cheap hotel room I'd never seen, hearing the hiss of steam outside, and the creak of the old wood of the hotel, and footsteps upstairs, and all the sad sounds, and I looked at the cracked high ceiling and really didn't know who I was for about fifteen strange seconds. I wasn't scared; I was just somebody else, some stranger, and my whole life was a haunted life, the life of a ghost. I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future, and maybe that's why it happened right there and then, that strange red afternoon.
The writer has just stepped onto the road. He is sleeping in a dirty hotel room far from anyone he knows. He's left the stability and the confines of a society where, there are expectations of him, where his future is limited by how he is perceive. Now he is on the road and the familiarity of his society is not there to constantly remind him of his limits. Now, he is lying in an anonymous place. He cannot be limited by the rules of this place because he does not know them. This place has no control over him because it does not know who he is. It is in this moment of not knowing that the writer has the ability to look at himself without the confines of the stagnant, the confines of his prescribed destiny, without the confines of home, without the confines of solid land. It is in this moment of not knowing that he is absolutely free from all confines. Here, he is limitless.
In this dirty hotel room, the writer begins an uncharted voyage into the future. He shakes off the confines of the East of his youth and steps gingerly across the line into the West; he is seeking at sea. Kerouac writes a character similar to Melville's Ishmael. Both storytellers cast off the confines of the land, of home, and step foot onto unsteady terrain in search of an unbounded, an immortal essence within.
Melville writes, too, of another kind of seaman. Ahab, the captain of the Pequod, is not cast out by the land, rather he is drawn to the sea in search of the white whale. He is orphaned by the cruelties of the sea. Ahab articulates his abandonment by saying,
I do glory in my genealogy. But though art but my fiery father; my sweet mother I know not. Oh, cruel! What hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thing is greater. Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical."
Ahab says that the difference between himself and the omnipotent being is that the omnipotent does not know how he began or where he came from so he has declared himself as 'unbegun,' and 'unbegotten:' eternal. But, Ahab, on the other hand, knows that he was begun and begotten; his tragedy is that he does not know from where. He laments, "my sweet mother, I know not." The omnipotent, never knew the feeling of belonging to someone, or somewhere. But, Ahab, knowing this sense of belonging, has now lost it in his calling to the sea. Ahab speaks of the tragedy of losing over the tragedy of never having known. Unlike Ishmael, Ahab wishes he could find his limit. He finds himself in the abyss alongside Ishmael, though he seeks something different. He does not seek his own limitlessness, he does not try to escape death, rather, he seeks to impose limit to that which is said to be without boundary.
Ahab expands this talk of his orphaned soul to talk of the orphaned soul of all seaman. He says,
Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling's rather hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.
Ahab does not seek immortality, he knows the weary sag of life, rather, he seeks to impose limitation. Ahab seeks to be as the fates are to man. Ahab's concern is not with the fact that he has a prescribed destiny, but rather, that the being that imposed his destiny upon him does not have a similar fate.
Kerouac's character, too, knows of the weary life on the road when he writes, "I want to meet a girl... so I can rest my soul with her till we both get old." Those orphaned to the sea and the road, in the search for the life without boundary, grow weary of their restless lives. In a sailor's search to escape limit there is something within that desires containment. In their battle to achieve newness they are always searching for that which was once lost: the comfort of stillness. Melville's characters will continue their lonely search, their lonely escape, until they are swallowed by the human destiny of death: the simultaneous success and failure. Only in death their ships will "unmoor no more." Kerouac's character, too, will continue his lonesome journey until he finds that which he was escaping: a home, a settling.
Not only do sailors and hitchhikers fail to escape limitation, but they also fail to escape their predestined identities. Though the battle with the fates seems to be most optimistically fought at sea, the sailors and the hitchhikers inevitably lose the battle. Our predestined identities are interwoven into our existence too tightly for the attempts of the homeless at untangling to be successful. The very names of Melville's characters tell of what is to befall.
Moby Dick opens, "Call me Ishmael." The name Ishmael has an extraordinarily past. The storyteller, carries a history, not his own, that codes his future. The history of this name comes from the bible. Ishmael is the first born son of Abraham, from "an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar." Abraham impregnates Hagar, because he was promised to father a 'great nation,' and his wife, Sarah, seems to be too old to mother a child. The name Hagar means 'the stranger.' Hagar, brought into Abraham's bed, the mother of his first son, is always a stranger. She does not belong anywhere, rather, she is cast out to wander in the desert. It is relevant that the mother of Ishmael is destined to be homeless.
To this destitute woman, Ishmael is born. The name Ishmael literally means, "God will hear," or "God is hearing." Thus, to the stranger, to the homeless, is born 'he who is heard.' The biblical text subtly plays with this name in chapter 21 of Genesis. Here, Hagar and Ishmael, cast out by Abraham, wander the desert. They run out of water and food. Hagar thinks they are going to die, so she drops Ishmael in some bushes and goes away because she does not want to see him die. She proceeds to wail in agony. The voice of God comes to her and says, "Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him." Nowhere in the text is it stated that Ishmael made a sound in the bush. But, it is not Hagar's wailing that beckons God's response, rather, it is the silent cry of Ishmael.
To this name the narrator of Moby Dick is inherited. To the woman whose identity is homelessness, Ishmael is born. He is the one who is saved, in his silence. Though we hear nothing of Ishmael's biological mother in Moby Dick the novel opens with a description of Ishmael's homelessness on land. Here, too, in Moby Dick, Ishmael is born of homelessness. He is born on land, but does not feel natural to the limit of the land, seems called to the battle at sea. It is here, floating at sea, Ishmael finds a home. Similarly, in the biblical text, after Ishmael is heard and saved by God, the text states, "God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness." Just as Melville's Ishmael is cast out from the land, and finds a home at sea, Ishmael of the biblical text, is cast out by civilization and finds a home in the wilderness.
Melville's text is filled with names that imply a destiny that is woven into the character's identity. Melville signifies these deeply ingrained destinies by using biblical names, names that most readers will associate with certain stories. Captain Ahab is named after a king of Samaria. The biblical text says that Ahab commanded a man, Naboth, to give Ahab his vineyard. Naboth refuses and Ahab becomes sullen. Jezebel, Ahab's wife, decides to have Naboth killed so Ahab can have his vineyard. While Ahab is claiming the vineyard, Elijah, the prophet, comes to him with the word of God saying, "Because you have sold yourself to do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, I will bring disaster on you; I will consume you, and will cut off from Ahab every male, bond or free, in Israel...and concerning Jezebel the lord said, 'The dogs shall eat Jezebel within the bounds of Jezreel.' Anyone belonging to Ahab who dies in the city the dogs shall eat; and anyone of his who dies in the open country the birds of the air shall eat.'"
Melville compliments the partnership of King Ahab and Jezebel in his description of Captain Ahab and Fedallah. While King Ahab's destiny is funneled through Jezebel's actions, Captain Ahab's destiny seems to be fulfilled by the character Fedallah. Fedallah encourages Ahab to fulfill their destiny. Melville writes,
That hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab's peculiar fortuned; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew...unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end.
Fedallah is intertwined with Ahab's destiny, with his very identity. Ahab willingly follows Fedallah into their shared future. Similarly, Jezebel and King Ahab work as a singular identity. King Ahab wants Naboth's vineyard and Jezebel gets it for him. Their punishments are for a single act. They die different deaths for the same crime. The biblical text says, "Indeed, there was no one like Ahab, who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord, urged on by his wife Jezebel." With a close textual reading one may see that by Jezebel did the act, though Ahab gets credit for it and is said only to have been 'urged on by his wife Jezebel.' It may also be said that Captain Ahab has 'sold himself' to Fedallah, sold himself to his pre-scripted destiny, to his predicted identity. Neither the biblical Ahab nor Melville's Ahab struggle with their imposed dual identities. They are both willing to sacrifice their freewill in order to achieve their desires. Captain Ahab does not struggle, as the other characters do, to untangle himself from his destiny. Both King Ahab and Captain Ahab are swept into the same failure that befalls the characters who struggle to unknot themselves.
Herman Melville wrote a novel about the human yearning to create something new, to escape what has already been coded, a life already lived, a future already written. Both Melville and Kerouac write of characters that wish to embody identities that have never been before. This yearning reflects the deepest desires: to escape the act common to all life: death. It is impossible for humans to embody the binary notions of death and limitlessness, so we try to abolish one. Death shatters the hopes of both characters. But, there is something within us that wants eventually to be in the place from whence we "unmoor no more," that wants to find a beautiful place to rest our souls. In the end there is a strange satisfaction: knowledge that no one will fight the same battle that was just fought. Battles are fought over and over, and books are read again and again, and roads are walked back and forth, but always with a different set of fists and eyes and feet.
We fight against limitation until swallowed by the sea. All sea battles are lost. That for which we sought on the road is never found. We embody the lives of those who came before. But even in our failure to create, our voyage is one upon which no one has ever before embarked. We return home, return to land, we die, and leave lives that will never again be lived, though our scripts may again be read.
| Storytelling as a Process of Evolution Name: Margaret F Date: 2004-05-08 14:39:02 Link to this Comment: 9817 |
Throughout our course this year, there have been many discussions on evolution, niches, and branches of the tree of life. We talked about biological evolution, which led to cultural, and then literary evolution. It was discussed that stories follow the same pattern that biological evolution follows. Stories, no matter how many times they are retold, can create new niches, and new tales. Biological evolution shows that life can grow and blossom, and become extinct at the same time. The same is seen with stories, some continue and new stories are written based on them, while others are left by the wayside.
Culture is constantly changing and adapting, and storytelling plays a major role in culture. The people who choose to tell their stories publicly influence cultural evolution greatly, while those who are more quiet have more subtle influences. In order to demonstrate the niches that stories create this essay will create a story using a niche from an ancient myth. The story I plan to retell is very well known, but it needs to be retold after what our class experienced this semester. The story of Icarus needs a new angle.
Call me Icarus...
There are handfuls of paintings depicting my downfall, are you one of the artists who drew me diving from the sky? Do you fit in the niche with Breughel, Matisse, and Picasso? Do you tell my story, pass it along to others through art, or by word? My story is one that needs to be passed on, but properly. Don't abuse your power as a storyteller. You must continue my legacy as the artists do. Add to it what you will, but don't change the idea, the basics.
Who am I? What do you want to know? I am a boy, a myth, a son, a word, a bird, oil on canvas, ink on paper. I can only define so much of what I am. Already upon hearing my name hundreds of cues have appeared in your brain. An infinite expansion has occurred, and you know who I am. So why do I need to contract your thoughts? I want to have a voice for my own story. Everyone else has told it, and I deserve that right too. I want to add to your expansion, contract my thoughts and add them to yours. I am an abstraction, yet something concrete, like the tree outside your window. Would I exist without words? I would hope that I would, but it is hard to tell, I could not tell my story without words, that is sure. How can I describe sun, wax, ocean, without them... even if I painted them for you: yellow, white, blue, words would still appear in your brain. Yet I do have words, so I will use them.
Daedalus, Daed, Dad. Have you heard the name Daedalus before? My name seems to outlive his, though he is much more deserving of fame, or infamy to some. My father was an accomplished man, he had achieved more in life than I, but still my name is the one that remained strong. My name is the niche-maker. Did I tell you that William Carlos Williams wrote a poem about Breughel's painting? He did. So did W.H. Auden, it's a niche of a niche. In a way I am a niche of a niche as well. My father created me from himself, and I opened up an entire niche with my existence.
My father was an inventor, and a craftsman, brilliant, but flawed. He killed Talos, my cousin, because he was more talented. Sounds like Snow White, doesn't it, only without the hunters and hearts. This story is about iron, and saws, and towers. Talos was so much more than my father, he was so much more than our family could accept. Naive and young, he had no notions of my father's jealousy. The pride bubbled under my fathers skin like hot wax, it was a crane that kept building and building, while Talos stood under the shadow unaware. He didn't see it coming, when Dad pushed him off the tower. He was so happy to be with Daedalus, to be in the company of such a great mind, how could he know he would be plunging seconds later - like me. We are kindred spirits, my Talos and I. I emulated a bird with my feathers and wax, and he became one. His fall did not go unnoticed by the gods, unlike mine. Hera saw his talent, the way he could make a saw from iron based on a fishbone, and compasses out the ends of the saw (http://www.bartleby.com/181/203.html). She could not bear to see his talent wasted, unlike dad. Talos's evolution went backwards. He regressed from a creature capable of thought, to a bird. At least he gained flight.
My father created the labyrinth. Do you remember the story now? Are the memes flowing back to you? The words that make the story, are they piecing themselves together, creating memories of literature and poetry? Do you remember Darwin's poem about me?
"...with melting wax and loosened strings/ Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings; / Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air, / With limbs distorted and dishevelled hair; / His scattered plumage danced upon the wave, / And sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave; / O'er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed, / And strewed with crimson moss his marble bed; / Struck in their coral towers the passing bell, / And wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell" (http: //www.bartleby.com/181/203.html). Darwin, the very same who wrote the theory to which you cling. I am jumping ahead though, and my story is not yet done.
The labyrinth and the Minotaur were both in existence because of my father. If he had fallen from that tower, if poor Talos had put up a fight, and my father had plunged, would they still have existed. When my father pushed my Talos, we had to flee. I couldn't imagine ever looking into my aunt's eyes again, those dark sad eyes. What would they look like now that her son was a bird in a hedge, afraid of heights (http: //www.bartleby.com/181/203.html)? Perdix was like a mother to me, and Talos like my brother. When my father worked pridefully on his inventions they would take me, we would eat sweet fruit, and play outside. Talos would teach and talk to me on the beach. I would look out in wonder at the sea, the green-blue calm. I wanted to be a part of it, to live in it like the fish, and my mythological kin. Talos would make me shell necklaces, and protect me from the pinching crabs, then we would return to the house and Perdix would tell us stories from her youth with her deep, solid voice. Her voice carried on so many stories, and some of them I remember, but those are for later.
We are in Crete now, after fleeing from Perdix and her eyes, and her voice, and her bird-son. Daedalus works on the labyrinth all the time, and I have no one to keep me company. I pretend that I am Talos, walking along the cliff, trying to create something that will make my father push me into the beautiful water, with the sharp rocks underneath. I look at the rocks, the grass, the debris from ancient people long gone. I cannot make myself create. The objects are all separate. They do not create objects in my mind that I can then remake with my hands. I have no skill to make Dad jealous. Should I jump then? These questions pop into my head every day.
I like to think of myself as and inventor of thoughts, as my father and Talos are inventors of objects. My thoughts are beautiful skyhooks, that no one else can conceptualize. They come to me only, and that is my genius. No one knows about my thoughts. I do not use them for personal gain, or pride. My thoughts are for myself, and I revel in their grandeur, and laugh to myself that no one else has them. They are my skyhooks. Therefore, they exist, but only in my mind. They are infinitely expanded there, and to tell them to others would be to watch my babies contract and expand to different thoughts in others minds. I am not willing to do that. I like their vastness in my mind alone, and I will not give them the opportunity to exist, tainted, and damaged in someone else's mind. No, I prefer silence. I can communicate much more through it. It is safer, and more profound. My name has not created silence. It has created words, feelings, and poetry. Perhaps I would prefer if it created silence.
King Minos will keep me and my father on this island until the labyrinth is done. Is it worth staying? I could stay here with my proud father as he continued to work on his greatest invention, or I could join the blue depths below. I thought of Perdix, and how sad her brown eyes would be if I jumped, and I decide to stay. We've been here for months now. I really don't like king Minos, he fancies himself to be a much greater man than he is, much like my father. Then something happened between my father and the king. Perhaps they were both too proud, too haughty to enjoy each others company. The king grew increasingly irritated with my father, and when the labyrinth was finally finished, he locked us in a tower. It is a tower so much like the one that Talos had fallen from, I wonder if I will befall the same tragedy. Yet despite my hopes, my father loved me too much. He kept talking about how we would escape this island, how we would create a crane that would take us over the sea. A gull hovered past, floating on the beautiful Mediterranean breeze. Daedalus looked at me and smiled, I saw his thoughts turning behind his eyes. There was so much beyond them. I wondered what sort of expansion and skyhooks were swimming there behind his large pupils. He spoke in a tone below a whisper, "wings."
I was so thrilled to be a part of my father's plan. Never before had he included me, I was always the passive one. The boy who stood and watched, who did not take part. He had always been afraid to include me, perhaps he feared I would become like Talos, a prodigy. He had nothing to fear in that, but only I knew. I helped him collect wax, and gather feathers. I am almost giddy with the excitement of creation. The ability to mold thought and concept into something tangible was enthralling. Some say I was too excited, that I got in my father's way, but that is wrong, my father was thrilled at my enthusiasm. I am so eager, so willing to do what he says. This will be the crowning achievement of my life. My father says that we must use what Minos cannot control, we must fly away from this tower. My thoughts turn dark again as I think of my Talos flying away from the surface of the water where he had almost died, and I miss him and his brilliance. He would have thought of wings before my father even saw the bird.
My father worked for days at a time. Finally, I awoke one morning to see him hovering above me, flapping his arms like some absurd chicken. I laughed out loud, and to my surprise, he laughed with me. It is the only time that we ever laughed together, and I wondered if it was the only time he ever laughed. He helped me put my wings on, secured them to my back. They were heavy, and light at the same time. I felt like a god, like a beautiful creature who was above the rules of creation and biology. I had created a niche with my man wings. I was a hybrid creature that would soar over Greece, inspiring awe and fear in those who saw me. Father gave me fair warning, telling me not to fly too low or too high, you remember now. He took off in a whirl of heavenly white, and I beat my arms to take off and fly with him.
The feeling was one that I had never thought possible. Below me the sea dipped and crested calmly, murmuring about my wings, and flying technique. Father had told me to stay with him, but why should I? I have independence, and glory. I felt the ghost of Daedalus's kiss on my cheek. He does not really love me, I thought. He loved Talos, and that is why he pushed him, to save him from the world, and himself. I thought about my flight, would I be remembered for flying from Crete to Greece? Doubtful. I would become a common man, growing up on a farm with an olive tree, and a beautiful wife. Would I have children, would I pass on my genes, my thoughts? I could not picture that life, that serene existence, after having flown across the sea. I would meet people at the market, or on the road. "Icarus" they would say to themselves "I don't think I have ever heard a name like that before," or "were you the man who invented the saw?", and I would sigh and tell them that it was my cousin, Talos.
This was my peak, my apex, this moment soaring in the sky, my father far ahead, and below me. Just as we had been all of our lives. The sun smiled at me in my radiance, my niche, how perfect I was as a man-bird. I looked down at the ocean. It looked so clean and perfect, a lovely day for a swim. I beat my arms and rose upward, closer to the blinding friend of all humanity. You'll never know what it is like to feel the sun so warm on your back, the wax melting slowly and gently, forming to your skin. The sun, Helios, was falling apart to help my wax melt. He gave of himself to help me, to give me death instead of life.
I am not overambitious, or greedy as the myth goes, I did not fly too close to the wonderful heat of the sun because I was stupid. I wanted escape. I needed release. I wanted to go down in the height of my glory. To die was to create space for something new, an infinite expansion for me, and a contraction for the new that was taking my place. That is what my father should have done. This was evolution, a process I longed to take part in. Only, I was not passing on my genes, I was giving room for someone else to. Perhaps my brain had decided it was not fit to pass on its thoughts, its abilities, and so told me to fly to the sun.
The sun grows hotter and hotter, and the wax is dripping down my back, and around to my stomach. The drops fall from my body and harden again as they drip down toward the sea. It feels so warm, so wonderful, the beating of my arms requires increasing amounts of work, and the feathers begin to slough off. Soon I will begin my descent from the glory of this sun-filled stratosphere. I plunge down toward the blue ocean that I had longed for with Talos. I am happy. I will be remembered. My genes are not fit for rebirth, but my name will be remembered forever, I will not disappear, but change form. Change into a meme, a thought, and the occasional painting.
My father grieved a great deal over my fall. He felt responsible. He should have stayed closer, and given me better directions. He obviously took me for an idiot. He thought I was over excited, and that I had not realized how high I had flown. That is what I get for wanting to be remembered. My name is passed on, but with a lesson, a moral. " Don't be too ambitious, don't get ahead of yourself." My story is retold to thousands of children as a warning, a myth. The people who watched me fall that day were as ordinary as I. They thought I was a glorious god flying across the sky. Maybe I was more like Lucifer, falling from heaven, another fallen angel plummeting to the sea. Yet that is not my story, that is someone else's and I will leave it to him to tell it to you of his own volition.
What I wanted to accomplish in writing this story of Icarus, was to use a method similar to Naslund's in taking a very famous story, and giving it a new spin. Rather than pick a different character though, I chose Icarus, because he interested me, and I was able to identify with him. In the myth there is little to know story surrounding him, so I took the original story and all of its facts, and added some depth.
This story is one that was brought up in class when we read Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea. In doing some research for this story, I found that Darwin himself had actually written about Icarus, which made it even better. Dennett brought up Icarus when he quoted the W.H. Auden poem Musée des Beaux Arts which is about the Breughel painting of Icarus' fall. It really struck me that there were so many connections to this story throughout our course. It was wonderful to have a chance to retell it.
Storytelling is a very personal, and at the same time impersonal creation. It is personal because it is created and altered in one person's mind before it is told, or written, but universal in the fact that everyone who reads it will interpret it a different way, and add to it. It becomes generalized through its audience. Storytelling is a wonderful process of evolution. Stories create niches which create other niches, and in the end creates a tree that is as complicated as the tree of life that we studied in class. When we read Moby Dick, and then studied Ahab's Wife it was fascinating to see how the two fit together. In the future, one of these books create another niche.
Storytelling does not have to be written, or be great literature. Everyone should have the opportunity to tell their own story, no matter what context, or forum. In our class we discussed that no matter how anyone else feels about a story, they are important enough to be told. People, in living, create stories, even if it is a very simple biography. Stories evolve as humans and culture evolve, and stories play a major role in our culture. Our evolutionary story enabled us to tell the story of our evolution. We evolved into thinking, speaking, and writing creatures, which no other species has achieved. It is our duty to tell as many stories as we can with this ability, and we should eagerly undertake that task.
Bibliography
Bullfinch, Thomas. "Daedalus." Age of Fables: vols. I & II: The stories of Gods and Heroes. 1913 < http://www.bartleby.com/181/203.html>.
"Daedalus." The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. 2000.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
| Pushing the Limits of Humanity: the Survival Insti Name: Perrin Bra Date: 2004-05-12 12:17:35 Link to this Comment: 9839 |
The New Testament describes an instance of genuine human goodwill in the 'Good Samaritan' parable. According to a story that Jesus was supposed to have told to his followers, a traveler was robbed and left for dead on the side of a road by a band of thieves. Both a priest and a Levite passed by the wounded man, but neither of them stopped to assist the wounded man. Upon passing the traveler, however, a certain Samaritan took pity on him and brought the man to an inn, where he nursed him until the next morning. Before venturing on his way, the Samaritan entrusted the traveler to the care of the innkeeper and left a deposit for him to provide for the wounded man's care (Luke 10:25-37). In this modern age of warfare and indiscriminate acts of violence, it would appear that such Good Samaritans are anomalies. Major tragedies, such as the Holocaust, could have been averted and many more lives could have been saved if less people had acted like the priest and the Levite and turned their backs from humanity. Yet, one cannot deny the presence of kindness. Familial and fraternal love are values which are treasured in almost every society, but is such benevolence genuine or is altruism a product of our biology which predispose humans to pass on their genes to future generations?
Evolutionary Psychology has attempted to answer the question of how far people are willing to go to help others. Would a given individual be willing to sacrifice his/her life to save a parent, child, cousin, friend, or stranger? In the context of Evolutionary Psychology, an altruist is defined as one who acts to benefit others at the risk of harm to
the altruist. Parents have been known to sacrifice food, rest, and their lives for the benefit of their children, but acts of altruism have been documented outside of the family as well (Lewontin 316). Hillel, a great Jewish philosopher, is reported to have said to a perspective convert, "do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you. All else is commentary." In theory, this notion is pleasing, but evolution stipulates that only the strong survive and selflessness seemingly does not coincide with the biological self-preservation/reproduction gene that controls much of our actions (Lewontin 316-7).
One of the main functions of our genes is to ensure their reproductive future. According to the theory of kin selection, organisms are biologically predisposed to help other organisms that carry similar genes, namely, close relatives. Due to the fact that the kin of a hypothetical organism are physically alike, that organism would readily help its close relatives at its own expense because its genes would be carried on through its kin (Lewontin 317-8). However, a world in which all people care for one another does not exist because people differ in value (or genetic similarity to themselves). We are genetically related by fifty percent to our parents, children, and siblings; related by twenty-five percent to grandparents, grandchildren, uncles, etc; and typically unrelated to non-family members. For instance, according to Evolutionary Psychology, since a brother has more genetic material in common than a cousin, we would receive twice as much help than the cousin (Buss 222). Thus, acts of altruism among close relatives are the most beneficial to the survival of our own genes.
From an evolutionary point of view, offspring are essential vehicles through which the parents' genes are transmitted. Therefore, without children, their genes would be lost forever. According to Evolutionary Psychology, this is consequently the reason why children are so cherished in society and explains the origin of the strong parental protection mechanisms that help to ensure the survival/reproductive success of their children. Although not all organisms care for their young, those that do devote much time and energy to ensuring their offspring's survival detract from their resources that could be spent on themselves. Some parents become wounded or die in the attempt of defending their children from predators and the amount of time that is spent caring for them could be used towards discovering new territory or producing even more offspring. Evolutionary Psychology makes it clear that unconditional parental love is the strongest type of protection mechanism that is designed to ensure the survival of genes (Buss 189-91). According to this theory, biology is the foundation of even the intangible process of love.
In the attempt to solve the question of why people are kind to genetically-unrelated strangers, Evolutionary Psychologists formulated the theory of reciprocal altruism, by which being altruistic to non-relatives can occur so long as such kindness is reciprocated in the future (Buss 254). However, the friendships that are illustrated in Moby Dick and Ahab's Wife disprove this notion of Evolutionary Psychology. Queequeg and Ishmael of Melville's Moby Dick are two drastically different personalities, but they managed to become the closest of friends, even risking their lives for each other several times. Queequeg is a perhaps one of the most unique characters of modern literature; he is a cannibal from the Pacific Islands, but is not portrayed as any sort of monster. Unexposed to the western hypocrisies of false friendship and artificial sincerity, he divides all of his money with Ishmael, his newfound friend, and even gives him his treasured embalmed head as a sign of camaraderie (Sanborn 140). Una of Ahab's Wife befriends several people throughout the course of the novel and the choices she makes illustrate her strong dedication and loyalty to the welfare of her closest companions. Una does not desert Kit and Ahab, her first two husbands who were driven insane, even though genetics tells us that she should have sought a more able husband to provide for her. Although Una self-preservation genes did make an appearance when she was forced to consume her dead companions after the Sussex was stove in order to survive, she did not resort to murder or commit other acts of brutality to spare herself. In both novels, it is emotion, not genetic reproduction, which is the driving force that controls the actions of the characters, but the extremity of the situational context can have influence on the outcome of the circumstance as well.
The surviving crew members of the Sussex were stranded in an open boat, slowly starving to death. In order that some may survive, they drew lots to determine who should be killed and eaten. Chester, the young son of Captain Fry, draws the chosen lot, but his father knocked the boy unconscious with the blunt end of his saber; a blow meant to stun, but inadvertently kills. Captain Fry then proceeds to open his own throat and falls dead among the men as if he were "asking for the life of his son" (qtd. in Naslund 241). Although it can be argued that he acted selfishly by not giving Chester the opportunity to decide for himself whether or not he would be eaten and committing suicide in order to spare himself the pain of seeing his only child die, Captain Fry did display unconditional love in his actions. However, did his apparent love belie an inner motive—ensuring the survival of his genes? It seems that Evolutionary Psychology does not do justice to parental devotion, demoting emotions like compassion as solely a product of our genes. Captain Fry's true feelings for his son are indicative of the way he lovingly pats his curls
and the way he cradles Chester in his arms as they ascend the rigging of the Sussex together.
One of the core dilemmas that are encountered in Una's Wife is what the characters should do when they are slowly starving at sea. Their survival instinct tells them that resorting to murder and cannibalism is the only way to avoid impending death, but the surviving crew members displayed their humanity by drawing lots as to who would be eaten. Hunger seems to be the catalyst that can push people to commit acts of extreme violence against one another, but most of the members of the Sussex crew maintained their sense of virtue and tried to ignore their suffering bodies and self-seeking genes which pressured them to do whatever was necessary to survive. In an act that seems almost unrealistic to life, Captain Fry divided the last biscuit equally among the crew members in fingernail-sized pieces. Una "could not look at his shining face, that abstract goodness that refused to fire on the disobedient, that flashed our human doom" (qtd. in Naslund 218). Historically, it seems that if pushed to their extreme limits, people would kill in order to obtain food and water. In Night, Elie Wiesel's memoir of the Holocaust, he recorded instances where the starved inmates of the German death camps murdered their own family members in order to obtain their ration of food, negating the evolutionary perspective on survival. Would the average person act as Captain Fry had in the same circumstances? In most cases, our need for food probably would transcend the bonds of friendship and family (also illustrated in the case of the Donner Party), justifying the "survival of the fittest" adage.
In Una's Wife, Giles was the one to make the decision to draw the lots. In doing so, he said, "I thought I was justified, but I was only arrogant. I didn't want to die." Una
responds that, "I will never give up my arrogance...I want to live" (qtd. in Naslund 241). Una attempts to booster Giles' confidence in his choice because she believes that their lives must be valued since they have suffered through so much in order to preserve them, launching the question of what an individual human life costs and what gives life meaning. For instance, is an adult less expendable than a child? None of the crew wanted to kill Chester when he drew the lot to be eaten, but if Captain Fry had not inadvertently murdered him, the boy would have been killed anyway. Giles apparently regrets his decision to have the crew draw lots to be eaten, equating his will to survive with arrogance instead of selfishness. He feels guilty that when pressed to extreme circumstances, he placed his life at a higher value than that of Chester or his other companions on the ship, but Giles' subsequent death/suicide purges him of his culpability in the matter. His physical death way a way of preserving his spiritual self, unlike Kit, who remained alive after the rescue, but subsequently lost his soul to madness.
Queequeg is the unexpected hero of Moby Dick. He is a cannibal therefore deemed a 'savage' who should not be trusted. Ishmael recoils at the sight of the harpooner and is terrified at the prospect of sharing a bed with him at the Spouter-Inn, but quickly realizes that a harpoon and an idol do not a savage make. Queequeg is probably the noblest character in Moby Dick and if the novel is supposed to demonstrate that humans are inherently evil and greedy, he is the one character who contradicts that judgment. Despite their external differences, Ishmael and Queequeg have much in common. The two both board a whaling ship to see the world and are both disillusioned with the hypocrisy of Christians. Notwithstanding of his formidable, tattooed appearance, the latter manages to shed most of the crew's misconceptions about his personality early in the novel. Queequeg says that, "it's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We cannibals must help these Christians," after he saves a man from drowning who has previously been rude to him. Yet, the readers' developing perceptions of him are jarred when Queequeg reminisces about "a great battle wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening." He describes this scene with such an offhand tone that the readers become aware of the fact that Queequeg's cannibalism is not designed to terrorize innocent victims, but is propelled by a more innocent, yet masculine, sincerity (Sanborn 140).
Queequeg's dual rescuer-cannibal nature and moral dilemma of the survivors of the Sussex asks the question of whether a killer can still be a decent person if they kill without a malicious intent. David Poland, the bounty hunter in Una's Wife, has a similar twofold nature. He captures Susan, the escaped slave, but sets her free because he empathizes with her predicament. However, he also has dark secrets. David admitted to Una that he trained a wolf to kill his sister's husband, but there is more. He said that he and his sister sleep in the same bed, touching each other in the night while his sister's children sleep soundly in their room. David is guilty of murder and incest, just as Una and Queequeg are guilty of cannibalism, but none of them are necessarily sinners or wicked people. David murdered his sister's husband because he was not treating her well and Una resorted to cannibalism in order to survive, but according to Christianity, both of them would be banished to Hell after death, despite the fact that their actions were motivated by legitimate reasons. One of the many things that I have learned from my thirteen years of Hebrew school is that a core difference between Christianity and Judaism is that the latter contests that you are judged by your actions, rather than your
uncontrollable thoughts. Christians believe that there is a significant correlation between what people think and what they actually do, and people are therefore condemned on the basis of sinful inner thoughts, regardless of whether or not they actually come to fruition. To my knowledge, however, neither religion says anything about much about committing such aforementioned acts of sin for a reasonable cause. I don't think that it is fair to judge a person based on actions that were committed in extreme circumstances, for Una, David, and Queequeg proved themselves to be virtuous people in other ways, regardless of the fact that they are guilty of cannibalism and murder. Una's liberal mother eloquently summarizes this perspective on life when she says,"...you can believe what you will. Only your behavior must be according to what is commonly held to be good. You must be kind" (Naslund 23).
A significant portion of Moby Dick is dedicated to the debate of what it means to be civilized. There is a large culture gap between western and non-western characters and most of the Caucasian characters in the novel scorn Queequeg because he is not of their society. However, the Polynesian quickly proves that he is no less civilized than his western counterparts. According to Ishmael, all humans are cannibals and there is a fine line between civilization and savagery. After killing a whale, Stubb "is flushed with conquest" and feasts on the whale's floating carcass with the sharks. Like the sharks, he is never more satisfied than when he is reaping the bounty of his conquest (Sanborn 153). Queequeg, however, never takes such relish in death. Similarly, the characters in Una's Wife question 'civilized' life. Outsiders may question why Una's relatives chose to dwell on a secluded island, far from the culture of the cities and with little accessibility to commodities such as markets and shops, but they are similarly isolated from human conflicts and strife. Una's family on the island is very literary, particularly her aunt, who is well-versed in Shakespeare, and can hardly be called 'uncivilized.' However, her father, Ulysses—an ardent Christian and an uncompromising man—could not be compared with Una's aunt and uncle in terms of civility. Una incited him to furious rages because she did not believe in his brand of religious dogma, whereas her liberal-thinking and tolerant aunt and uncle allowed her to form her own opinions about G-d and the nature of the world. When the family dog disobeyed his order, Ulysses shot him with a rifle, citing the Biblical passage that "the Lord has given man dominion over the creatures of the earth" (Naslund 22). Thus, being a Christian and a westerner do not necessarily guarantee civilized behavior, nor can being a foreigner imply savagery. However, there is the potential of cannibalism within us all.
"He who saves one life... it is as if he saves an entire universe. He who destroys a life...it is as if he destroys an entire universe" (Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:5). This statement professing the value of life was made by the rabbis at the height of the Roman Empire, when thousands of people were being murdered for sport. Even during the darkest times in history, there would always be individuals present who would be willing to risk their own lives for that of a stranger; namely, Queequeg of Moby Dick, who has rescued and otherwise helped several people throughout the course of the novel. However, if such an altruistic act is done without the expectation of a kind act in return, such a good deed is contrary to the desires of our self-seeking genes. Ahab, in particular, acted in his own self-interest in seeking out Moby Dick without any concern for the members of his crew. I have always wondered how I would act in an extreme situation; if I would sacrifice myself in order to order to save my family, friends, or even a random stranger. It has been
emphasized to me during my many years of Hebrew school that had more people been willing to risk everything in order to save their fellow men, the Holocaust would never have happened. However, it is definitely easier to frown upon the past than change your actions for the better in the present. Although I would like to say that sacrifice my life for the people who I love, I will probably never be sure. Should that day ever come, I would hope that my emotions would override my genes.
Works Cited
Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999.
Lewontin, Richard. It Ain't Necessarily So. New York: New York Review Books, 2000.
Naslund, Sena Jeter. Ahab's Wife. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1999.
Sanborn, Geoffrey. The Sign of the Cannibal. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
| Leukocytes or the Anamnesis of an Error Name: Daniela Mi Date: 2004-05-13 00:44:46 Link to this Comment: 9844 |
"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."
J. B. Cabell
"Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas."
Albert Einstein
Leukocytes are innate immune system cells with pattern recognition receptors that detect germs and prevent serious diseases. Whenever these cells detect any body that might do harm to the organism, they gather around the antigen, release antimicrobial substances, and eventually destroy it. In addition, certain leukocytes release chemokines that attract other leukocytes to migrate towards the site of infection.
In all of the readings, this semester there is a meme that forms specific patterns and seems to exert pernicious influence on those who fall prey to it. The common antigen is the concept of freedom. Despite the different accounts presented in What Evolution Is, Moby Dick, and Ahab's Wife, all of the stories refute the idea of freedom. The disappearance of freedom makes us collate our notions of the surrounding environment and, thus, reconsider the meaning of life. By exterminating the idea of ultimate freedom, these stories place the emphasis on the importance of the individual in reconstructing the world.
Exposure to germs
Undoubtedly, chance determines both ontogeny and phylogeny. The fertilization of an egg, the formation of the genotype and the subsequent development of an individual, are guided by chance and, therefore, random and unpredictable. For example, a sudden mutation, some casual change in the transcription or translation processes in the cells, can result in a new feature or death. Like the changes in the inner world of an organism, changes in the outside environment cannot be predicted. Earthquakes or meteorites, for example, can completely re-shape the planet exterminating certain species and giving rise to others. Thus controlling the ontogenic and the evolutionary development of species, chance poses a challenge to the concept of freedom. So, if human beings like all other species, cannot overrule the importance of chance in shaping the universe, what should the proper definition of freedom be?
Despite their inability to counteract the effects of chance, people can exert control on the universe. Human beings are the only species that have developed the ability to articulate their ideas by means of complicated syntax, grammar and vocabulary that allow us to describe the universe. Given the limits of vocabulary and the human senses, different abilities and inclinations to observe and compare, people fail to account for all the changes introduced by chance. Instead, they gather pieces of information and impose order on their limited observations intertwining logic to glue them together in a coherent story. Consequently, describing what they see, people manage to circumscribe chance. It is individual stories that also re-shape the environment. Before Darwin's story, for example, nobody looked for examples of natural selection among the various taxa; therefore, natural selection was not known to exist, until Darwin made the public see examples of it.
Despite our importance in articulating the world, however, words themselves give rise to stories: "...you see the world suggested by the words..." (Ahab's wife, 86) The interactions of the words in a text often create additional meanings, not intended by the author. Should authors be responsible for these new meanings? Can they take the responsibility?
Apart from creating their own stories, words control the range of thought of people and consequently determine human consciousness. The emergence of a word expands the range of thought by providing new means to express an idea. Because we need to adjust the extant vocabulary to reflect the emergence or disappearance of new patterns in the surrounding environment, the array of words is constantly changing. By establishing new order, chance fuels the creation of new words and the obsolescence of others. Therefore, the array of words, determined by chance, expands or contracts a story and controls its meaning. Consequently, chance also shapes human thoughts and determines the range of consciousness. So, in the construction of various images of the universe, both people and chance take part.
Yet, the interpretation of these images is an act of will. Articulating an idea, people contract it in order to cast it into a familiar word. The others then expand it and modify it according to the idiosyncrasies of their brains. Construing a story, people project their own experiences, moral beliefs, social norms onto the plot and, thus, alter its meaning. Thus, depending on the reader, a story may assume various connotations. Because of the wide range of interpretations, people cannot control a story once it is shared with other people. In other words, even in communicating our ideas, we face certain boundaries.
Constructing various images of the universe, people manage to control it. Yet, human beings themselves are guided by chance. Are we free then? Can we ever be?
Inflammation
Unfreedom is often ascribed to the lack of knowledge about the universe. By extricating himself from the mire of ignorance, Ahab hopes to muster the power to live: "How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?" (Moby Dick, 140). Not surprisingly understanding the universe is the sole meaning of Ahab's existence. Having identified such an aim, Ahab restructures his whole world around it. All the readers know about his life on the land is that he has a young wife. The lack of information about Ahab's life outside the ship suggests that he did not have such. Ahab channels all of his energy into pursuing the whale that personifies the ultimate truth in the hope that once he understands the universe, he will attain freedom. Scattering the darkness of ignorance, he can attain the power to live.
Similarly, Una aspires to knowledge of the world in order to break free from the limited existence of taking care of a family and performing monotonous chores she by convention is doomed to have. Una thinks she is free to determine her own life. To affirm her right in doing so, she escapes from home to go aboard the Sussex, then lives with Ishmael without marrying him. In making decisions about her life, she is guided by her own convictions: "Each day and forever we choose to be husband and wife as surely as the spangled sea meets the land before me, as surely as the ink flows from my sharpened feather to meet the sun-washed page on my desk" (Ahab's wife, 664). Contemplating the world, Una arrives at the conclusion that everyone is entitled to the freedom to choose. Her observations about nature help her abolish the social conventions and break free from the bonds imposed on women by society. Espousing the ideal of freedom, she refracts all of the events in her life through that prism.
Fever
Ardent in his efforts, Ahab is often referred to as "mad". Harnessing the power of language, Ahab builds vivid pictures of reality into the minds of the crew and makes them see the world from his point of view. The crew understands him. Because they realize that attaining knowledge is an intrinsic human aim, they voluntarily succumb to his will. Therefore, recognizing the power of language, Ahab is not mad. Yet, because of his insights about the world, Ahab cannot remain detached or composed. Transmuting his goal into an actuality is the sole meaning of his life. Because he is aware of the inscrutability of the surrounding world, he is so intent upon finding the truth. His excessive passion to make sense of his own life makes him look mad: "Thinking is, or should be, a coolness and calmness" (Moby Dick, 419). So, there is rationality in Ahab's madness and madness in his rationality.
Una is as intent upon finding the truth as Ahab is. In search for it, she flits from one moment to another without being able to explore it fully and take the most of it: "You [Una] let go of what is beautiful and unique. You pursue something new and don't even know that the wind of your own running is a thief." (Ahab's Wife, 122)
Unlike Ahab, Una searches the universal truth in the diversity of life. In her quest for knowledge, she embarks on a myriad of adventures. Therefore, contrary to the plot of Moby Dick, that of Ahab's Wife abounds with events.
Both Ahab and Una dedicate their lives to achieving freedom. If their minds, intent upon achieving a single aim, control them, can they have free will?
Free will is often defined as the freedom of humans to make choices that are not dependent on prior causes or divine will. No matter what choices Ahab and Una make, they cannot control chance. As a consequence of her efforts to break free, Una is punished. The ship she boards sinks. She is forced to feed on human flesh in order to survive. Kit goes mad. Her first child and mother die. Can Una prevent these mishaps?
Because both Ahab and Una believe that they possess free will, they embark on their search for knowledge. Taking the responsibility for their actions empowers them to proceed. Yet, assuming responsibility, they renounce their free will. In Twilight of The Idols Nietzsche claims: "Whenever responsibility has been assigned, it is usually so that judgement and punishment may follow." A social adaptation rather than a means for self-attainment, the concept of free will enables society to exert influence on the individual. Allocating responsibility to the various members of a society, the idea of free will only helps to regulate the human interactions within that society. Is Ahab's death his punishment in compliance with the social norms then? Seeing the dead body of Parsee, Ahab suddenly realizes his responsibility: "The harpoon dropped from his [Ahab's] hand." (Moby Dick, 423) Guilt ridden, he renounces his aim to attain knowledge. Unlike the Ahab led by extreme fervour: "I'd strike at the sun if it insulted me" (Moby Dick, 140), in the face of death, he resigns: "I turn my body from the sun." (426) and regrets his "forgone life" (426). The loss of aim of life rather than death itself is his punishment. Without an aim, Ahab's whole existence becomes meaningless. Is it not absurd then that Ahab deludes himself that he is free to choose his course in life, when he cannot extricate himself from the numerous constraints he himself and society create?
Both Ahab and Una receive their comeuppance. But who determines their punishments?
Antimicrobial substances
In her search for freedom, Una aspires to independence. And yet she needs and, therefore, constantly seeks the company and help of others. After Gile's death, she marries Kit not because she loves him, but because he helps her overcome Gile's loss. When Kit goes mad, she finds comfort in Ahab's presence. Likewise upon Ahab's death she resorts to Ishmael to console her. The numerous examples in Ahab's Wife imply that despite her ideal, Una is incapable of being alone. Therefore, how free is she?
Overruling certain social conventions, she espouses freedom as her paramount ideal. To attain it, she channels all of her vital energy into this direction. And in doing so, she skips from one moment from another without enjoying any of them. Focusing entirely on transmuting her ideal into an actuality, she willingly forgoes many of the joys of a simple life. Dazzled by her ideal, she never tries to understand her father; she can only pity him: "He [her father] seemed lost, disoriented, and my heart swelled in pity for him." (Ahab's Wife, 58) Escaping from the island in order to embark on the Sussex, she distances herself from the rest of her family. Therefore, expanding a certain range of experiences at the expense of others, her ideal narrows her life. So, aspiring to freedom, Una voluntarily mires herself in various bondages, i.e. her search for freedom leads to unfreedom. Does freedom really exist?
Like Una, Ahab dedicates his life to finding the universal truth. Realizing his own importance in creating and making sense of the world, Ahab loses his aim. Shortly before he dies, he becomes aware that searching for an ultimate truth is meaningless. He himself creates his world: "It is thou, thou [Ahab], that madly seekest him [the whale]" (423). Ahab himself attaches meanings to the objects and events; without him to make sense and construct stories, the surrounding environment is devoid of purpose. Thus, instead of instilling power into him, knowledge of the universe leads to the loss of meaning of his life and, hence, to death. Could Ahab live without an aim?
Revaluation of All Values
Both Ahab's wife and Moby Dick assert that life itself is meaningless. People live in a universe controlled by chance that creates random patterns and determines the ontogeny and evolution. Even language that instills power into people to control the universe by describing it, cannot supplant the role of random events in creating the world. Every effort on the part of human beings to counteract the effects of chance is doomed to failure because chance determines the range of thought and consciousness.
The world itself is meaningless; people fasten meanings on random events and objects. Trying to make sense of the surrounding environment, people impose order on the casual patterns using logic to bridge the gaps in between them. Led by fear of the unknown, people try to compose various stories to account for the patterns they see. Because the world is what people make of it, it is a human artifact. Yet, can there be certainty about the credibility of the stories? If these stories are subjective in nature, should people continue in their attempts to explain the surrounding world?
Another moral from Ahab's and Una's stories is that the world cannot be unilaterally described. Instead of having straightforward characteristics, it consists of antagonistic pairs of words. The nature of the world is dual: it is what it is not. Ahab is mad, but at the same time he is not; there is rationality in his madness in his rationality. Empowered by language, people can circumscribe chance by describing the universe. Yet, chance determines the choice and number of words and human consciousness itself. Similarly, the idea of freedom leads to unfreedom, because espousing an ideal limits the possibility of adopting other values, and thus, other experiences.
The cure?
Both Ahab's Wife and Moby Dick affirm that freedom does not exist. Two obstacles preclude the ideal: the role of chance and one's self.
Chance reshapes the environment and by creating or deleting certain patterns, determines the choice and number of words, and hence human consciousness. Thus, it creates certain boundaries human beings are not able to overcome. Furthermore, life and death of an individual depends on chance. So, humans are not even given the right to control their own lives. We seem to simply borrow them from chance.
While chance circumscribes human existence by placing people inside certain limitations, it does not preclude us from making decisions within those boundaries. It is the Self that succeeds in doing so. Of their own volition, Ahab and Una incur various limitations when they espouse one ideal and dedicate their lives to transmute it into an actuality. In their search for freedom and, hence, self-attainment, they preclude the realization of the ideal. Therefore, in the quest for freedom and happiness, one's greatest enemy is one's self. If ideals anchor us to a limited life and hinder our further development, should we cherish them?
Given the obstacles imposed by the Self, freedom is simply a matter of attitude. In reality, freedom does not exist, because every attempt to attain freedom results in a form of unfreedom. And, yet, depending on the individual, unfreedom can be freedom, because, as both Ahab's and Una's stories suggest, people are free to choose how not to be free.
Chance shapes the universe which is a human artifact. Because of the ambiguity and lack of predetermined meaning of the world, people are encouraged to play and experiment with life in order to create and attach meanings to it. Freedom does not exist, because every attempt to attain freedom leads to unfreedom. This means that it is absurd to aspire to such an aim. Yet, we should not be hampered by the disappearance of the ideal, because unfreedom is freedom after all...
References:
Freeman, Scott. Biological Science. Upper Saddle Valley, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.
O'Connor, Timothy, "Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2002 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
Absurdism
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. Accessed on May 11, 2004.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Norton Critical Editions, 2001.
Naslund, Sena J. Ahab's Wife. New York: Harper Collins, 2000.
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution Is. New York, N.Y.: Basic Books, 2001.
| An Evolutionary Story in Pictures Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-05-13 15:16:38 Link to this Comment: 9849 |
Here... is a tiny part of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, a handful of the thousand thousand thousand and one tales. ... A story is a progression of noun-verb incidents; each long strand in the diagram represents one story."
And a confection is an assembly of many visual events, selected... from various Streams of Story, then brought together and juxtaposed on the still flatland of paper. By means of a multiplicity of image-events, confections illustrate an argument, present and enforce visual comparisons, combine the real and the imagined, and tell us yet another story.
Fig 1 Based on Lamarck, in "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809.
Fig 2 Darwin, "Origin of Species", 1859.
Fig 3 J.H. McGregor, American Museum of Natural History exhibit, 1914-19.
Fig 4 Gould & Eldredge, "Punctuated Equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism", 1972.
Fig 5 Bielawski, "Phylogenetic inference: an overview", in "Encyclopedia of Evolution", 2002.
Fig 6 Lamarck, "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809. "Darwin says astonishingly little about man's special aptitudes as a symbol user. ... What other animals have yellow journalism, corrupt politics, pornography, stock market manipulators, plans for waging thermonuclear, chemical and bacteriological war? I think we can consider ourselves different in kind from other animals, without necessarily being overproud of our distinction." (Burke 1978: 1344)Following the "Origin of Species", the Romantic Period (1860-1903) was characterized by extreme enthusiasm for and uncritical acceptance of Darwinism (Dodson 1985). This in turn gave way to the Agnostic Period (1903 – 1937), during which the Scopes Trial of 1925 took place. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution in Tennessee. It has been proposed that the trial was a struggle over values and religion, between fundamentalists and modernists, during a time of social upheaval.
Fig 7 Fig 7 Paul Grobstein, "A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century: Everybody 'Getting It Less Wrong' Together", 2003."Most discoveries have been assimilated by and thus have strengthened prior phylogenetic patterns. Discoveries have also overthrown prior tree topologies. In addition, new species have either widened or closed previously-recognized stratigraphic gaps implied by phylogeny, or in some cases even revealed new gaps. In this way, discoveries can increase the patchiness of the fossil record. Such gaps may disclose aspects of yet undiscovered, but deducible diversity from the Earth's past biotas."In light of these changes in the field, how have diagrams been affected? While the familiar evolutionary 'tree' (Fig 8) emphasizes difference, two other diagrams in the field of phylogenetics are worth mentioning for their different focuses. In Fig 9, dotted lines indicate the incorporation of some cell types into others (according to endosymbiotic theory), transferring all of their genes and giving the tree some web-like features. In pointing out this gene flow, the web diagram begins to incorporate the interactions between organisms.
Fig 8 Tree diagram
Fig 9 Web diagram
Fig 10 Star diagram (unrooted tree)
Fig 11 William King Gregory, "Our Face from Fish to Man", 1929.
Fig 12 Fig 12 Gould, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", 2002. He argues that punctuated equilibria, when analyzed as a trend, appears as phyletic gradualism.
Fig 13 Wright's 2-dimensional adaptive landscape rendered by T. Dobzhansky, "Genetics and the Origin of Species", 1982.
Fig 14 Computer-modeled 3-dimensional adaptive landscape.
Fig 15 Strickberger, Monroe, W., "Evolution", 1990. Diagram shows the geographical range of horses across evolutionary time.
Fig 16 Unknown source, taken from Powerpoint slides from class (http://www.brynmawr.edu/biology/236). Diagram shows expansion and contraction of clades through evolutionary time.
Fig 17a Gray tree diagrams: temporary or skeleton pages. Gray trees should be interpreted with caution, because they are usually taken from the literature with little critical evaluation by Tree of Life authors, editors, or peer reviewers.
Fig 17b Group may not be monophyletic. i.e. subgroups may not all belong in that group, may be more closely related to another group.
Fig 17c Group is not monophyletic. Generally, we try to avoid non-monophyletic groups in the Tree of Life. However, we sometimes need to work with them, if we want to divide the diversity of a large group into manageable pieces in the absence of phylogenetic hypotheses. A is non-monophyletic, indicating that B's closest relative is actually a subgroup of A, but we don't know which subgroup that is.
Fig 17d Uncertain phylogenetic position (incertae sedis). Preliminary hypothesis or no good hypothesis about subgroup's position in group.
Fig 17e If the phylogenetic relationships among the subgroups of a group are unknown, the Tree of Life page will show a classification instead of a tree.
Fig 18 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Phylogeny of the haplogroups J and T. Key internal replacement mutations are designated by the gene name and the nucleotide substitution.
Fig 19 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Migration and geographic distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups. Black, red and blue encode for haplogroups derived from L, M and N lineages, respectively. M*
and N* represent a number of newly discovered haplogroups.| An Evolutionary Story in Pictures Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-05-13 15:32:07 Link to this Comment: 9850 |
Here... is a tiny part of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, a handful of the thousand thousand thousand and one tales. ... A story is a progression of noun-verb incidents; each long strand in the diagram represents one story."
And a confection is an assembly of many visual events, selected... from various Streams of Story, then brought together and juxtaposed on the still flatland of paper. By means of a multiplicity of image-events, confections illustrate an argument, present and enforce visual comparisons, combine the real and the imagined, and tell us yet another story.
Fig 1 Based on Lamarck, in "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809.
Fig 2 Darwin, "Origin of Species", 1859.
Fig 3 J.H. McGregor, American Museum of Natural History exhibit, 1914-19.Fig 4 Gould & Eldredge, "Punctuated Equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism", 1972.Fig 5 Bielawski, "Phylogenetic inference: an overview", in "Encyclopedia of Evolution", 2002.Fig 6 Lamarck, "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809. "Darwin says astonishingly little about man's special aptitudes as a symbol user. ... What other animals have yellow journalism, corrupt politics, pornography, stock market manipulators, plans for waging thermonuclear, chemical and bacteriological war? I think we can consider ourselves different in kind from other animals, without necessarily being overproud of our distinction." (Burke 1978: 1344)Following the "Origin of Species", the Romantic Period (1860-1903) was characterized by extreme enthusiasm for and uncritical acceptance of Darwinism (Dodson 1985). This in turn gave way to the Agnostic Period (1903 – 1937), during which the Scopes Trial of 1925 took place. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution in Tennessee. It has been proposed that the trial was a struggle over values and religion, between fundamentalists and modernists, during a time of social upheaval.
Fig 7 Paul Grobstein, "A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century: Everybody 'Getting It Less Wrong' Together", 2003."Most discoveries have been assimilated by and thus have strengthened prior phylogenetic patterns. Discoveries have also overthrown prior tree topologies. In addition, new species have either widened or closed previously-recognized stratigraphic gaps implied by phylogeny, or in some cases even revealed new gaps. In this way, discoveries can increase the patchiness of the fossil record. Such gaps may disclose aspects of yet undiscovered, but deducible diversity from the Earth's past biotas."In light of these changes in the field, how have diagrams been affected? While the familiar evolutionary 'tree' (Fig 8) emphasizes difference, two other diagrams in the field of phylogenetics are worth mentioning for their different focuses. In Fig 9, dotted lines indicate the incorporation of some cell types into others (according to endosymbiotic theory), transferring all of their genes and giving the tree some web-like features. In pointing out this gene flow, the web diagram begins to incorporate the interactions between organisms.
Fig 8 Tree diagram
Fig 9 Web diagram
Fig 10 Star diagram (unrooted tree)
Fig 11 William King Gregory, "Our Face from Fish to Man", 1929.Fig 12 Fig 12 Gould, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", 2002. He argues that punctuated equilibria, when analyzed as a trend, appears as phyletic gradualism.Fig 13 Wright's 2-dimensional adaptive landscape rendered by T. Dobzhansky, "Genetics and the Origin of Species", 1982.
Fig 14 Computer-modeled 3-dimensional adaptive landscape.Fig 15 Strickberger, Monroe, W., "Evolution", 1990. Diagram shows the geographical range of horses across evolutionary time.Fig 16 Unknown source, taken from Powerpoint slides from class (http://www.brynmawr.edu/biology/236). Diagram shows expansion and contraction of clades through evolutionary time.
Fig 17a Gray tree diagrams: temporary or skeleton pages. Gray trees should be interpreted with caution, because they are usually taken from the literature with little critical evaluation by Tree of Life authors, editors, or peer reviewers.
Fig 17b Group may not be monophyletic. i.e. subgroups may not all belong in that group, may be more closely related to another group.
Fig 17c Group is not monophyletic. Generally, we try to avoid non-monophyletic groups in the Tree of Life. However, we sometimes need to work with them, if we want to divide the diversity of a large group into manageable pieces in the absence of phylogenetic hypotheses. A is non-monophyletic, indicating that B's closest relative is actually a subgroup of A, but we don't know which subgroup that is.
Fig 17d Uncertain phylogenetic position (incertae sedis). Preliminary hypothesis or no good hypothesis about subgroup's position in group.
Fig 17e If the phylogenetic relationships among the subgroups of a group are unknown, the Tree of Life page will show a classification instead of a tree.Fig 18 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Phylogeny of the haplogroups J and T. Key internal replacement mutations are designated by the gene name and the nucleotide substitution.Fig 19 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Migration and geographic distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups. Black, red and blue encode for haplogroups derived from L, M and N lineages, respectively. M*
and N* represent a number of newly discovered haplogroups.| An Evolutionary Story in Pictures Name: Su-Lyn Poo Date: 2004-05-13 15:52:47 Link to this Comment: 9851 |
Here... is a tiny part of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, a handful of the thousand thousand thousand and one tales. ... A story is a progression of noun-verb incidents; each long strand in the diagram represents one story."
And a confection is an assembly of many visual events, selected... from various Streams of Story, then brought together and juxtaposed on the still flatland of paper. By means of a multiplicity of image-events, confections illustrate an argument, present and enforce visual comparisons, combine the real and the imagined, and tell us yet another story.
Fig 1 Based on Lamarck, in "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809.Fig 2 Darwin, "Origin of Species", 1859.Fig 3 J.H. McGregor, American Museum of Natural History exhibit, 1914-19.Fig 4 Gould & Eldredge, "Punctuated Equilibria: An alternative to phyletic gradualism", 1972.Fig 5 Bielawski, "Phylogenetic inference: an overview", in "Encyclopedia of Evolution", 2002.Fig 6 Lamarck, "Philosophie Zoologique", 1809. "Darwin says astonishingly little about man's special aptitudes as a symbol user. ... What other animals have yellow journalism, corrupt politics, pornography, stock market manipulators, plans for waging thermonuclear, chemical and bacteriological war? I think we can consider ourselves different in kind from other animals, without necessarily being overproud of our distinction." (Burke 1978: 1344)Following the "Origin of Species", the Romantic Period (1860-1903) was characterized by extreme enthusiasm for and uncritical acceptance of Darwinism (Dodson 1985). This in turn gave way to the Agnostic Period (1903 – 1937), during which the Scopes Trial of 1925 took place. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was charged with illegally teaching the theory of evolution in Tennessee. It has been proposed that the trial was a struggle over values and religion, between fundamentalists and modernists, during a time of social upheaval.
Fig 7 Paul Grobstein, "A Vision of Science (and Science Education) in the 21st Century: Everybody 'Getting It Less Wrong' Together", 2003."Most discoveries have been assimilated by and thus have strengthened prior phylogenetic patterns. Discoveries have also overthrown prior tree topologies. In addition, new species have either widened or closed previously-recognized stratigraphic gaps implied by phylogeny, or in some cases even revealed new gaps. In this way, discoveries can increase the patchiness of the fossil record. Such gaps may disclose aspects of yet undiscovered, but deducible diversity from the Earth's past biotas."In light of these changes in the field, how have diagrams been affected? While the familiar evolutionary 'tree' (Fig 8) emphasizes difference, two other diagrams in the field of phylogenetics are worth mentioning for their different focuses. In Fig 9, dotted lines indicate the incorporation of some cell types into others (according to endosymbiotic theory), transferring all of their genes and giving the tree some web-like features. In pointing out this gene flow, the web diagram begins to incorporate the interactions between organisms.
Fig 8 Tree diagramFig 9 Web diagramFig 10 Star diagram (unrooted tree)Fig 11 William King Gregory, "Our Face from Fish to Man", 1929.Fig 12 Fig 12 Gould, "The Structure of Evolutionary Theory", 2002. He argues that punctuated equilibria, when analyzed as a trend, appears as phyletic gradualism.Fig 13 Wright's 2-dimensional adaptive landscape rendered by T. Dobzhansky, "Genetics and the Origin of Species", 1982.Fig 14 Computer-modeled 3-dimensional adaptive landscape.Fig 15 Strickberger, Monroe, W., "Evolution", 1990. Diagram shows the geographical range of horses across evolutionary time.Fig 16 Unknown source, taken from Powerpoint slides from class (http://www.brynmawr.edu/biology/236). Diagram shows expansion and contraction of clades through evolutionary time.Fig 17a Gray tree diagrams: temporary or skeleton pages. Gray trees should be interpreted with caution, because they are usually taken from the literature with little critical evaluation by Tree of Life authors, editors, or peer reviewers.Fig 17b Group may not be monophyletic. i.e. subgroups may not all belong in that group, may be more closely related to another group.Fig 17c Group is not monophyletic. Generally, we try to avoid non-monophyletic groups in the Tree of Life. However, we sometimes need to work with them, if we want to divide the diversity of a large group into manageable pieces in the absence of phylogenetic hypotheses. A is non-monophyletic, indicating that B's closest relative is actually a subgroup of A, but we don't know which subgroup that is.Fig 17d Uncertain phylogenetic position (incertae sedis). Preliminary hypothesis or no good hypothesis about subgroup's position in group.Fig 17e If the phylogenetic relationships among the subgroups of a group are unknown, the Tree of Life page will show a classification instead of a tree.
Fig 18 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Phylogeny of the haplogroups J and T. Key internal replacement mutations are designated by the gene name and the nucleotide substitution.Fig 19 Ruiz-Pesini et al., Science, 303:223-6, 2004. Migration and geographic distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups. Black, red and blue encode for haplogroups derived from L, M and N lineages, respectively. M*
and N* represent a number of newly discovered haplogroups.| Surpassing Biology: Can we choose? Name: Nancy Evan Date: 2004-05-13 23:36:57 Link to this Comment: 9857 |
In preparation for this paper, I decided to perform an experiment of sorts. Earlier this week, I decided to spend a day defying my gender. This was, in small part, a way to test the theory that I will explore in this behavior: that human will can surpass biology. In other words, that we can make a conscious decision to defy our biological 'truths'. Although my paper will focus largely on the transsexual community, my day as (attempting to be) nonfemale raised interesting questions about society's reliance on biology and the reasons that lie behind the insistence that categories have neat, specified borders.
One of the first conclusions I arrived at is that it is almost impossible to masquerade as not a woman. Aside from the obvious distinguishing characteristics (I have breasts, a higher-toned voice, and I attend a women's college), I found the limiting factor to be my behaviors. I am not only biologically a woman, but I have been socialized to perform the role of a woman. The creation of woman in me permeates every facet of my life, from my body language to the subconscious choices I make when speaking (women tend to use many more qualifiers in their speech).
So, I face that I am tied to my biological gender because my performative gender matches. But what are the implications if the two do not match up seamlessly? Transsexuality, whether male to female or, more commonly, female to male, occurs when and individual experiences gender identity that is not expressive of his or her sexual identity. This can occur in many stages, best illustrated by a continuum. The continuum starts with a female who has always considered herself female, followed by a female who at times considers herself to possess maleness, a female who is gender-blended (a woman who considers herself both male and female, but still predominantly female), othergendered (neither male nor female, but a member of another gender), ungendered (not a member of any gender), gender blended predominantly male, a male who as at times considered himself a woman, and a male who has always considered himself a male.
The implications of that continuum shock many who put weight on traditional methods of determining gender. Transgendered individuals are even more radical to biologists than, say, hermaphroditic individuals, mainly because the biology identifies the individual as a man or a woman. And biology does not lie, right? The very chromosomes in the individual's body tell anyone knowledgeable enough to read them the biological sex of the person.
This reliance on genetics to provide absolute certainty begs the question 'if biology tells us this person is a woman, then why do they feel as though they are a man?' This hearkens back to an age-old 'nature v nurture' debate. Perhaps the individual, despite being male, was socialized to adopt the behaviors of a woman, Perhaps the individual looks somewhat androgynous, lacking comparatively in testosterone or estrogen, so as to be chemically pre-dispositioned towards another gender. Or perhaps, and most intriguingly, the individual made the choice to be a member of another gender. Can free will trump biology?
According to David Grimm, author of 'Toward a theory of gender' transsexuals highlight the fact that all of us, to varying degrees, must make an effort to manage self-expression in order to conform to limitations... in order to take our place in a socially constructed world. Grimm suggests that, while we do have our freedom of choice, we must choose, as so many individuals do, from within a set of fixed alternatives. Biology, it seems, is a force that legitimizes, but does not
| Narratology Up For Grabs Name: Nancy Evan Date: 2004-05-13 23:37:51 Link to this Comment: 9858 |
Organizing information for a paper on narratology is quite an undertaking. While sources are readily available, the breadth across which narratology can be applied is surprisingly wide and deals expansively with multiple disciplines, making it difficult to ascertain both definition and application. Narratology is defined, most basically as the study of narrative form. In many cases, however, certain "buzzwords" are tacked on to this definition, creating "cultural" narratology, "cognitive" narratology, "postmodern" narratology. This paper seeks not to examine narratology as a literary science, but instead it will focus on the evolution and multiplicity of narratological studies with a focus on the science of the process of utilizing narratology, as opposed to the scientific nature of the subject itself.
Narratology seems to create a unique phenomenon in that academics in many different fields attempt to claim it as their own. For example, before narratology became more respected, it was mainly attributed to the world of academic linguistics. The study itself grew out of distinctions made by Sassure in the 19th century. Sassure's classic dichotomy consisted of a 'signifier' and a 'signified', which was later clarified to mean 'story' (the events of the narrative) and 'discourse' (the way the narrative is structured in relation to the story). Early on, narratology began to branch out into other fields. Most notably, it became a vehicle for understanding cultural anthropology through myth. Narratology has been used to study film, silent film, folk tales, paintings, philosophical systems, and even comic strips.
All of these forays fall, more or less, into the broad category of the literary experience. Because of the care taken to assess the subjects of the narratological structure, analogous to the scientific methods used in biological studies, the venture into the sciences seemed a natural progression. However, narratology itself did not make the jump into this new juncture, rather it was taken and manipulated so as to fit into the scientific mold. While common thought leads on to imagine narratology as the science of literary studies the two (science and literature) are kept very separate in the scientific world.
One of the most popular 'scientific' uses of narratology is as a cognitive science (dealing with the way people think about themselves, others, and the world around them). Narratology is used to make the persuasive argument that people's narratives affects their cognition, which, over the span of decades, affects their evolution. This is an astounding revelation, and seems to lend scientific (and evolutionary) importance to literary studies and narratives themselves. Yet, in the MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences, there are no entries for either "narrative' or 'story.' There is, however, access to various articles using narrative structure as a selling point of their argument without making reference in any way to the fact that they are doing so. It seems the scientific community is quick to reject the connotations of the literary world, while literary critics run the gamut in their acceptance of having their field subsumed by science.
More interesting than the arguments and various assimilations of narratology is its ability to be an evolving body in and of itself. It is rare to find one trend that can be manipulated, stolen, or borrowed from one field and transplanted into another (with or without bearing any resemblance to its former self). Furthermore, it seems unlikely that something would be so universally applicable so as to provoke the scientific and literary worlds to both desire it. The question, then, is not "is narratology a science?", but rather "how has the evolution of narratology been so multi-varied?" The narrative-cognitive change leading to an evolutionary change is an important one, undoubtedly so, yet one cannot ignore that the narrative of narratology follows the same trajectory.
| The Risk of the Unknown: What Becomes of Tahiti Name: Rosalyn Sc Date: 2004-05-14 03:36:17 Link to this Comment: 9861 |
The Course
"When Captain Fry said we must set our sails for Tahiti, a murmur went up from the other two boats. Men in those boats had heard that Tahiti was a habitat for cannibals. In our boat, at that word, we all looked questioningly at the captain. I felt myself fill with fear, but I only stared at the water.
"The captain explained that we must choose between Tahiti and Chile, which the latter lay to the east many thousands of miles.
"When this idea of the great distance to the South American coast did not convince them to prefer Tahiti as destination, Giles said he knew that Tahiti had been purged of cannibals by the Christian missionaries. All the men had developed, through Harry's open admiration, an idea of Giles' great store of knowledge and of his intellectual abilities in general, and his statement gave them a pause.
But one of men in the farthest boat called, 'What was the name of the missionary?' (Naslund 209-210)"
Giles, quickly thinking of the lack of provisions for all the men in one boat, let alone three, replied, "There was not one, but many. Missionaries go through all kinds of pain and ridicule to complete their task of converting savages to the Christian faith and seldom give up."
The man in the other boat quickly held his tongue, and more whispering could be heard among the men of the three crafts.
Giles asked the Captain in a raised voice, "What would you do Captain? There is not enough food to feed your men, and the risk of starvation is, in my opinion, greater than the risk of there still being cannibals in Tahiti."
The Captain replied sincerely, "I care more for my men and would sooner sail to Tahiti." Other men raised their oppositions but upon the word of the captain there seemed to be a majority who wanted to risk Tahiti.
Giles and the agreement of the men settled my fears enough to keep me quiet, but the discomfort could be felt among all. For the rest of the evening the crew sailed on in scattered silence. Soon the quiet of sleep could be heard and I moved to sit beside Giles who was controlling the direction of the boat.
"Are you afraid?" He asked me.
"Of course I'm afraid. Are you?"
"I only have fear that when we get closer, the men will change their minds and turn around. There will be even less food for the journey then."
The Morning
Surely enough, when I awoke, we were alone. Looking in all directions, there was nothing but sea. My head was full of thoughts, none of them of good nature. I wanted their stupidity and fear to be the end of them, but I pitied them and prayed their journey kept them alive and got them to their destination. I feared for our own ship and feared what the men might think. I hoped that they wanted to keep sailing for Tahiti, their hearts being braver than the rest.
Giles awoke after me and I could see by the look in his eyes as he scanned the horizons that he felt the same as I do. "God help them," he said under his breath.
"Do you think our men will keep our course," I whispered.
"We can only hope. I have faith that they will." The gentle look in his eyes soothed my mind. Soon the rest of the crew awoke and realized our solitude. I was anxious to see their reaction, which at first was not a good one. They wanted to know what our chances were now that our numbers were much less. They had to be reminded that we knew there to be no cannibals in Tahiti and the boat moved on in silence. I told myself that I would not lose hope.
"How much longer do you think Captain?" Giles asked.
"Another day, another night, and half a day's journey I believe," he responded solemnly.
"Is there enough food until then?" I asked.
"There should be. We packed enough provisions to last until Tahiti," the Captain spoke in a monotonous tone. I saw in his manner that he was deeply distressed because of the other boats' late night desertion.
Trying to lighten to weight on the shoulders of the crew I happily suggested that we eat. It seemed to work, for a time, as the baskets were passed around. The crew ate and I saw smiles here and there, but when it was done there was a lack of what to do. These spirits continued for the rest of the voyage until the next day, when land was spotted.
Dry Land
The boat traveled along the coast until a village was seen and a dock. The village was lively and I cannot describe the joy of the crew to come upon civilized peoples. We could not understand their language and it took some time to find an English speaking Tahitian. He told us where we could buy food and spend the night. Our original plan was to not stay long, but it seemed like such a welcoming place and the Captain expressed the need for a larger crew. I had not thought of this prior to his mentioning and I quickly realized the problem.
During the late afternoon we ate together and loaded the boat with a few provisions. When it came time to rest for the evening the Native we had spoken to earlier graciously helped us find families with room in their houses for us to sleep. The crew was split up but we were all generally close to one another. Before I went to sleep I talked to Kit and Giles who had refused to leave my side.
Kit expressed his relief to Giles, "I'm glad you were right. It is a shame that the other boats did not follow us here."
"Do you think they are all right, wherever they are?" I asked.
"I'm sure they are," Kit said. "Seamen are strong."
"They certainly are," Giles replied. "It's a talent to survive on the water and not just anyone can do it. Does it seem strangely quiet here?"
We were all silent for a few moments. I heard the chirping of insects and rustling wind in the trees, as well as the steady breathing of our hosts. Nothing else was said as we all drifted off to sleep. I allowed my mind to wander in this time, thinking of what may occur the next day. I wanted to explore the village and perhaps the surrounding wilderness. I thought that it might be best to walk along the coastline so I would not get lost. Suddenly, I had an idea. I silently rose off the ground and walked outside. I followed a path I remembered led to the dock and sat on the beach with my legs curled up and my arms wrapped around them. I stared up, silently looking at the sky. I found a star that was directly above me and looked at it for a long time, praying for the men in other boats, praying for us. When my head began to feel heavy I stood and walked silently back to my bed for the evening. Giles was right-it was strangely quiet.
A Day of Dreaming
We all woke early and set about the business of acquiring more provisions. The day moved on slowly and I found that I was able to slip away at a moment to walk along the coastline as I had planned the previous evening. The air was very warm and the wind whipped about me. I felt nervous for some reason that I could not place. I was not far from the village, but the Native we spoke to never mentioned any others. Giles told me that Tahiti was not one island but many, so I wondered the size of the island we were visiting. I wanted to know if there were more villages or just the one and a mass of tropical forest. My utmost desire was to keep walking but I saw the position of the sun in the sky and knew it was getting late and I would be missed soon, if I had not been already.
I changed my direction and met up with the crew who was loading the boat with supplies.
"Is this all, or will we be getting more?" I asked.
"Captain wants to set out early tomorrow morning," a cabin boy replied. "I think this is it. I don't think the boat would be able to take any more as it is."
The boat did look loaded down. Perhaps the Captain was preparing for another disagreement of where the crew would dock next. That or he was planning on spending time on the sea to whale, but that was impossible. With only one boat it was impossible.
I walked on and found Giles. "Where have you been? I was looking for you."
"I'm sorry. I went for a walk along the water. This is a beautiful place."
"It certainly is, but it still doesn't feel quite right. I'm glad we're leaving tomorrow. I would leave now but I understand that the Captain wants another night on land."
"The air feels thick. Perhaps there is a storm coming," I thought out loud.
"Some kind of storm," he replied warily.
Invasion
That night we stayed in the same places we had the evening before. The same strange silence was upon us like a blanket, but I felt as if we'd gotten more used to it. I remember being gently asleep, dreams coming, but still aware of the sounds around me. I had learned to be constantly alert, even in sleep. There was a distant sound of rustling, like a wild beast moving through the forest, but when I heard the scream I knew.
Kit and Giles were awake, as were our hosts who seemed to pushing us out and grabbing belongings, readying themselves to leave as well. When we left the hut I looked all around me. Near the forest there was a fire, someone's home was up in orange, red, and yellow flames. I saw Natives running towards the water, into the forest, and in all other directions.
"We need to leave!" Giles yelled over the commotion. "Now!"
"What about the others?!" Kit and I seemed to say at once.
"If they have any sense they'll go to the boat, like we are!" He grabbed my hand and had to drag me along as I kept looking behind us.
As we were running we came upon the Captain and his son. He stopped us. "Where are you going?"
"To the boat, where you should be going as well," Giles told him.
"What is going on?" I asked.
His son spoke up before he did, "there are savages from the forest attacking the village!"
At this we were all startled and it seemed the best idea was to move towards the boat but the Captain refused to go with us. He told his son to follow us while he went in search of the rest of his crew. "I've lost enough of my men as it is, I won't be losing any more," he said.
We watched him disappear into the darkness. The noise was so much that even when his son called his name repeatedly in desperate protest it was hard to hear him. There were more houses on fire now and for a brief moment, when we were trying to sneak our way unharmed to the boat I saw one of the cannibals. He was skulking behind the buildings, I felt searching for innocent victims of his wrath.
Escape
We waited in the boat, laying low, ready to leave as soon as the Captain returned. The buildings were still on fire, most of them burning to the ground and the Captain never returned. His son had the façade of a child playing with a new toy. He was excited to be watching the mayhem before his eyes, too naive to understand. When most of the crew had returned Giles made a grave suggestion that we depart. Suddenly the cabin boy spoke.
"Not without the Captain!" He said. "I'm going to go find him!" With this he leapt from the boat and started running. Kit ran out after him after a moment's hesitation and disappeared as well. When he returned some time later alone, the boat moved away in silence. The sun was starting to rise in the east and the island was illuminated with a faint glow, getting smaller and smaller as I stared.
After the boat was moving along steadily one of the crewman asked if there was any food.
"Yes, there should be," Giles said to him, "didn't you load it in yesterday?"
"We did, but I don't see much of it," he replied.
"Blast," Giles said under his breath upon the realization of the theft. After taking stock it seemed there was only enough for three days, not long enough to get us anywhere even with rationing. I looked at him pleading for help.
"We can only hope," he said.
Giles tried to keep the boat's direction east, hoping that we would reach Chili before our supplies ran out. He told me that he wished to find the whereabouts of the rest of the crew.
When all the food had run out and the crew had gone to bed supper-less I asked him, "What do you suppose happened to the Captain and his son?"
"I did not count of rebels still being at large," he said.
"There is no one to blame. Would you rather have starved trying to reach Chili?" I asked.
"We are going to starve trying to reach Chili," he said, staring straight ahead into the water.
We sailed on for two more days, the sailors asking when we would reach land, they too wondering if we would reach it alive.
Giles comforted them with small sayings that he often repeated, "Any moment now you will look on the horizon and see land."
The Alba Albatross
My mind is delirious. I do not know when I am asleep or awake, or how many days have passed. My days are plagued with a dry throat and a weak body, my nights with terrifying dreams. The savage I saw moving behind the buildings was there ripping the Captain and his son to pieces. I felt as if he was looking into my eyes while he did this. I felt as if I was just like him. My shipmates are worse. They pace, speaking in tongues no one can understand. We awoke one morning to find one of the men had disappeared in the night. I see the men looking at each other hungrily, telling themselves that food is food. I lose all hope and close my eyes, content to never open them again.
"Giles pulled my head up by the hair. . . 'Look! Look!'. . .
"A ship. The Alba Albatross. Distant. Closer. Closing. A merchant vessel, the Albatross. She swooped down for us, appearing not at all like her namesake with wings spread out and out on both sides fifteen times in length the width of the bird's own body, but like a white mother hen, feathers all heaped and ruffled, ready to settle over her chicks" (Naslund 226).
Analysis
I had many motivations when rewriting this section. Our discussion group spent an entire day trying to decipher the right and wrong within cannibalism, and what could have been different within the story that Naslund gave us. Personally, I found the scenario revolting and did not enjoy it. I wanted to know why they could not go to Tahiti, even to risk it. I wanted to know that if the men trusted Giles' judgment, what made the other two boats desert them at sea. I spent a week thinking about the section and how I would rewrite it. I believed that in order for the rest of the novel to work and make sense, there were some aspects that had to stay static.
My plan was to rewrite a particular section, namely the space between "The Course" (209) and "The Alba Albatross" (225). In order for this to happen, the two boats still had to disappear and the Captain and his son had to die. All of the events had to mark Una in such a way that she would never forget. I considered making Tahiti the perfect place for the crew to be, and having nothing go wrong with the Captain and his son dying in a freak accident. Although, this idea seemed far too campy for my style and taste. I decided that they had to find cannibalism, or at least some type of terror, in Tahiti. Only this way would Una still have the memory of the voyage being a traumatic one. Granted, it is not nearly as traumatic, but I feel that it did not have to be as drastic as Naslund wrote it.
By following this particular plot, I gave an alternative to cannibalism among the crew, still with a twist of horror and ghastly fate for the characters that disappear. Una was my favorite character in Ahab's Wife, and I liked her more than I liked anyone else in Moby Dick. I wanted her to still suffer, because much good can come out of suffering, but to not suffer in such a blasphemous fashion.
| Decoding as an Implement of Binary Understanding Name: Kat McCorm Date: 2004-05-14 10:41:38 Link to this Comment: 9867 |
The contraction/expansion theory of literary expression has been so often used and interpreted and reused in this course that it now seems to apply to so many things beyond the original meaning. Initially, the concept was simple: an author takes the ideas in her own head, contracts them into a written form, which is then expanded again in the mind of the reader. An extrapolated form of this is the concept that an entire novel could be a "contracted version" or can be written in a expanded manner, and yet there is no agreement as to what is what. Even so, we continue to use this quite binary metaphor in order to describe our experience of novels, and analyze why we harbor feelings of like and dislike for them. We are naturally drawn to these binary metaphorical explanations, it seems, because of the prevalence of them. In fact, the use of a binary metaphorical dichotomy and our sense that there is a need to "decode" what we read have interesting extrapolations into the field of higher math, as well as arithmetic. The interconnectedness of idea in higher math decoding theory and literary writing styles provides me with an interesting platform for further interpretation in both fields. I admit, however, that a comparison from so broad a field as literature to so precise a field as mathematics can be restrictive of the freedom of interpretation inherent to literary analysis. But I also claim that our binary concept of "contraction" and "expansion" together with the perceived connotations of each of these words is equally restrictive. As Orah said in the forum: "I guess what I am protesting against is the binary nature of the world we have created."
The Hamming (7,4) code is way of encoding and decoding four-digit code words developed by Richard Hamming. This method takes a four digit binary code word composed of ones and zeros, such a 0100, and inserts these digits into a seven digit encoded word as the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh digits. The first, second, and fourth digits are comprised of various combinations of three of the original elements of the code word in order to create an encoded word that "checks itself" to make sure there are no errors. Hamming also devised a specific three-by-seven matrix that acts as the decoder for the encoded words. By multiplying the encoded word by the decoder matrix, one can detect not only if there are errors that have occurred during transmission, but where these errors are if they do exist. Since the code is binary, the encoded word is easy to correct by simply changing the erring digit from a 0 to a 1, or visa versa. Then, the original code word it taken from the corrected encoded word by simply taking the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh digits.
While it at first might seem inconceivable that this code could have any possible extrapolation to the world of Melville's Moby Dick, this concept reminded me of the recent class discussion of Daniella's posting, wherein she states that Moby Dick is more enjoyable to her as a contracted (encoded) work because she feels she is a necessary as a decoder in order to gleam meaning.
"Moby Dick engages the readers, making them superimpose their own experiences onto the simplified plot... the book urges me to make sense of the myriad of ideas and images and arrange them in a coherent story. in other words, because of the compelling need for interpretation, Moby Dick is what i make of it. without me to make a meaning of it, it will exist as a heap of type written pages. because of my active role/importance in construing/making sense of the book, i never lost interest."
In short, at times readers feel identification and a need to be or create the Hamming matrix of their own. However, in Daniella's experience, this is more applicable to situations where her own concept of the novel falls into one of two binary categories: either expanded or contracted. For me, this is an interesting echo of the binary nature of code words in Hamming's coding theory.
Some perceive a work most need decoding (or interpretation) when it is perceive to be contracted, and is in need of expansion. Here, a work in bullet points would require the reader to act as it's decoder, fleshing out points where it could not. Others, however, take the opposite view that an expanded work is willowy and imprecise, and thus more open to interpretation that a work in direct, explicit bullet points would be. Here is where the usefulness of the metaphorical dichotomy deteriorates, both in terms of our own discussion, and for the usefulness in comparison to the mathematical coding theory. Another point of similarity is in the idea that errors ( or misinterpretations) are inherent to the transmission of the code. But in literary analysis, unlike coding theory, there is a myriad of different interpretations to any specific written work. Some of us delight in this while others of us are on that continual quest, like Ahab, for THE meaning. Hence some of us rejoice in Naslund's Ahab's Wife when she seemingly proclaims "I have the decoding matrix. There is A meaning in all this, and here IT is!" , while other shy away from this abdication of their freedom to see it in a context where Una does not fix us and force us to see her own story superimposed on Ishmael's.
Works Cited
1)Minder, Orah. Parceling this World. posted 2004-03-29. Message ID: 9051. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/forum9.html
2)Miteva, Daniela. Eurika! Posted 2004-04-14. Message ID: 9371. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/forum12.html
3)Reed, Michael. Fundamental Ideas of Analysis. John Wiley & Sons,Inc. New York. 1998.
| Reworking the Bipartite Brain Name: Kat McCorm Date: 2004-05-14 12:00:38 Link to this Comment: 9871 |
In Paul Grobstein's Essay The Brain's Images: Co- Constructing Reality and Self, he presents the human brain, as a means of creation and interpretation, as a bipartite organ that consists of the conscious (the "I-Function") and the unconscious (or tacit) factions. Grobstein's conception of the bipartite brain has been useful to me in interpreting and understanding the prevalence of the binary models in current society: right vs. wrong, emotion vs. cognition, humanities vs. science, contraction vs. expansion. These models and their usefulness have been a subject of thought not only for our class, but also for me as an individual, for quite some time. Although these models do serve us well in some instances, I have found myself growing ever more dissatisfied with their restrictiveness. And as the feeling billows, I find my own brain, be it bipartite or otherwise, searching for a new story about itself.
The contraction/expansion theory of literary expression has been so often used and interpreted and reused in this course that it now seems to apply to many things beyond the original meaning. Initially, the concept was simple: an author takes the ideas in her own head, contracts them into a written form, which is then expanded again in the mind of the reader. An extrapolated form of this is the concept that an entire novel could be a "contracted version" or can be written in an expanded manner, and yet there is no agreement as to what is what. Even so, we continue to use this quite binary metaphor in order to describe our experience of novels, and analyze why we harbor feelings of like and dislike for them. We are naturally drawn to these binary metaphorical explanations; it seems, because of the prevalence of them. Perhaps this tendency to group things (concepts, people) in two is a result of having a bipartite brain. Whatever the reasons, it is evident that we are drawn to these explanations, and hence some assumptions can be made about their usefulness to humanity.
Another binary system of questionable usefulness is the science and humanities dichotomy, which has been subjected to continuous discussion since it was brought to the fore fifty years ago by C.P. Snow. The most relevant of these discussions to me is one undertaken by our own faculty members here at Bryn Mawr, in which Peter Beckmann quite convincingly exemplified the limitations of a binary system by speaking on " 'a C= A + B model' of human behavior where A and B are the 'yes-no choices' one makes. Of course, the 'basis functions' A and B (kill, not kill; do as mom says, don't do as mom says, ect.) are no better a basis for the story than is the single basis function C. "Here, Beckmann not only illustrates the limitations of the A, B model, but also shows that this model only exsits within a system where A and B must each choose from a binary system. The question is, can two elements composed of binaries and limited within their content to a binary ever add to something more than a binary. If this is possible, then C is not only equal to A + B, but also is "greater than the sum of its parts" because it exists in a plane (beyond binary) that A and B do not.
The use of a binary metaphorical dichotomy and our sense that there is a need to "decode" what we read have interesting extrapolations into the field of higher math, as well as arithmetic. The interconnectedness of idea in higher math decoding theory and literary writing styles provides me with an interesting platform for further interpretation in both fields. I admit, however, that a comparison from so broad a field as literature to so precise a field as mathematics can be restrictive of the freedom of interpretation inherent to literary analysis. But I also claim that our binary concept of "contraction" and "expansion" together with the perceived connotations of each of these words is equally restrictive. As Orah said in the forum: "I guess what I am protesting against is the binary nature of the world we have created."
One of the classes that I have taken concurrent with this course is a Math 301 class entitled Real Analysis with Lisa Traynor. Throughout the semester, I have been intrigued that the terms that we use to describe literature in one course keep popping up, with startling implications, in Real Analysis. Even the name of the course speaks to the "two cultures" dichotomy: mathematical analysis is "real": tangible, definite, precise. What, then, is literary analysis? Fake analysis? Imaginary Analysis? Of course, mathematicans consider "real" in terms of numbers. Real numbers, imaginary numbers. However, my course is entitled Real Analysis, not Real Number Analysis. In some mathematician's minds, the qualifier of "number" is not necessary. Thus, the term "real" is not specifically applied to the math, but is a floating term that can be transferred, by me, to other disciplines. Likewise, I have spent much time in Math 301 discussing the binary as well. This binary has also been found to be very useful, if not quite comprehensive. Mathematical binary modeling allowed us the development of many technologies, including the computer program on which I now write my paper. The Binary, in math as well as in literary theory, can take us many places but it will not take us everywhere. Another term I found jumping the interdisciplinary boundary was "decoding". My classmates and I spoke of decoding in terms of "ambiguous/meaty" humanities texts as Dalke calls them: the texts that call for interpretation and response from the reader. Decoding, in Math 301, was a more literal term, referring only to a series of numbers that would be encoded, transmitted, and consequently decoded. The terms came together in my study of the Hamming (7, 4) code, which is both binary and in need of decoding.
The Hamming (7,4) code is way of encoding and decoding four-digit code words developed by Richard Hamming. This method takes a four digit binary code word composed of ones and zeros, such a 0100, and inserts these digits into a seven digit encoded word as the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh digits. The first, second, and fourth digits are comprised of various combinations of three of the original elements of the code word in order to create an encoded word that "checks itself" to make sure there are no errors. Hamming also devised a specific three-by-seven matrix that acts as the decoder for the encoded words. By multiplying the encoded word by the decoder matrix, one can detect not only if there are errors that have occurred during transmission, but where these errors are if they do exist. Since the code is binary, the encoded word is easy to correct by simply changing the erring digit from a 0 to a 1, or vice versa. Then, the original code word it taken from the corrected encoded word by simply taking the third, fifth, sixth, and seventh digits.
While it at first might seem inconceivable that this code could have any possible extrapolation to the world of Melville's Moby Dick, this concept reminded me of the recent class discussion of Daniela's posting, wherein she states that Moby Dick is more enjoyable to her as a contracted (encoded) work because she feels she is a necessary as a decoder in order to gleam meaning.
"Moby Dick engages the readers, making them superimpose their own experiences onto the simplified plot... the book urges me to make sense of the myriad of ideas and images and arrange them in a coherent story. in other words, because of the compelling need for interpretation, Moby Dick is what i make of it. without me to make a meaning of it, it will exist as a heap of type written pages. because of my active role/importance in construing/making sense of the book, i never lost interest."
Daniela reports here her need to be or create a Hamming matrix of her own. However, in Daniela's experience, this need is met most effectively by a novel which falls into the binary category "contracted". I find her argument an interesting echo of the binary nature of code words in Hamming's coding theory. Moby Dick in this context is juxtaposed with a text like Ahab's Wife, which relentlessly explores and compounds and reiterates its own meaning. Here, Daniela fells there is no work for her left to do, as a reader; and hence is, for her, less enjoyable.
Again, this line of thought echoes comments of Bryn Mawr Faculty in the "Two Cultures" discussion. As professor Dalke stated:
"It's not that science uses "unambiguous transmission" which "calls for nothing" from the receiver, while those now- infamously "ambiguous/meaty" humanities texts call for a response; it's that different ones of us are enabled, by our different ones of us are enabled, by our different interests & training, to respond more fully to some kinds of texts & objects than others."
In this case, the two texts that are alternately "ambiguous/meaty" and "unambiguous" are both literary texts, both very rich, and one is based loosely on the other. This shows, again, how the perceived binary system of the relative rescission/ imprecision of communications in science and humanities is derailed by equally stark contrast within a single field.
Daniela argues that a work most needs decoding (or interpretation) when it is "contracted", and so is in need of "expansion". So, a work presented in the form of bullet points would require the reader to act as its decoder, fleshing out points where it does not. Others, however, take the opposite view that an expanded work, because of its imprecision, is more open to interpretation that a work rendered in bullet points. Here is where the usefulness of the metaphorical dichotomy deteriorates, because the ideas it attempts to convey are no longer precise. The opening of the binary model to interpretation invites misunderstanding both in terms of our discussion, and for the usefulness in comparison to mathematical coding theory. In both cases, errors (or misinterpretations) are seen as inherent to the transmission of the code relations for any specific written work. Some of us delight in this while others of us are on that continual quest, like Ahab, for THE meaning. Hence some of us rejoice in Naslund's Ahab's Wife when she seemingly proclaims "I have the decoding matrix. There is A meaning in all this, and here IT is!" while others shy away from this abdication of their freedom to see it in a context not fixed by Una , forcing us to see her story superimposed on Ishmael's. A mathematical explanation of this phenomenon can also be used in this case: Consider Moby Dick as a single point in space. Alone, this point can be considered from any angle, and represents possibility, interpretation. As soon as another point (Ahab's Wife) is added, the two points in space (when connected) describe a line, confining Moby Dick to a direction and a two dimensionality. Hence, it is not the unambiguity of the text of Ahab's Wife which confines Moby Dick, but its mere existence in relation to Moby Dick. Merely placing things in a context can, in some instances, restrict them.
I believe this is the case in Grobstein's model of the Bipartite Brain. He states: "The bipartite organization of the nervous system makes both 'self' and 'reality' concepts that are more fluid than they are usually thought to be, and perhaps more fluid than one might like." However, this statement is one that I cannot agree with: I find the bipartite brain to be restrictive, definite, and confining. This can only make conceptions of "reality" more fluid if the system we are coming from is, quite literally, "of ONE mind." Grobstein claims that "the trading back and forth of stories between the unconscious and the I-function substantially enhances the nervous system's exploratory capabilities; it yields an inexhaustible capability to conceive both the world and oneself in new ways." I imagine an illustration of what Grobstein here describes: The conscious and the unconscious sitting in the brain next to each other, One and Two. One has an idea and passes it to Two. Two takes the idea, tweaks it, and throws back to One. They play this game of catch, and it allows each part of the brain to move and be moved, but since there are only two parts, they will always be in the same plane. Hence, supposing a bipartite brain also supposes two-dimensionality in human thought.
How, then, to construct a model of the brain that encompasses three-dimensionality? Consider a model of the brain as a piston engine. A force moves the piston into the casing. The force is input from the outside world, which drives the piston (unconscious mind), and transfers into the casing (the conscious mind). There is a third player in this model, which is the space into which the unconscious plunges. This space is what does much of the work of the brain, creating positive and negative pressure from within the brain itself. The piston motor is not typical in that the force on the piston is not methodical: the motor would not be "pumping" constantly as a normal motor would. The input from the outside world is unpredictable, and is subject to the interpretation of the unconscious brain. The space inside the motor is itself creative, acting on the outside world and on itself through pressure, creating energy, expanding and contracting ideas and sending them out. This space is what allows for complexity beyond the bipartite brain, and serves as a multi-dimensional model for the multipartite brain.
This model, in some ways, incorporates the ideas of the bipartite brain, the conscious, and the unconscious, the "I-function" and the tacit, and is in some degree limited by the limitations of the bipartite brain. It is easy enough to criticize the old model, and more difficult to generate the new. However, the image of the piston motor brain is useful to me in several respects. It incorporates ideas from the bipartite brain that are particularly important, such as self-generative thought, as described by Grobstein:
"The more up to date picture which is emerging suggests that much of the activity of the nervous system originates within the nervous system itself and, furthermore, that there is a significant degree of indeterminacy in the processes which generate this activity. In addition, it is becoming increasingly clear that the nervous system is continually being modified by its own activity."
Also, the piston model brain incorporates a new idea of space as integral to the thinking process. This space, which connects the "I-function" and the "tacit" factions, is continually in flux. Input from the outside world affects the internal pressure and the air currents. I also find the model attractive in that it echoes ideals generated by the class: the space is forever expanding and contracting, and also serves as a sounding board in the style of Queequeg's coffin or Emily Madsen's poems, citing "...the violin a wooden room beneath my chin....". The space into which humans say (or think) something is significant, and deserves to be integrated into the model of the brain.
Works Cited
1)Beckmann, Peter. January 27, 2001. The Two Cultures: A Conversation http://serendipstudio.org/local/scisoc/ snow.html#1
2)Dalke, Anne. January 30, 2001. The Two Cultures: A Conversation. http://serendipstudio.org/local/scisoc/snow.html#3
3)Grobstein, Paul. The Brain's Images: Co-Constructing Reality and Self. http://serendipstudio.org/bb/reflections/upa/ UPApaper.html. 5/10/2004.
4)Madsen, Emily. Posted 2004-03-30. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/melville2.html
5)Minder, Orah. Parceling this World. posted 2004-03-29. Message ID: 9051. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/forum9.html
6)Miteva, Daniela. Eurika! Posted 2004-04-14. Message ID: 9371. http://serendipstudio.org/sci_cult/evolit/s04/forum12.html
7)Reed, Michael. Fundamental Ideas of Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York. 1998.
| Stories R Us Name: Ro. Finn Date: 2004-05-14 12:31:25 Link to this Comment: 9872 |
Wheels within wheels within wheels: stories cause and also result from cultural changes, which cause and result from changes around and within in us, which cause and result from changes in the stories we tell. And more wheels: the medium through which we convey our stories changes because of technology, which changes because of the stories we share, who are the medium's content—us. "Each medium delivers a new form of human being, whose qualities are suited to it" (1). Think about what is happening now—at our hands and to our heads—in this new Internet era.
Evolution and stories—science and the humanities—are interjumbled. In fact, they never were apart except for an artificial segregation fostered by our fairly recent and short-lived penchant for seeing things as linear and dialectic. Black and white. A pile of concepts needing to be neatly sorted. Disciplines. But the organics of life are not neat, a notion that evaded the people of the Renaissance. How change happened in the way we think was no accident—well, yes it was, but we can trace it.
Technologies that enabled the medium of print and literacy reshaped not only culture but also affected human physiology. Before the advent of the manuscript, stories were transmitted among people orally. Then print and writing created the conditions for sight to become the dominant sense used to communicate. Writing and reading moved the mechanics of two-way transmission to inside our minds. You write—I read. Neither of us needs to speak in the process, which drove all but our other senses to the background. Perceiving and reacting to the multi-sensory stimuli associated with oral, tactile storytelling gave way to conceptualizing.
It is not possible to consider WHAT we think about the cause-and-effect relationship of texts without understanding HOW we think about our stories now, knowing that at least two very different models have evolved over time. Melville's Moby Dick (2) and Naslund's Ahab's Wife (3) represent only a shutter's click (albeit a loud one) in the American Renaissance and a twentieth century echo. We need to go back farther. We need to begin where stories began and retell the story of what might have happened.
The Dreamtime stories of the Aborigine are recorded all around the Northern Territory of Australia—from Darwin to Melville Island, Kintore to Yirrkala. On rocks, bark, and bodies, they have been relayed down generations that reach back forty million years. This is where the evolution of stories begins—not in Greece.
The Aborigine's aspirations, fears, beliefs, aspects of their environment and their social structure are embodied in their myths. According to Dreamtime, Ancestral Beings emerged from an inanimate earth in human and animal forms and traveled Dreamland, creating the natural world as well as the Aborigine's social protocols and rituals necessary to sustain life, maintain order, and transfer knowledge. Through stories shared by word-of-mouth, art, dance, and music, a community identity emerged. A language of complex and sophisticated sounds and symbols conveyed the meanings they derived from religious inspirations found in Dreamtime.
Like the context-sensitive Haiku poetry of Japan, the circles, lines, arcs, and semi-circles of Aboriginal symbolism mean different things depending upon the story being told—layers of stories emerge. Each symbol may mean many things at once, overlaying sacred inner knowing with secular outside messages. Interestingly, the "dream" that inspires a particular design or expression is considered a direct tap into the source of Ancestral power. That which arises from Dreaming is accepted as allowable innovation within the context of their stylistic story conventions (4).
This capacity for adaptation with a sort of random, bounded variance is fundamental to how the Aboriginal community makes sense of and leverage change around them. They create a holistic view of the world and their relationship to it. Multi-sensory, integral and integrating, emergent and adaptive, their oral/tactile mode of storytelling seems to invoke some communally connected "meta-organ," a distributed network. Yet we would call them illiterate, and so they are, by Western standards.
Before writing and print, "literature" was comprised of sounds and rhythms that resonated through the tribe. That is still the case in non-literate cultures. Storytelling was a public phenomenon. As that oral/tactile tradition shifted towards being primarily visual and also primarily private, societies began to equate literacy with intelligence. The prevailing attitude became binary—to be illiterate was to be "in the dark, Dark Ages, backward. Now, the supremacy of the literate is engrained. The prejudice has become so fundamentally important to our so-called progress as a civilization that we take it to heart. It is under our skin. Which is why scholars such as Milman Parry and Marshall McLuhan, who were working on the connection between these two models were marginalized or cast as entertaining media gurus. It was so much safer.
In the 1930's, Parry discovered that Homer's Illiad and Odyssey held significant implications concerning the cognitive and cultural differences between a totally oral society and one in which writing is the normal means for conveying knowledge and information: "The performer...had at hand a repertoire of ready-made phrases that could be stitched together to suit the varying circumstances under which the poems were performed, answering to an economy of form that could be created only under conditions of relatively extemporaneous delivery of traditional materials..." (5). The belief that these epics are the work of one brilliant poet is etched on our collective consciousness. The thought that, as Parry described it, " Homer was instead, a tailor of ready-made pieces off the rack, a vendor of what we now consider to be clichés," (5) is tellingly unsettling. Academia penalized Parry for reporting these discoveries.
The invention of the Gutenberg Press in 1440 pinned stories to paper like so many butterflies. They became static, unlike the Dreamtime myths or the raconteur's tales of Odysseus. Stories were now reliably repeatable and no longer depended upon presentation in time or space. The writer and reader were rendered independent of each other. Ideas spread more homogeneously than they did by tribesman, troubadour, or poet. Knowledge and schools of teaching were organized, specialized, compartmentalized, and fragmented. The individual emerged. Print redefined Medieval man as Renaissance man—from a preference for perceiving to conceptualizing. Neat little clumps, beginnings that tracked to endings. The fluid auditory/tactile space gave way to the grounded field of vision.
In the first sentence of Aristotle's Metaphysics (384-322 BCE), he wrote: "Of all the senses, trust only the sense of sight" (6). This visual bias persists today: seeing is believing, believe in half of what you see and nothing of what you hear, there's more to it than meets the eye, seeing eye to eye, gaining perspective, a point of view... well, you draw your own conclusions. See for yourself what I am saying. Our modern language is sight-heavy. Think of which sense you would give up last; most people today are afraid to lose sight.
According to McLuhan, "Literacy gave us and eye for an ear and succeeded in detribalizing that portion of mankind that we refer to as the Western world" (7). Had twentieth century Westerners retained or cared to consider the intelligence embodied in their ancestor's oral/tactile tribal societies, McLuhan might have had an easier time helping us grasp the role of auditory space and the perceptual: "The all-at-onceness of auditory space is the exact opposite of lineality [and literacy], of taking one thing at a time. It is very confusing to learn that the mosaic of the newspaper page is "auditory" in basic structure. This, however, is only to say that any pattern in which the components co-exist without direct, lineal hook-up or connection, creating a field of simultaneous relations, is auditory, even though some of its aspects can be seen" (8). Auditory space, then, is amorphous, directionless, a place where multipartite perceptions can occur. The tribal mask. The allusive poetry of Symbolists. The Meme-o-bile we created in class.
Vision ruled as the underpinning for cultural transmission until precisely 1844, the date of the invention of commercial telegraph telecommunications. The analogy McLuhan uses is that, "With the telegraph, Western man began a process of putting his nervous system outside his body" (8). But by then, the two-dimensional, static, silent medium of printed literature had so redefined western culture that the average reader saw only text. As recently as 1900, Pope Pious XII admonished people that, "It is absolutely necessary for the interpreter [of the Bible] to go back in spirit to those remote centuries of the East and make proper use of the aids afforded by history, archeology, ethnology and other sciences, in order to discover what literary forms the writers intended to use and did, de facto, employ" (9). Go back in spirit. Wow. But solitary, silent readers had become so fixated on text alone that they had lost sight of the relationship of form to meaning. As Western society straightjacketed its senses, it squeezed the air out of the storyteller.
Herman Melville must have been aware of the Bible's literary forms: its anthems, ballads, a debate, epigrams, lyrics, parables, sonnets, an essay, even a building specification. Perhaps, that inspired his mélange of sermons and evangelical rants, thirty-five chapters on cetology and whaling, one whole chapter devoted to chowder, theatrical scripts, obituaries, a parody of a legal brief, and an entomology poking fun at literature in general—to name some of the forms in Moby Dick. Six years after the advent of the telegraph, a harbinger of storytelling's next full turn, the visionary Melville was frantically recasting his latest work-in-progress from a predictable novel of the American Renaissance to a revolutionary wake-up call that things literary needed to change.
Interestingly, a few years later, French critic Brunetière would write about literary genres as biological species and compare the role of the literary genius to Darwin's "sport," the up-shoot of mutation. We can sense the edgy audacity and irreverence of the maverick Melville. Moby Dick feels at once primal and risqué—like what it might be like (in Melville's time, society had all but forgotten) to fling aside one's figurative bustle and corset for a billowy shift or nothing at all.
Around 1930, the avant-garde poet Ezra Pound wrote: "Literature is news that stays news" (10). That is to say, literature conveys the enduring, defining messages within a culture. He delivered this "news" in the form of an aphorism, which like the pun, is meant to unsettle its reader. Its interpretation cannot be linear. It does not yield to logic. Symbolism invites exploration.
As Melville did a generation before him, Pound sensed changes that were reshaping how people would communicate with each other, globally now. Electronic technology was updating the delivery system for stories. The new delivery system would create space for very different storytelling forms. The new forms would affect their contents, which would redefine their users. That change in technology was reordering which cultural sense—visual or oral/tactile—would dominate how we engage with information. Symbolists' use of aphorisms (among other multi-directional forms) was signaling a move away from linear thinking. Pound was also reminding us that artists (including writers) are the encoders, and that their products are the transmitters of our cultural environment.
Understanding the nature of technology was the only way to avoid being manipulated by it. When the world turned on the radio in the early 1900's, electronic media began altering language and society. Early evidence appeared in the poetry of Symbolists, the art of Cubists, the literature of the existentialists and architecture of Bauhaus. The mosaic emerged as the pattern of the period. Fragmentation was becoming fractal. Everything was in flux.
According to McLuhan, "Literacy stresses lineality, a one-thing-at-a-time awareness and mode of procedure. From it we derived the assembly line and order of battle, the managerial hierarchy and departmentalizations of scholarly decorum" (8). By contrast, electronic media proceed differently in that they deal in auditory space, like mosaic of news in the newspaper. It is unvisualizable in its entirety. The elements of auditory space create a field of concurrent relationships. Unlike the linearity of printed literature that celebrates the individual, electronic media are group forms that foster communally created and shared information. It is analogous to the communally connected meta-organ that still links and shapes the Australian aboriginal tribe.
Culture was skidding through a hairpin turn. Technology was moving us to McLuhan's "global village" –the anytime, anywhere, anyone, "anything goes," on-line camp. Linear form woud not suit a fluid, networked encampment. Irony, metaphor, and analogy—these emerged, and the languages of sound and the visual arts were added.
The effects of electronic technology appear as a demarcation between one cultural age and the next, just as the emergence of language defined on strata and the invention of printing defined another. That brief individualistic period between the physical tribal culture and the emerging virtual tribe, the global village, appears as an aberration that we may have misnamed a renaissance, except that it gave rise to all that was needed to imagine the next cultural layer. As we speak, language is being transformed into an integrated multimedia, multisensory grammar beyond visualization and verbalization, as we know it. And so are our stories. And so are we.
Forms within forms, narratives within narratives, us as the media that we imagine. Ancient modes for sharing wisdom are re-emerging, but not without a struggle. Western culture was entrenched in conceptual theorizing on all fronts. In 1948, McLuhan wrote, "America is one-hundred percent eighteenth century. The eighteenth century chucked out the principle of metaphor and analogy—the basic fact that as A is to B, so C is to D. AB: CD. It can see AB relations. But all relations in four terms are verboten. This amounts to a deep occultation of all human thought for the U.S.A." (11).
'Praise be' to the scientists, then, or whatever evolutionary pressures nudged the inventions of telecommunications and wired media. After centuries of dominance, the conceptual-dialectic world of literacy has been kick-startled out of its comfy niche. Acoustics and poetics are being resurrected in support of a global tribal culture. But now what?
We are becoming less inside ourselves. The boundaries between and among us are moving, and they are fluid. For example, hypertext—a programmed text retrieval scheme that links and associates text from different web locations—blurs author and reader functions and diffuses the story boundaries by creating multiple story paths. The story exists at many levels and branches, changing with each new path decision. Text seen before may be followed by something altogether new and different, based on choices made each time the "reader" "picks up" "the book."
Today, tech-age writers talk about spontaneous creation, self-organization, and evolution across cultures in time and space. They envision "digitally inspired reactive and intentional entities," sounding more like Daniel Dennett (12) every day. From plain text to hypertext, from McLuhan's notion of holophrastic allusions to cybertext holography to the superblog, science that was once estranged from the arts now seduces them, and their progeny are changing their designers.
In Finnegan's Wake, James Joyce snitched a phrase from the Pope's (pick any pope) annual address to the City (Rome) and to the World—Urbi et Orbi—morphing that to "urban and orbal," and then to "the urb, it orbs," from which McLuhan leapt to coin the "global village (13).
It is hard to imagine a more amazing social phenomenon than the one taking place now, as both space (the preoccupation of non-literate groups) and time (the preoccupation of the literate individual) give way to mind-boggling simultaneity on all fronts. As tribesmen, we maintained culture and identity through our direct involvement with and reaction to our stories. As literary loners, we learned how to be involved but remain detached; conceptualizing taught us how to suspend action. Now the orbing urb needs some way to learn how to suspend judgment as its proximate diversities rub closer and closer together—like Ishmael and Quequeg, minus any bundling board.
The global village is a socioeconomic community of the privileged elite—the few who have the prerequisite combination of digital access, a computer, and the knowledge of how to use it. There are more phones today in Tokyo or New York City than in all of Africa. Ironically, we e-villagers are introducing traditional literacy to the digitally disconnected parts of the globe at the same time that we ourselves are shifting to a new mode. Contrary to what we Western literati hold dear, the long-lived oral/tactile "illiterate" cultures do not exist in the dark (recall the class skit of the four moles: three sighted, but the presumed blind one insightful). It is easy to imagine which cultural style—the global tribe or a society of individuals—might emerge as the fittest in the long run.
If—through a changing medium that "R us" changing our stories, changing us—we can suspend or displace our binary, elitist attitude towards being literate, we are going to rediscover the technique of discovery. We are going to become "whole" again. And nothing will be the same.
Works Cited
1. McLuhan, Herbert Marshall. (1994). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Cambridge. MIT Press.
2. Melville, Herman. (1851) Moby Dick or, The Whale. Reprinted New York. Random House, Inc. 1992.
3. Naslund, Sena Jeter. (1999) Ahab's Wife. New York. Harper-Collins.
4. West, Maggie K.C. (ed). (1988) The Inspired Dream. Brisbane. Queensland Cultural Centre.
5. Morrison, James C. "The Place of Marshall McLuhan in the Learning of His Time." Counterblast: e-journal of Culture and Communication, v.1, n.1 (Nov 2001).
6. Aristotle. (1961) Butcher, S. H. (translator). Aristotle's Poetics. New York. Hill & Wang.
7. McLuhan, Herbert Marshall. (1962) The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto. University of Toronto Press.
8. McLuhan, Marshall. "The Agenbite of Outwit." McLuhan Studies: Issue 2. http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/mcluhan-studies/v1_iss2/1_2art6.htm
9. Pius XlI, Divino Afflante,Spiritu, Denz 2294 (3829-3830).
10. McLuhan, Marshall. Letters to Ezra Pound. The Lilly Library, University of Indiana, Bloomington.
11. Barton, Edwin J. "On the Ezra Pound/Marshall McLuhan Correspondence."
12. Dennett, Daniel C. (1995) Darwin's Dangerous Idea. New York. Touchstone.
13. McLuhan, Eric. "The Source of the term, 'Global Village.'"McLuhan Studies: Issue 2
Works Consulted
14. Mayr, Ernst. (2001) What Evolution Is. New York. Perseus Books Group.
15. Culler, Jonathan. ((1997) Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. London. Oxford University Press.
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Copyright 2004. R. Finn. All rights reserved.
| The Make up of My Story Name: Fritz Dubu Date: 2004-05-14 12:41:48 Link to this Comment: 9873 |
The course started with biology, or at least our take on biology. Though this was the part of the class which I was the most anxious about it was very reassuring to find that I was not the only one. As it became clear that this was not going to be like any biology class I could have ever imagined it opened up a new world of understanding and possibilities. Not only was the process of evolution up for grabs as a story so were al the other stories I had ever heard or though I heard. The run through biology showed me how what I had perceived as fixed and never changing was based on what I had been conditioned to believe. If one has to be conditioned one way or the other to me it proved to be the proof of human nature to revolt against being taught instead of simply living. It is the nature of children as well as any human being to change the nature of the stories which they are told and the ones they come to understand. This is an example of the expansion and contraction process at its best.
There are many times when children are told stories, such as fairy tales, which are supposed to fortify their moral fiber, or teach them lifelong lessons. At times it is a given that the children gleaned exactly what the parent wanted them to from the story, but other times when children are asked to either retell the story or give their interpretation of it, parents are shocked. The contracted story which left their lips had entered the ear of their child and expanded into something which is either a variance of what they had said or at times it is completely different. Some parents nurture their children's ability to expand differently then them, while others work furiously to control the expansion process.
As the story being told enters the ear or the mind of the listener, the listener then takes into account their own thinking process to turn the story into something of their own making . Experiences, personal biases and other factors produce a different version of the story being told. The story being told is never the story being heard. People decipher various meanings in a look a word, or an action. But this can also be said of the storyteller, they too betray them selves in the stories the choose to tell. Throughout the course of the semester the papers which I have written seem to all have had a running theme. This them can best be described as the heredity of stories. In the process of writing papers for the class the topic became an investigation into micro writing. The first was a general view of civilization and its altruists. The second paper was concerned with the power parents hold over the stories children are told, but not the stories that the children inevitably create out of the original story given.
It is difficult to tell whether the common thread found in these papers was a result of the structure of the course, or if it was a natural thought process. But either has produced a state of conscious writing which I am used to. I think that the course challenged me in ways that I had not foreseen. I was forced to rethink and reword my definitions of biology and the makings of a novel. In this new understanding I stumbled and faltered as I searched for the recognizable. But it was a hard journey to turn the recognizable into the useful. I didn't have to throughout all that I had come to believe, just be willing to adjust, or at least create a mental space where what I once thought I knew and what I had yet to comprehend could coexist without conflict. Sometimes it would work and at other times it just became an all out battle. Some ideas worked as universal acid spilling in my brain, as it ate away at things it created a new form of understanding that at times proved more accepting of the previous idea.
Some of the works which I produced for the class seemed to spill out of my consciousness. One paper was written in one sitting. The idea had been running around in my mind, but when I finally caught up to it I just sat down and wrote it down in one sitting. Others , such as the first paper too me a while to put together. The illusiveness of what I really meant cam across in my work as i grappled and fought with the idea, a paper emerged.
In the beginning of this class I thought knew what biology was, but soon turned out that it wasn't an idea of what biology was that had filled the space of definition in my mind, but what i had come to interpret it as. My biology was not that of the person next to me, nor was it the biology of the person across the room. At first this seemed to be a problem. We were all speaking yet no one was truly connecting. awe were all still working on our personal cranes. This process sometimes seemed all consuming by some as an idea took hold and would build word upon word image upon image. Ideas started to change expand and morph into hybrids which consisted of a phrase or two from class a couple of words from the readings and the new definition which begged to not be call a definition in our brains.
The more we struggled to define the term biology, the more elusive the word seemed. It was not concrete, but could very well be made of flesh and bone. We as a class were on a hunt for what seemed and elusive beast at times and at others a single cell in an imaginable organism of meaning. Meaning eluded us at every turn and slowly showed our true motives were not that of finding meaning, but a search for satisfaction. The meanings which we constructed were not satisfactory, send all of us on another safari to hunt the meaning of the author words as we fought with our own understanding of words.
With each word we gave allele after allele of our story. Through this process we were creating a body of knowledge that could be accessible to the participants of our class. By giving pieces of ourselves there was more room to flex our intellectual muscles and wrap them around ideas too big to carry. These ideas had to be shares and discussed. The biology that governs the body of human beings can also be applied to the body of a story. This has come to be how I view my personal stories. Because story is to limited. We demonstrated the impossibility of this restriction in our class presentation. We took one story and created many. In the hands of different people the story could not help but grow and spread into something much bigger that the facilitators ha d once thought. Not only that But by allowing the class to take over the story we, as facilitators gave up the idea of a 'contained' story and allowed the imaginations of the participants to run free with a little guidance.
As we worked to create the story it was evident that at times we gave ourselves away in our words. From diction to word choice we were all telling the story of ourselves. This is the story that slips from our umms and likes, the one which is present in the unrehearsed moments such as our Thursday discussions. It was amazing how one question would be asked at the beginning of class and by the end of class it was evident that on certain days, that was not the questioned which needed to be asked. It our 'discussion' of the proposed dilemma we all steered the conversation to places that were all traces of our metal states. When given a good five to ten minutes to warm up the conversation usually steered closer to a topic a majority of the class could ponder if not attempt to answer.
The deeper we contemplated the questions, the more the answers became about us and not about the novel. But then all the novels became about us. And fittingly so. The nature of biology as novels is to investigate the mechanisms which make the processes of life possible. The novel investigates pieces of life and comprehend the inner workings and dealings of the human mind and heart. This is my new understanding of stories. They are like our offspring, like biology and so many other things that I have yet to piece together. The conception of stories can follow the same thread as that of biological conception. For my purposes I will use the human conception ad birthing process to created a network of connections which in my mind work to if not define, break down the definition of story.
In connection to stories the means of conception can be an infinite number of things. There are some which require little to no work, just through interaction a though is sparked and from there a story if cared for and formed. In other instances there is a conscious drive toward creating a story, such as with a author on a deadline. That spark of conception can be set of by an idea in the farthest reaches of the human mind. The idea could be hidden and inadvertently sparked. The stimulation for creating stories could be anything, from flowers on the street to a single word. This is easier for some and difficult for others. Writers block can cause a mind to become blinded to interaction. But through interaction, with either other ideas which can be found in the environment or in coexistence in the mind of the story teller. The process leading to the initiation of this spark can be an arduous journey through realms unknown, or the forceful intrusion of a random thought.
The parentage of the story can be two separate entities or a myriad of things thrown together to create emotion. The act of conception is stated as being when " A member of a population in a sexually reproducing species mates with another member of its population and they produce in their offspring and entity new recombination of parental genes" (105). It is from this source that the genetic code of the story is derived. As the ideas merge and mingle, they create something new. "Many genes, foe example, may affect simultaneously several aspect of a phenotype" (107). At times this new being carries traces of its ancestry in it body. the language the syllables or even the punctuation and what is emphasized.
Through this genetic code it is possible for the listener to trace the journey of the story. It's body carries all the evidence to its making. The spark is initiated and a story is conceived. The "sexual reproduction" can be replaced by interaction. As with any new and fragile life form the story will then need the proper nutrition to survive. It must be protected from the rest of the world, until it is fully formed or formed to the satisfaction of the storyteller. Other stories can either harm or assists in its future development. It is up the storyteller to determine the effect that other stories as well as new idea can have on the fledgling of a story. Some people will go to any means necessary to protect their story. In the mind of the individual they are cared for and given the proper nutrition to grow and thrive to the fullest extent of its capabilities.
The gestation period is different for every story depending on who has the story in mind the intention of the story and the reception of the story. Some stories can be in the mind of the storyteller for years, while others can take mere minutes. Quality can not be counted by measurements of time nor space. It can not even be measured by the reaction the story produced upon its initial appearance into the world. There are far too many stories which were thought to be inconsequential at the time of their release and proved to be works of considerable influence.
When the story is read or shared with others birth happens, through the mouth or pen just as the birth canal. Some stories have to be coaxed, others come in a rush, while others have to be taken out of the body of the storyteller in stages. As the last word trembles on the tip of the pen there is no recanting it. The story has now been given a life of its own. There is no longer the biological connection to the storyteller and so begins the life of a story.
Some stories have to be helped, incubated, until the have developed enough to survive the world outside the brain of the storyteller. The stories are kept quite and tucked away until the world is ready for them or until they are ready for the word. At times the re-release of the story is issued as the author gains some fame. Then there are some stories that just can not survive on their own, for that the storyteller should be allowed a mourning period to grieve the loss. At times the very telling of a story or the writing of a book can seem as a loss. By putting it out into the atmosphere, it no longer stays as your possession. Now other can change and mold it as they please to suit their purposes. At times I think that is why many stories go untold.
Through the retelling of the story a certain form of eulogy is held. The life of the story is put on display for all the world or a certain community to see. As a story is retold, honor is being given the life that was. The greatest test then is that of the changing story. If a story has the capability of not only being retold, but also being changed then it can stand to live another day. This is another version of an idea that we have discussed in length in class. Moby Dick as a contraction and Ahab's Wife as an expansion. There is always room for expansion and contraction. The possibilities are endless. It became easier to understand the methods which other people were using to expand and contract thoughts. It was evident that though many of us though that our meanings were clear and concise, there was always room for change, growth, and biology.
Bibliography
Mayr, Ernst. What Evolution is. New York: Perseus Book Group: 2001.
| FLOATING Name: mary ferre Date: 2004-05-14 15:29:39 Link to this Comment: 9874 |
Floating ..... floating ...... the sun is blinding my eyes while the salty water tenderizes my flesh and "I" do not care anymore. But at time to come and time past, the water is like jello upon my skin with all the velvetiness, none of the stickiness, only joy, open endless joy ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Life, death, flies, surprise! Understand? Grasp! Evasion of truth regardless of magnificence, only my intentions to keep me adrift. I pray for holiness while my questions go unanswered. Silence in the sea here and beyond...........
With others to love. Thank God? A lot of these people believe that life has meaning! I used to. Now, I float.... not knowing where or why or how or if it matters. But of course it would matter, if I faced death nose to nose. Purpose? Will my life be of value if I act with love, true love.....how can I in this salty, hot, cool, velvety quagmire/heavenly "place".
Cynicism, where is Jesus? With Snow White in Iraq it seems. Shaky Society in the 21st century same as it always was, a little better??? Religious proclamations no longer a lifesaver, philosophy of science floating around aimlessly with me.
Darwin's beautiful dangerous idea vanquished the island. It is also liquid around me. I am in the sea, having emerged from the sea, my "I" is biological! What more?
I function, my molecules, emit and receive in undulations as the sea.
Whew! Where's romance? But I love molecules, but who cares? Is the black star far? However, I do not mind, or do I, anxious twit that I am?
How could any aspect of life be meaningless? There is so much about the natural world that seems to have significance, intention and purpose; green grass and leafy trees are so cooling on a hot day; the earth receiving sunshine so that we may have energy to live and reproduce. There is still life itself, magnificent life, full of the ability to love, feel happiness, eat chocolate, and smell a rose. T.S.Eliot says that LIFE = MEANING. The birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees ... life is so full of meaning! They almost feel as if they are gifts of a God or a good force because they aid my survival. The universe seems to have special meaning also, because it is my home, a place where I survive! Full of meaning??? Transcendent meaning? beyond life? Nevertheless, maybe, there is no need to transcend. Death will be here soon........ we'll see or never see, never know......................................................never is no time! How hard for us postmoderns who cherish time...............no time, no time left.........Good ...................................................................................................bye......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... no more floating???.............
Nothingness...............................................................................................................
How cold and calculating it is that feelings of meaningfulness seems to be a qualitative mental feature of the brain that has been designed to better sense the environmental patterns around us, giving them values of meaning, so that we can better calculate them into our plan for survival.. The differential values of meaning that we assign to our environment aid survival, just as the DO the differential values of emotions or feelings such as happiness: dopamine in the neural pathway designated to reward adaptive tried and true techniques, fear: amygdala just doing its thing, and orgasm: there's that old dopamine at work again! If something has a lot of meaning, happiness, orgasm, etc. we treasure it. If it causes a lot of fear or does not have a lot of meaning, we do not waste our time on it. Not because we are powerful, but because we are part of the system. And what a magnificent system it is! But what does it all mean? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?????? Can you hear me? Out here floating aimlessly, with you? Near you, you are my friend.
It's a weird feeling, isn't it?
Shallowly Dive! Into the deep meaning of 'meaning'. Splash!
Feel the subtle current?
Stop.
Look to your origin in the deep. and now look at your current position.
Meaning is with you and I. It has been with us for a while.
Follow along in this shallow dive and you will see a whale.
Follow along and look for meaning. It is moving along with you.
Here it is!
Meaning, a noun:
1. what is intended to be, or in fact is, signified, intended, indicated, or referred to, or understood; signification, purport, import, sense, or significance
2. psychological or moral sense, purpose, or intention (5)
Swoosh, swoosh, bbllbbblllbb movement fluid movement
Looking at the word 'meaning' one sees that it represents fact AND intention AND purpose. Isn't it interesting that we use one word for three very distinct concepts?
Fact - the truth or actual existence of something, as opposed to the supposition of something or a belief about something
Intention - something that somebody plans to do or achieve
Purpose - the reason for which something exists or for which it has been done or made
MOVEMENT, FLUIDITY, UNDULATING AS THE GALAXIES UNDULATE TOWARDS/AWAY FROM THE BIG BANG/CRUNCH???? FLOAT OF SWIM IF YOU WILL BUT RELAX! What else matters but feeling as we can GOOD BY UNDULATING DOPAMINE NEUROTRANSMITERS AND FLUXING RECEPTORS ON THE EDGE OF ???? A SEA PERHAPS THEY ARE AS WE???
This definition seems to say that meaning is not necessarily a steady thing. It could mean either fact, intention or purpose. It is interesting that we use the one word for two very important distinctions. Why does this word have a fluid, changeable definition? Wishy-washy stuff, I´d say´in this day of FACT BEING SO SO DIFFERENT THAN INTENTION AND PURPOSE. Our "meaning" unstable??? WHAT DO WE REALLY OWN? A word is a linguistic symbol that is a representation of the quality a meaning-designator. Humans (and seemingly other creatures) assign meaning to all that is noticed by them. Meaning is a relationship between a meaning-designator and its environment (physical and cultural).
My first hypothesis about why meaning houses three ideas is that these three ideas grew apart over time. And because of that I figure that we will soon outgrow the usage of meaning to represent three importantly distinct ideas, relying on it only to signify only one of the meanings and a preference will develop to use the distinct words for the distinct meanings. To check on this hypothesis, I referred to the Oxford English Dictionary for more ancient usage of the word.
1. The significance, purpose, underlying truth, etc., of something. a. That which is indicated or expressed by a (supposed) symbol or symbolic action; spec. a message, warning, idea, etc., supposed to be symbolized by a dream, vision, omen, etc. in meaning that: as a sign or token that (obs.).
b. Significance, import; implication. with meaning: with emphasis; in a manner intended to convey a particular implication
What I have found from the Oxford English Dictionary, is that, the word meaning has many undulations of intentionality, half as many as intention it defines meaning as factual, less than half as many of factual it defines meaning as purpose. But these meanings are all there from the 11th century onward through time. I did not look long enough or close enough perhaps to see the subtle changes that have been occuring within this symbol of 'meaning'.
I do suspect that the philosophies through time affect our views of meaning.
The concept of meaning has moved along the current of time. Today's definition of meaning seems to contain some of Ancient Greek philosophy, some of Modern Western philosophy and today's Postmodern philosophy. Plato's philosophy of forms was that the true meaning of everything is essential, unchanging and beyond human observation (factual). The Modernists believed that truth could be attained through science and reason (factual through human observation). Postmodernists believe that meaning always involves self-serving human perceptions (intention).
Today, many thinkers sharply criticize Modernist philosophy for its adherence to the illusion of an "ultimate truth" via the scientific method and rationalism. Postmodernism states that reality is plural and is beyond the scope of science and rationalism which develop from our pragmatic perceptions (1). Any meaning that exists is actually an intersubjective representation, a referent based on our combined generated meanings, which emerge according to a multiplicity of human needs and an incomplete factor analysis due to plurality. Richard Rorty says it this way, "Postempiricism replaces the philosophy of knowledge with a sociology of truth" (3). Postmodern thought does not take for granted that true meaning exists at all. Will that further change the contents of the linguistic symbol 'meaning' to contract and just refer to intention?
The definition of 'meaning' as a fact OR intention OR purpose makes sense when it is understood that ALL OF THESE 'meanings' are appropriated by human estimation of what objects in the environment signify. Purpose depends on the fact or intention that are placed into a certain something BY US as we utilize that something. . A door has the purpose or meaning of being an opening or a closing to a room. A chair has the meaning of being something that we sit on. A scientist might say that a star in the sky means that a there is a gaseous mass in space generating energy in thermonuclear reactions. A wallet is a place to keep credit cards because that is the human intended use. But what baffles me, is this triple-entendre of meaning contains the two concepts that seem to be very importantly different, fact is valued more than an intended meaning! Today, FACT is KING! Seems to me that fact and intention and their differences are too big to fit in one word. And soon this triple in one definition will be an artifact of the evolution of social thought. Meaning is still moving, along the current of time, I suspect further from the essentialist viewpoint. We may come to know in our post-post-modern time, that meaning is defined AS always intention and never to be thought of as fact or purpose.
HELP MAYBE HELP MAYBE, BUT WE ARE OK, WE ARE OK.......? We are losing our stake in the ground as meaning is becoming less factual. At this point in time, we are just beginning to drift into fluid meaning. We have only a fading illusion built by our limited biological brains to keep us buoyant. IS THAT OK? WITH YOU? WHO ARE YOU ANYWAY? WHY DO I LIKE YOU? I DO, YOU KNOW, I LIKE YOU VERY MUCH, LOVE EVEN........................................................................
Diving a little deeper,
COME WITH ME FOR A WHILE MORE...SWIMMING THIS TIME......TO LEARN? And to be pleasantly opened up like a can of sardines...
Further into the water with the postmodern lessons of Melville:
Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick is a reflection of the postmodern trend towards an expansion of 'meaning' and away from the essentialism of Plato and absolute truths of Modernity. I witness Melville's liberal, postmodern definition of 'meaning' when at the very opening of his book he gives us the multitudes of different words for whale from world cultures. The supplier of this etymology of whales is a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School. This etymology humbly expresses right from the beginning of his creative linguistic effort that words are symbols created by people, they may mean something, but their meaning is subjective and also changeable. One further heartening lesson from Melville's etymology is that everyone's view should be incorporating in meaning for the best effect.
On the second page of the book, Melville provides some quotations about whales. These he says are supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian. In his postmodern way, Melville writes, "
...Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable and entertaining, as affording a bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including your own.
Melville's words sound like the postmodernist warning against finding gospel truth in authentic statements, from science for instance. Also, he advises that words of generations, nations, and individuals only offer a bird's eye view of anything. That is only the second page of his novel. Melville goes on. He awesomely packs his tale full of intricate patterns that we all share. His narrator Ishmael is a very open-minded character who takes the reader on a whaling adventure. Although we go from solid land to the fluid sea, Ishmael's skillful observations throughout the story are made up of stuff of life that we all experience, and so we stay at home in our mind and think about the meaning of things, of life. Ishmael weaves possible meaning into the tale, but most attractively, he leaves space and stimulates the reader's meaning-seeking mind in ways that encourage one's own interpretation of the intricate nature of life's experiences. In addition to a reader's invitation to join in the creation of meaning, the narrator Ishmael models a postmodern individual who has his mind wide open, and ends up swimming in the ocean with nothing much to hold onto. Meaning, the purpose, the reference, the significance that our environment has. Can we ever really know it, if we know not everything? Thank you Melville, for thinking with me and not for me. Thar she blows!
There is nothing much to say at this point in time, as my exploration into meaning's meaning must stop now. The dive has been deep enough. Meaning will be around for a while I must get out of the water and cook my dinner and wash my clothes. I have been MEANING TO DO THIS, IT MEANS CLEANLINESS, AND THAT MEANS MY PURPOSE OF HEALTHINESS SO THAT I CAN SURVIVE A WHILE LONGER WILL HAVE BEEN MET.
Always yours, in the blood sea of my heart, with meaning no more, no less..
....stopping to feel the moment, we were.... It is turbulent, if one thinks about it. Even if one does not think about it, it is apparent in the non-obvious repercussions from the unconscious knowing to our everyday living.
References
Cahoone, Lawrence, E. From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
Dennett, Daniel. Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Evolution and the Meaning of Life. New York: Touchstone, 1995.
Fuchs, Stephan. The Social Organization of Scientific Knowledge. Sociological Theory, 4(2), 126-142. 1986.
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick (1851). New York: Norton, 2002.
New World Dictionary of American English. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998.
Oxford Online English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2004
http://80-dictionary.oed.com.proxy.brynmawr.edu/cgi/findword?query_type=word&queryword=meaning&find.x=15&find.y=8
| Marginality, Meaning, and Moby Dick Name: Rebekah Ri Date: 2004-05-14 15:30:23 Link to this Comment: 9875 |
The Pequod's crew is a fairly diverse mess of characters. With its share of madmen and minorities, there is enough presence of the "Other" on the Pequod to make a case for the ambiguous power, danger, and holiness of the unknown before they even meet the white whale itself. The discussion of the white wale, however, does give insight into the possible ways "otherness" in general plays in broader questions about meanings and the roles individuals play in society.
The whiteness of the whale for Ishmael is chilling in part because of the way it seems to be misplaced- he lists the symbolic meanings of white in all other cases and they are invariably positive, with associations of beauty, purity, nobility, even divinity. Ishmael concludes this list observing that "yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the would than that redness which affrights in blood."(p164)
This whiteness is of utmost importance to the theme of the unreliability of given definitions and meanings in Moby Dick, indeed it exposes the arbitrariness of meaning and suggests that it is only an illusion. The elusiveness of meaning and true understanding of the world is demonstrated at the outset of the book, where Melville provides a varied assortment of definitions for whale, and neatly summed up after Ishmael has tried to explain the anatomy of a whale, but concludes "I know him not, and never will. But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? Much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has none?" (p318)
"... in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color..."This is what is terrifying about the whiteness of Moby Dick. Whiteness is implacable, unable to be put in a category. It is simply an absence of meaning, a blank sheet of paper. This is, in a sense, congruent with the things whiteness symbolizes in Ishmael's list and otherwise. Abstract, ultimate ideals such as beauty, purity, sanctity, are a category whiteness is placed in, but they are intangible, perhaps unrealizable, ideas. At the opposite end, it is also interesting to consider the one example of a non-western meaning of whiteness that I know; that white is symbolic of death in Japanese culture. Death is yet another example of extreme "otherness". Or, for than matter, in western culture ghosts tend to be white.
Melville carries this idea of whiteness as "other" even further, chillingly asserting that:
"all other earthy hues...all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; ...consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and objects, even tulips an roses, with its own blank tinge- pondering all this... the wretched infidel [unbeliever] gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospects around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?" (p170)
The complete disorder implicit in all this is terribly threatening, and leads me, for one, to reject the idea that Melville considers meaning to be a joke. Meanings structure everything to me. My take on it was that it is brain play, all in good fun. But on to what the "other" means in the mini-society of the Pequod; are those outside of the normal categories of society as dangerous to those within? Are there other ways?
For all the would-be egalitarianism of the Pequod, with so many diverse people all paid according to their skill, the colored men on the ship still do some of the most dangerous and dirty work (cooking, minstrel-ing). For example, each of the three mates and Ahab (all white), have a nonwhite harpooner underling, and harpooning strikes me as dangerous if not only very difficult. Daggoo actually has Flask sit on top of him to use him as a look-out at one point.
This oppression, which is magnified in society at large, may in part be due to the threat perceived by the majority that those different from them defy the established order. The perception of minorities as threatening enough to in some way justify subjugation arguably is a result of how strange and "other" they may seem. As Prof. Grobstein puts it in his article "Diversity and Deviance: a Biological Perspective", "There is a dynamic tension between order and variance. Surely on e of the roots of oppression is a perceived threat on the part of one group that the social system will be disrupted by another group."
However, deviance in Moby Dick does not only result in oppression. The opposite often occurs, and minorities and madmen in Moby Dick are frequently exalted. There is more "noble savage" description around Tashtego, and Daggoo than any other sort of information on them. Queequeg, who left home to learn more of "Christendom", behaves the most "Christian-like" of any of the characters. Queequeg repeatedly risks his life to save others, not to mention giving half of his belongings to Ishmael as a ritual initiation of their friendship. It seems to me significant also that Queequeg, quite casually, chose not to die when he was already in his coffin. Queequeg's tattoos are another manifestation of his quasi-power, as they are "a complete theory of the heaven and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth: so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold... but shoes mysteries not even himself could read" (p 399)
Pip, who before being abandoned in the ocean was already described as very bright and remarkably well-dispositioned, more noble-savage description, was driven to madness when he almost drowned. However, his deviance in madness, though it caused him to be ridiculed by some, made him nothing less than holy to others, particularly Ahab. "He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's insanity is heaven's sense..." (p347) From then on he was a rambling prophet/jester.
The strangest member of the Pequod's crew is the "oriental" prophet Fadalla. Fadalla is the most far removed from the ship's society. When he first appeared it was not clear is he was a stowaway or a ghost. His prophecies, that if Ahab were to die, he would die only after himself, and that Ahab would die by hemp, come true.
Finally, Ahab himself is mad. Melville tells us that "...his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought t o bear upon nay one reasonable object." (p161) Thus Ahab's madness makes him more powerful, and somehow his charisma and conviction are able to convince his whole crew, with the exception of Starbuck, to go unquestioningly to their deaths in pursuit of Ahab's whale. Ahab is also likened to Prometheus on at least to separate occasions, creator and benefactor of man. Melville also identifies this as a weakness, comments on Ahab: "God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have crated a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature he creates." (p175) In addition, Ahab is in a mid-way position with the "other" by being closest to the prophets on his ship, having some unclear tie to Fadalla, and considering Pip to be holy, and therefore taking him in.
On the other hand, Ahab is also likened to Satan for his arrogance and proud defiance, which is what cause Satan "to fall from heaven".
These examples show how those who do not fit Pequod's social structure and/or the larger social structure at the time are indeed of the "other", often placed at opposite poles, much like whiteness. One pole is that they are perceived as threatening, thus the oppression of minorities, considering Fadalla to be a ghost, Ahab being compared to Satan. More often, however, on the Pequod those who are potentially threatening to the social structure are set in lofty positions; the noble savages, the mad prophets, all powerful in some strange, ineffable, "other" way.
But what if, like Melville, we extend what is "other" in terms of people the same as he did with meaning and whiteness. Everything is other, a person is only alone. If because someone else uses different meanings than my own, and all meanings are equally valid, we question meaning away to nothing, there is no system of order. For a fleeting moment there may be a thought that this would do away with social injustice, but anarchy holds no such promise. How seriously should I take Melville when he suggests that meaning is a joke?
In the end of the book, the white whale wins. That which symbolizes meaninglessness and the lack of structure which meanings bring to our lives, destroys everything and everyone in Ishmael's world- almost. Even if Melville does not blindly buy into meanings, however, he still left Ishmael Queequeg's coffin. That last symbol of life, as the coffin is empty, and friendship, as it was Queequeg's coffin, floats Ishmael to safety. (I am tickled here that Queequeg's empty tomb is what saves Ishmael, as Jesus' empty tomb is a symbol of the salvation of mankind; both Queequeg and Jesus are men who loved "their neighbor".) I take from this that, as grim as the book's ending is, Melville allows for meanings to prevail, and respects and preserves in his book specifically the significance of life itself, and friendship.
In our last meeting, Prof. Grobstein brought up a very interesting point of concern, namely that our society does not deal with mental health issues well, if at all. What he suggested in our interview, and similarly in his article "Diversity and Deviance" is that people should understand that differences are to be learned from to better society on the whole:
"The success of biological systems in general is due not to homogeneity but to heterogeneity: they depend critically on the existence of differences in the elements which make them up. ... The best argument against oppression may not be the common characteristics of all human beings but the great, indeed critical, value of their differences. Our political system appropriately acknowledges the common characteristics as a basis for every individual's human rights. But a properly functioning social system may well depend as much on the differences among individuals as it does on their similarities. Biology would seem to tell us that the rights of individuals and of distinctive groups of individuals should be regarded as deriving not only from their common characteristics but also from their differences."
I would like to add that, in light of can be observed in Moby Dick, the idea of the other, in as much as it threatens disorder, even meaninglessness, as much as it is terrific brain play, is still potentially harmful. In Moby Dick there was little oppression, still perceiving the other as super-human does no-one good either; it de-humanizes them as well. Consider more concrete examples of minorities in the USA; Black men stereotyped as super athletic and hyper masculine, Asian students stereotyped as super students. Here the idea of everyone being "other", different from each other, is useful. Is there a way to not only properly balance order and disorder, differentiation and categorization, so as no-one gets hurt as we try to make sense of the world?
The second law of thermodynamics comes to the rescue! Disorder is the only way to create order. With this understanding, it is possible to contentedly fumble along with meaning, assembling and disassembling our understanding of the world again and again, hopefully "getting it less wrong" all the time. And I believe culture is is not a closed system, we need not worry about losing energy.
Works Cited
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger. New York: Routlege, 2002.
Grobstein, Paul. "Diversity and Deviance: A Biological Perspective." Serendip. 14 May 2004.
Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1967.
| Storytelling and the Telling of Stories Name: Rachel Cla Date: 2004-05-14 18:29:11 Link to this Comment: 9880 |
"The weather was really pretty for it, not too cold, just perfect and there were so many people. I'd guess hundreds...all different kinds of people. The funnel cakes, of course were great and the storytellers were really talented. They had people come in from all over, Japan, Africa, North Carolina... lots of really good people. It was funny, one of them said that the story that she was going to tell was from her childhood in South Africa but it had its distant roots in a Dutch story. 'That should surprise no one,' she said, 'not only given the history of the region, but also because every story is a variation on the same theme. Stories come from us, and basically we're all the same.' Kind of a freaky thought that we just retell the same old thing over and over...huh?"
Every fall hundreds of people descend on a small town in Appalaicha for the National Storytelling Festival. The crowd is diverse: many families make the treck simply for a day of kid-friendly entertainment, others are people who will recognize the stories as their own and therefore desire to see who will do the stories justice, others are a strange breed of academics who fly in from all over the world to do "research" and "study" at the festival, others come for the funnel cakes.
I identify these academics as a strange breed because they are so frequently misunderstood. Until very recently, I, like many others, discounted them and their missions as fighting an uphill battle of trying to keep alive a shrinking cultural sub-group (whatever group that may be) and shirking away from any serious, respectable carreer, studying science or bussiness or something else equally "useful". The former may be true and if so- more power to them, the latter I now realize could not be further from the truth. The storytelling practiced by these people is no less valid than that of writers of literature. Some are talented, some less inspired, many are mainstream and then others more subversive, they all strive to tell their stories in a certain manner and context, eventually offering up their stories to the audience. The actions of the audience as a result, is a development or response to the story.
With these storytellers in mind I have to say: I am sceptical. Or more acurately phrased I was sceptical and now I am trying to not be so much anymore. I was sceptical that evolution had anything to do with literature. Later, I was spectical that I could get past my personal predjudices to look at the literature for what it is. Now is the point where I should admit that I really do not know what the literature is. Is is not, most asureadly, there solely for my personal enjoyment, nor is it for my personal torment. In fact, it may have very little to do with me. Literature is not a monolithic being, not one thing but like separate members of a species. And of course, it is true that because I have digested it, it is now a part of me, but it has acted on me and not the other around
Literature is nothing more than formalized storytelling. This is admittedly not a very original observation but an important personal realization all the same. Just as certain storytellers are inspired by other stories, personal events, or cultural myths and incorporate these elements into their works, so too do authors of literature. This is valuable for me because before I viewed Literature (with a captital "L")in the same way one would a whole cake or a bottle of water. It was something to be tackled and digested, but was essentially a whole entity I understand now that this is not true. I perceive literature now as a loosely bound group of artistic works expressed through the same medium which is affected by and affects our perception of ourselves as creative beings and as products of biology. We are descendants of the evolutionary process therefore everything that we produce will in turn mimick the "shape" of evolution. I feel that this is possible, although that would seem to rely on some mystical idealized view of evolution and its cosimic signigicance.
I feel that we can find patterns with evolutionary echos in more concrete ways.
First, the mechanism of natural selection, the "survial of the fittest", seems trite and emtremely unoriginal, but all the same, worthy of attention. Joseph Carroll in his essay "Adaptationist literary study: An emerging research prgram" theorizes about the function of art and specifically literture in human society. He states that, "The imaginative models that we constuct about our experience in the world do not merely convey practical information. They direct our behavior by enterting into our motiviational system at its very roots—our feelings, our ideas, and our values." (Carroll, 10) But if our literature does not enter into our motivational system? If the piece does "speak to us", we have no use for it and it fails to enter into our cannon and our conscienceness and it fades away without producing progeny of ideas. As in natural selection, those with the most desirable traits reproduce and give rise to others bearing similar traits yet are distinctive beings. The creative plagarism, unconscience or not, is seemingly the hallmark of any artistic effort.
Storytelling in all of its various forms reuses, reworks, and represents themes which are so old and familiar they seem primordial. The stories which are useful to us and our existance in some from will survive the mechanism of natural selection to maintain their place in our consciecness. Those "strange" studiers of storytelling are not only examining the telling of stories as a cultural art but rather it seems they are studing our lives and their expression.
• Carroll, Joseph. "Adaptationist literary study: An emerging research prgram". Style, Winter 2002 v36 i4, p596 (24)
| The Renga of Memes - Final Paper to Accompany Proj Name: Rachel Cla Date: 2004-05-14 18:35:10 Link to this Comment: 9881 |
Over the course of this semester, the idea that has interested and struck me
most has been that of Dennett in his book Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution
and the Meanings of Life. In it, he introduces the reader to many concepts
and philosophies of life but that of memes and how they affect and create our
lives is the most interesting to me.
I began thinking about Dennett's statement that "What we are is very much a
matter of what culture has made us." Dennett blames memes for
this "invasion" of being. The people-ness of people comes from the invaders
which, because they were created by their hosts, are particularly adapted
their environment. These memes invade us and consequently the culture we
create. Everything we do is a product of this invasion and they cannot be
taken away. According to Dennett, instead of the DNA and RNA reproducers
that form the physical blocks of life, memes form the substantial blocks of
life. Anything and everything that passes though our mind is considered a
meme. He creates a list to enumerate some examples: "arch, wheel, wearing
clothes, vendetta, right triangle, alphabet, calendar, the Odyssey, calculus,
chess, perspective drawing, evolution by natural selection,
impressionism, 'Greensleeves', deconstuctionism"...the list is infinite.
(Dennett, 345) And the infinite nature of this list is the point. Like the
free-association game we play as children (or with the shrink, depending on
which way you would like to look at it) each idea leads to another and to
another. Graphically, the model of a tessellation is appropriate with its
branches that never end, never truly condense, but instead expand into
unbounded space.
Dennett also makes the point that what is a meme for one culture is not a
meme for another. The Star Spangled Banner is a meme in American society and
those who are familiar with it, but to a person who has never heard of the
United States much less its anthem, it is not a meme but instead pattern of
tones and rhythm which does not hold meaning. Literature, like music is a
medium for transferring memes. To some the year 1984 was simply a year in
the past, to others it brings to mind the "thought police" and "doublespeak",
and the bleak grayness that pervades Orson Welle's book, 1984. Most people
are familiar with the phrase, "To thine own self be true," taken from
Shakespeare's Hamlet. This too is an example of a meme created from
literature and spread by culture and language.
Without reading Ahab's Wife, one might possibly vaguely connect the images
and truths of a whale, a lighthouse, and the night sky but within the book,
they represent so much. The result is not a sum of all parts, but indeed is
greater than that. Each element represents an important part of Una's life.
Alone, none of them describe it perfectly, but together they begin to form
the pattern and shape of her life. I have chosen to express her life or a
small portion of it at least, through the process inspired by Renga.
Although what I have created differs in several significant ways, I feel that
this idea of Renga and its relation to literature is worthy of further,
perhaps stricter exploration. My project does not incorporate other creators
in the process and unlike the Renga found on the website, this had a set
start and finish.
I knew that I would begin with a whale and that I wanted to incorporate
images from the book, but I was not sure what they would be and in what
form. Through trial and error I decided that the lighthouse's shape would
echo the elongated form of the whale and that when altered a certain way, the
lighthouse almost appeared to be made of stars, which brought me to the final
image of the night sky. This trio, for me, illustrated the hope that Una
maintained throughout the book. She did not allow herself to fixate on one
aspect whether good or bad in life, but instead maintained a beautiful
fluidity that allowed her to grow, evolve, and ultimately survive when so
many others had not.
| The Distance of the Stars Name: Elizabeth Date: 2004-05-14 19:17:58 Link to this Comment: 9882 |
Moonless, the sky was an utter darkness (as was the sea, which met it seamlessly), strewn with stars, as was the sea occasionally, when the swell of some wave before me would bulge up to reflect briefly the light of some star behind me, before rolling it under the water. Can the sea thus swallow even the stars? Do seas toss on any other world? In that other place, does some girl from a desperate boat see the reflection of a distant planet twinkle an oar's length away from her? Does she watch that spark roll down into the black? Would she, perforce, imagine me, the moment I imagine her? Am I not her? And, thus far removed from here? (Ahab's Wife, p. 213)
Chapter 1: The First Breath
These words come from deep inside of my body. They come from where I first began to bleed, the cave which Ishmael entered, the place where my daughter, Sena, grew enough to breathe on her own. Here is one thing that I've learned in the course of my journey. Words which are truly written inside of the body will find a way to breathe in the world.
I am at once Charlotte and Una. A woman who, filled with the past, decided to move towards the infinite and in the course of doing so absorbed infinity inside of herself. I realize that what I wanted from all of my travel and all of the suffering that I endured was to come back to a changed world. But I'm sitting on the same ground that I sat on before I left twenty years ago, realizing that I am the one who has changed.
Years ago, when I was attending Bryn Mawr College, a Professor once asked our class how we defined ourselves. While most of my classmates began by stating that they were women, I said that the label of woman was too small. I said that my Charlotte-ness could not be contained by a category. And now, sitting here on the beach, looking out at the water and the stars, my impulse is to laugh at my former self. I must now unabashedly claim my femaleness. Too much has depended on it for me to deny it. There is nothing constraining about my new claim is because I do not understand boundaries as I used to. I've learned that to be female is to have the privilege of occupying every category that has ever existed and by doing so occupying no category. Woman? The infinite expansion and contraction of an idea, the point of origin, masculine strength, the growth of a seed, a death, contraction and birth, the origin of the word, the origin of the world. This both is and is not the origin of the world.
Chapter 2: Where Sand Meets Water
It is night-time and the ocean seems as deep and vast as the story within me. My mind right now is like an ocean wave. Does a wave care to create an efficient path of travel to the shore? It does not. The only reward that a wave obtains for arriving at the shore is an opportunity to be absorbed back into the deep ocean. What it gets is an opportunity to start over. I've learned that like a wave, it is best to be engaged in the process of living, the process of moving forward. It is good to be aware that arrival can, at best, only lead you backwards.
The moon touches the water with a thick and solid line of light. The line quivers with ocean ripples and waves. If I could only paint this narrative or compose it like a symphony! I'd like to create the story with tones and colors at once enigmatic and clear, leading to somewhere specific and to everywhere. I have lived a life of words and now see them as strikingly inadequate. If there were no people would there be such a thing as narrative? Maybe there are only events that human minds place in a sequence or maybe into many sequences, written and re-rewritten throughout time.
I suppose it would be useful to return to where the sand meets the ocean, where a wave crashes hard and spreads itself as thin watery sheet onto sand. I will start at my point of origin, my birth. I'm sitting on the beach at the top of 78th Street on Long Beach Island, in New Jersey. I was born on this island nearly forty years ago. It's a space populated by thousands of people over the summer and a few hundred people during the year. I was born when the island was in its solitary phase, a cold January day which was also the first day of a new century. Ever since I was little, I liked writing my birthday on paper: 1/1/00. But when I was younger I was unable to put words to why I liked the number so much. Maybe it was just the way it looked? I can tell you that I like the date now because of its simplicity and promise. My birthday is two numbers paired with each other, each representing points of origin. "1", a solid line moving upward, "0" two arcs closing in on each other, indicating the return, the cyclical nature of life.
The tide is going out and the sand is growing colder on my legs. There are mosquitoes too, I can feel them sucking blood from the softest parts of my body, right behind my knees, on my neck, my lower back. I've missed the feel of mosquitoes; I've missed the slight tickle and the slow raising of welts on my skin. "Your mother used to get bitten up like that too," my grandmother once said to me. "Your Momma didn't have a clue that the mosquitoes were biting her either. I never known anyone besides you and your momma who went about forgetting to shoo mosquitoes away" "I'm not sure that I believe you, Granny," I'd said to my grandmother. But after I'd said it, I vowed that I would never again even try to swat a mosquito away. I now realize that this decision was a simple way for me to maintain a connection with my mother.
My mother died shortly after I was born. My parents thought that I was going to be born at the end of March but I was meant to be born into colder air. I constructed a single picture of my mother a long time ago, made by stories I've been told in conjunction with my own imagination. This image comes back to me now. It's a picture which includes my mother's thin fingers running over the piano keys as she played the one piece that she ever composed, a stylistic compendium of the music of Mozart, Berlioz and Varese. I imagine her giving her second concert ever in the small Catholic Church on the Island. I know that at the time of that concert, she was twenty three and I was already deep inside of her, my tiny body preparing for the moment of first breath in the world. My mother played the final cadence in her piece twenty minutes before the ending she'd originally composed. Then she quietly walked off the stage and whispered in my father's ear that it was time for me to be born. My father told her that it was impossible for it to be time yet and took her home instead of to the hospital. Long after the fluid inside of her seeped into the couch where she lay, my father would still not take her to get help. I remember how my father used to freeze and stare at the most inopportune moments, at moments which, like this one, demanded action. I remember another moment: my father is staring at me with an impenetrable blankness as I'm walking out of his door. I want quite deeply to know what he is thinking. Now I wonder whether knowing his thoughts would have mattered.
I imagine the time of my mother's labor as a moment hollowed out like the insides of an old oak tree. I imagine my mother, trapped inside, unable to cry out. My father had spent three years of marriage making her a silent void inside a deep and rotting oak. I do not blame my mother for anything. Rather than blame her, I've allowed her pain to reside within a part of me.
I do not know whether—on that evening of 1/1/00, my mother said anything to convince my father or whether some other force made him recognize that my mother needed help. All that I know for sure is that he eventually called my grandparents. When they arrived fifteen minutes later, the wind and the force of their concern caused the door to slam so hard behind them that both hinges broke. My grandparents had attended my mother's concert the night before. If they'd gone both nights, they would have discovered that I was about to be born. But my grandfather didn't like my mother's music enough to listen a second time. "Your mother didn't make music," my grandfather once said to me. "She spent every hour of the day making noise." I accepted my grandfather's words. I regret never asking my grandfather what he considered music.
When my grandparents arrived, my mother was about to push me out. The hospital, at that point, was too far away. So my grandmother suggested that they all drive one minute, instead, to the beach where I now sit. My grandmother wanted the tides of the ocean to help my mother give birth. There was a slight dusting of snow on the beach and it was so cold that my grandmother wrapped my mother in six afghans before taking her outside. They were blankets crocheted by my grandmother's mother. All the same color, all an extraordinarily deep blue.
It is impossible for the ocean to freeze so completely that the waves cease to move. I often wondered if, at the point of my birth the ice overtook the waves and just for a moment, the ocean did stop moving. I wondered if the ocean became still enough to see my mother die and to see me be born. When I was younger I was convinced that the ocean chose to take my mother away from me. And it has taken me until now to realize that the ocean did not and cannot choose. The ocean simply is. It is people who choose.
Chapter 3: Soaring
After my mother's funeral, my father moved to mainland Manahawkin. He left me to be raised by my grandparents. Remarkably, being born so soon had no effect on my physical development, other than a slight limp which I'd later learn to be grateful for. As a person who was prone to rushing around, my limp did often force me to slow down enough to enjoy certain moments. I took my first steps with that limp in my grandmother's red brick house. And with that limp I explored odd parts of the space, feeling the texture of the objects my grandmother put out for decoration.
It was also in my grandmother's red brick house that I first experienced the sensation of lifting myself off of the ground. It happened when all of the quilts somehow got bunched up in between my legs. I was eight years old and I realized that if I squeezed my legs together in just the right way, somehow the quilts could give me something back. I knew that the longer I could imagine, the longer that connection would last. It was then that I first imagined the sensation of flying. I was above granny's green shag rug and I felt myself being lifted up and up until my head hit the ceiling. The minute I took the quilts from between my legs and lay flat on the bed, I suddenly felt my body jolt out of me and land about an inch over top of the floor. Then I was soaring around granny's house. Sometimes I pressed hard against the rug in order to try and send myself upward, as high as I had been when the quilts had been in between my legs. All of granny's vases and picture frames, mirrors and floor boards flew by me in an instant and I just kept on flying. It wasn't a dream. It was not something I was imagining. I knew right then and there that I had been given the ability, the privilege, of soaring.
Granny often woke me with an Alvin and the Chipmunks CD. I didn't want to get out of bed, but she carried me out, undressed me and plopped me in the pink bathtub. I wanted to explain to her what had happened. I wanted to explain how I had actually left myself and spent some time flying over top of her rug. But something told me that I shouldn't explain because I would have to tell the part about the quilts. My grandparents had spent the first years of my life teaching me that pleasure was wrong, and I was uncomfortable with what happened to me in bed. It was many years before I understood what sex was and an even greater number of years to learn about masturbation. But when I was eight I knew enough about pleasure to understand that I had found an unjust way into it and that if I told anyone, they might have sent me flying from here to the end of the earth. Actually, that's what happened! Funny the way we choose to describe things, the way we articulate our fears retrospectively.
While I was in the tub, Granny gave me a bar of soap and said, "Charlotte, wash under your arms with this soap while I go and get the hairdryer ready." I threw the bar of soap into the water as a way to prepare myself to tell her what was going on. I thought that the thud at the bottom of the tub would give me enough courage. But the bar of soap only dipped under the water for a second and then came back to the surface.
"Ivory," Granny said laughing, "The soap that floats."
I couldn't help but laugh a bit myself, but I quickly gained composure because I knew that I had something to say. I looked my grandmother and here is what came out: "Granny," I said, trying to make my eight year old face look more serious than a grown woman's. "I am not what I seem."
It didn't take her more than a second to respond. "I've known that from the very start, Charlotte. I knew that the minute I pulled you kicking and screaming out of your Momma's stomach that you was going to be something different."
"Good lord," I said, letting my whole body sink under the water and she told me that I'd best be thanking the good Lord.
Chapter 5: Books in Sand
My grandfather was a watchmaker and my grandmother a quilter. Neither of them found much time for reading. But I did. I attended Beach Haven Elementary School where I learned how to read and never looked back. Reading was another way of soaring and I couldn't wait for the moments in school when, with words, I would be allowed to move far away from myself.
I was so happy one day to find a book propping up the end of my grandfather's work bench. I removed it immediately, and all of my grandfather's watch parts feel to the ground. His tiny abstract pieces of time scattered on the floor. For the first time he slapped me hard against my cheek, like I'd seen him slap my grandmother. Unlike my grandmother, who made very little noise and walked away when my grandfather slapped her, I cried and remained by his work bench, by him.
"Get out of here, Charlotte," he said when I reached to pick up the watch pieces. But I didn't move. I do not know where my courage came from, but somehow I knew that my grandfather could never hurt me.
"What book is this, Grandpop?" I asked him looking straight into his vague grey eyes.
Moby-Dick, he said to me. Then something changed within him and made him smile.
"I'm Ahab," he said to me, "and you're my little white whale."
Then he reached down and tickled me all over and gave me the book to keep.
I was so happy to read something that my grandfather had read. I read the book on the beach and looked for the Pequod in my Ocean. Sometimes I would read from the ending chapters to the beginning, wondering if I read in reverse enough, the narrator would no longer wish to be called Ishmael. "Call me Isaac." "Call me Jesus." "Call me Sarah." How different the book would be if, upon reading his own narrative over again, Ishmael himself chose to be called differently.
I was angry the first time a bit of sand blew into my copy of Moby-Dick. But then I began to like the feel of the grains of sand on the pages so much that I would fan the pages of the book over the sand deliberately, before I began to read. I came to think of the grains of sand to be like the words in the book, small units comprising something more vast and incomprehensible than the units themselves. I vowed that I would someday write words to make things bigger than they could ever be. I vowed that I would write words to make beaches and oceans, to someday make entire universes. There is a beauty to childhood ambition.
A book about Mars was the new text that propped up my grandfather's work bench. After reading and re-reading Moby-Dick, this was the book that I had my eye on. But I didn't make a move until much later to try and access this book, those chapters about distance, the beyond which by that time was becoming closer than it had ever been to mankind, the beyond which I would allow to enter deeply within me.
Chapter 6: Before Painful Kisses
When I was eleven, my grandmother told me that I would begin visiting my father on weekends. I heard Granny call him up and tell him that I was becoming a woman and that it would be a sin if he didn't get to know me. I wonder what made my grandmother choose this, what made her give me over to him in this way. During our days together, he'd talk to me about hunting. He showed me how to use a rifle and how to spot a deer. He taught me how one can not make a single sound when one steps on the autumn leaves. I cannot say that I disliked learning this. There was something special about a day spent hunting, a day spent looking for a single thing.
In the evenings my father would open up and talk to me in a way I never would have expected. I occupied a bed with my father in the evenings because there was only one bed in his house. Sometimes he would pull me close to him, lift up my white night gown and kiss me all over my body. He'd whisper, "I love you, Charlotte," and "you're beautiful." During these moments he was allowing me to fly without any effort on my part. My body relaxed and felt calm. My father used to tell me that what we were doing had to be our secret. At first this made me feel like it was even more special than I thought, but his insistence on not telling anyone began to make me sense that something was wrong. I tried not to think about it because Granny and Grandpop never said I love you and no one ever said that I was beautiful. This is what I'd been longing for, a sense that I was beautiful, loved and connected to one who make me feel this way. All else could be ignored.
Chapter 7: Bleeding
A few weeks after I turned twelve, granny saw me concentrating deeply. I was trying to figure out how to fly through a glass window. I knew that I could lift myself off the ground and sometimes even get through the ceilings, but I wasn't sure if I could fly through glass. I thought it would be a great triumph to soar straight out the window, above all the cars on the street, to another place entirely.
Granny interrupted my concentration: "Charlotte, you're getting older now. Some things are going to start happening to you that you may not like one bit. There'll be some boys running after you who don't know a god-damned thing about how to treat a lady. If one of them wants to kiss you and you like him enough, go ahead and kiss him back. I ain't going to be able to stop that. But you don't let him do anything else to you." I immediately thought of my father, and didn't really know why. At the time I didn't know what to make of what she was saying.
Later that afternoon I started my period. I didn't know what was happening but I told my grandmother, who looked pleased with herself. She finished the talk that she started earlier in the morning.
"Sex is when a boy sticks his penis up a girl's vagina," she said to me.
"You should be pretty damn grateful that I'm telling you that."
She cleaned me up and told me that I should go running around instead of moping about the house. So I went outside, thinking about how cruel she had been to me. How she'd been the one who'd made me bleed. I sat looking outside at tree bark, thinking how I was going to burst completely outside of my stomach. They'd probably find me out there on the lawn and not even care. The thought of finding some way to fly didn't even cross my mind.
Chapter 8: Astronomy and Transcendentalism
When I was fourteen and finished with elementary school, I enrolled in a private all girls' high school on the mainland, in Tuckerton. One of my teachers had recommended that I apply. At first, when I found out that I had been accepted, my grandparents didn't want to let me enroll.
Granny said: "Charlotte, you're better than all of them crazy rich girls who try and hide from the real world with their books, who have those nutty ideas about Transcendentalism and astronomy."
My first impulse was to ask my grandmother what she knew of Transcendentalism and astronomy and if there was a reason why she'd grouped the two together but I did not ask this. Why didn't my grandmother want me to go to this high school? She had to be aware of how much time I spent reading. She had to know how in love I was with ideas. Then a possible reason occurred to me.
"I got a full scholarship to go there, Granny," I said.
She looked at her watch like she often did when she wasn't quite sure what to say.
"Well, I suppose you're gonna go where you're gonna go Charlotte," she said trying to be as matter-of-fact as possible. But she was beaming.
Chapter 9: Walking Away
Since my new school was closer to my dad's home, sometimes I would walk there rather than taking the bus to my grandparent's house. One afternoon, I was out hunting with my father and his friends, Gary and Mort. They were teasing my father about a woman he'd met when they were at a bar.
"You could have had her in bed with you in a second," Gary said.
"But you don't like women anymore do you, Flynn?" said Mort.
I often wondered if Gary or Mort ever had distinct thoughts, if their opinions ever differed. It seemed to me that they were actually one person, thinking the same things all the time. My father, looking more agitated than I'd seen him in a while, replied,
"If you all don't shut up I'm going to shoot you instead of any god damned deer."
"You gonna shoot your kid too, Flynn?" (Mort.)
"She's kind of useless, isn't she?" (Gary)
"Yeah, why not," my father said pointing the rifle at my head and laughing.
I pushed it out of the way and went off to walk in the opposite direction. As I started to walk I heard the sound of the rifle. I knew that the bullet did not come anywhere near me but I felt my body shake. A joke, maybe, to shoot it in my direction? I did not scream. I did not turn back to see who had pulled the trigger. There was something beautifully freeing about walking away. What should have been a painful force trying to push me down felt more like a loving hand gently pushing me to a better place. Walking. Flying. Soaring. Away.
Chapter 10: Painful Kisses
I walked for hours that night before returning to my father's house, pausing sometimes to sit on the thick bed of fallen leaves on the forest floor. Twice I moved all the leaves out of the way and drew on the sandy ground underneath them. I drew large circles and let the sand collect underneath my fingernails. I drew amorphous shapes, long maze-like lines intersecting with one another and ovals overlapping one another.
Eventually, I found my way back to my father's house. I thought that my father might have been in bed already when I walked in. But I saw him walking towards me. I didn't want to get into bed with him but he hugged me and kissed me on the lips and then pulled me towards the bed. He took off all of my clothing and slipped my white nightgown over my head. Then he started holding me closer, tighter.
"Dad, I'm too old to be this close. Let go of me."
I was right up against him. In his eyes I saw a vagueness which told me that the person I had known in him had somehow left. And then I felt him inside of me. Was this sex? Was this how it was supposed to be? My body tightened when it happened and I felt more pain than I'd ever experienced before. I remember thinking how much I wanted to be able to fly then, up over top of his bed and through the roof, beyond his house and even my grandmother's house. These thoughts did not come as words, only as vague feelings, hopes. Only now do I remember the one, strange thing I said to my father when I first tried to push him off: "Dad, I want my own house."
I still don't know all that occurred after the first couple of moments. All that I know is that I woke up the next morning, confused, wondering if it had really happened. But I could feel the moment pulsing within me, in my head, in my lungs, in between my legs. It had happened.
"I called the school and told them that you weren't feeling well," my father said to me being a plate of scrambled eggs to me in bed.
How surreal it all was. Did he really think that I was worried about school at that moment? Was he aware of how deeply he had hurt me? Something would not let me get up and leave.
"Did you love mom?" I was unaware that I asked the question out loud and so was surprised to hear my father respond.
"Of course I loved your momma." He paused and then looked right over my shoulder to the backboard of the bed. It was the second time that I'd seen the vagueness in his eyes and it made me want to leave even more. I tried to fly then as well, to get my body to budge. I tried rather desperately, but I couldn't move at all.
"It's your goddamned fault that your momma's not here right now," he said to me. And that's the last thing I ever heard my father say.
Chapter 11: The Shadow of the Dream
Sometimes you wake from a restless sleep. And much later, you realize that in that sleep, you dreamt a particular dream. You can't remember the dream but you feel its shadow following you around as you go about your daily routine. At first you just ignore it and hope it goes away. Then suddenly you become convinced that the dream has flesh. Should you try and capture it? To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold. The dream's cold flesh... Right there. You could be warm. But...what if you, afraid to touch, afraid to grasp...allow the shadow of the dream to seep into you. What if you become the dream you've tried so hard to ignore?
Looking down, looking back into the water in front of me, I see the shadow of a female body swimming underneath the waves. Light plays tricks with surface. There are fewer boundaries between reality and illusion than most people are willing to admit. There both is and is not a woman underneath the water. I am and am not she.
That evening with my father is both something that has been faded and changed by my imagination as if it were a dream and something that is as real as if it had happened yesterday. The moment made my insides harder, colder. It made shadows easier for me to see than light. But it was also a time right before a great deal of change. It came before my first real experience with death and distance. It came before the moment when I first loved and before I made my first profound mistakes. Those things which seem unforgivable are often the things which have the most profound impact. They effect what you live and wrestle with, they are a part of who you become. I acknowledge everything that has happened to me. I embrace the past with the future in order to claim myself.
Chapter 12: The Bookstore
I did not tell anyone what had happened; I dealt with it by continuing to move forward. Remarkably, I went to school the next day. After school I walked over to the Used Bookstore on 79th Street and applied for a job. The owner of the store, called The Bookstore was an eighty-six year old woman named Goldie Pearlman. She was happy to give me a position because she had seen me browsing in her store for years. She had seen me looking in her store ever since I was little.
"Can you start tomorrow?" Mrs. Pearlman asked me.
"That would be wonderful," I said.
"You know how slow business is over the winter Charlotte; when you aren't busy take whatever books you want off the shelf and read,"
"Oh, that's really okay, Mrs. Pearlman." I wanted to come across as someone who would work hard.
"Call me Goldie. And reading's part of the job description. Take it or leave it," she said, winking at me.
I smiled at her for giving me such a tremendous gift.
Chapter 13: So he doesn't worry
"I can't have the job at the bookstore and go and see Dad," I said to my grandmother. "I've got lots of schoolwork, so it's just not going to work out."
"You really didn't need to get a job Charlotte, I know money is a little bit tight but Grandpop and I want you to have time to do your homework."
"It's a good job, Granny and I think it's far time I helped out a little bit with money. And besides, I was spending a lot of time at Dad's when I should have been studying. This will be a better use of time."
She nodded. "Just make sure you call your Daddy and tell him that you won't be coming over as much, so he doesn't worry."
"Yup," I said walking up the stairs. But there was no way that I was going to call him. For a while I worried that my father would call my grandmother, or worse that he would come to her house. I found out later why this never happened.
Chapter 14: Orson Scott Card
How can I describe working at a used bookstore? A tiny space filled with books about everything, books that, like library books, have already been touched by human hands. There is a difference between library books and books at a used bookstore though. Library books are marked. They may travel to exotic places but they must always return to the location marked on their spine. They must return to a single shelf and wait to be taken out again. The books at a used bookstore can be purchased and read by one person or a great number of people or tossed aside and forgotten about. The have no fate. Their lives are impossible to predict, so beautifully free. Of course, I'd make up stories in my mind anyway, about where the books would travel once customers had purchased them. I'd make up stories about those books that would be read hundreds of times and those that would travel to the other end of the world never to be opened once.
The first couple of weeks that I worked at the Bookstore, I read furiously. I read authors whom I had not yet encountered in school: Faulkner, Hemmingway, Eliot, Woolf. But I also read non-fiction books about salvaging marriages, building friendships, raising children. I read to distract myself from the fear that my father would come to where I was and try to punish me for leaving, from the fear that I could be pregnant, from the fear that someone would find out what had happened and the even deeper fear that no one would ever find out what had happened. I kept remembering what my grandmother told me when I was a little girl. I'd had to get stitches on the back of my leg after falling on the jetty at the end of our beach. I'd complained about how much it hurt constantly, to everyone who would listen. Finally my grandmother had said that I should really stop complaining. "Time heals even the deepest wounds, Charlotte. Be patient and let it heal."
I was not pregnant; my father did not come to find me. I was able to distract myself when I needed to. I was able to distract myself enough.
One day in January, after I had just turned 15, a boy who looked about my age walked into the bookstore looking for a book by Orson Scott Card. I showed him to the science fiction section and he picked up two of the titles by the author. Then he asked me if I liked Orson Scott Card.
"I haven't read much Science Fiction," I said to him. "But I'm sure he's really good," I added trying not to disappoint him.
"Oh," the boy said. He looked disappointed anyway.
The boy paid for the books and walked out the door. I put Orson Scott Card on my list of authors to take a look at just as soon as some of the titles became stocked again.
For the next year, I'd see this boy every day. He would come into the store with a portable CD player and headphones on, look around for several moments and then walk out. Sometimes he would linger looking at a specific section of books, often the section marked "classics" (I felt responsible for his avoidance of the science fiction section). I found it curious that the boy did not purchase any more books. But I liked seeing him in the store every day. It was something constant, a ritual I could count on. It didn't occur to me to ask the boy his name. In my head I called him Orson Scott Card.
Chapter 15: My father
I've realized that for all of my vows to be completely honest and open with this narrative, I've been avoiding telling you about what happened to my father. Perhaps it's because I don't know quite how to express it. Should I give it a poetic weight? Should I show how this moment, like the first, somehow changed me also? I'll give you the news in as cold a way as it came to me. From my grandmother, February 8th 2015:
"Charlotte, your father moved to Florida a few weeks ago. We got a call while you are at school from his friend Mort. Mort said he took too many pills. He's dead now."
For a moment I felt as though I were completely empty. A body without blood. I started to walk upstairs.
"Charlotte, you come over here right this minute," my Grandmother said.
"It is what it is, Granny," I remember saying, looking right past her. "Pills are kind of a passive way to go though, wouldn't you say? He could have at least tried to hang himself." I said it with sarcasm and anger and when I said these things I felt some of the emptiness filling in again. The words came from deep in my body. They came from the place where the sadness and guilt resided. Guilt for having walked away from my father. Guilt for my mother dying. Guilt for withholding information from my grandmother. The words came from the same place that I am writing from now—the place that seeks words to fill emptiness.
"I don't EVER want to hear you talking about your Daddy that way again," my grandmother yelled to me from the bottom of the stairs.
"Fuck you, then" I said in a half-whisper. I wanted her to hear me.
Chapter 16: David
Although I didn't get cramps like I'd used to when I first started menstruating, I often wished that I could stop bleeding entirely. It reminded me of too much. Whenever I had my period, I'd think about my father and the last time I saw him. I'd think about my mother's death and the moment she gave birth to me. I wished that for just one month I could be spared of this thing which without fail would remind me of everything that I wanted to forget.
At the end of May, when I was sixteen years old, I was thinking about all of these painful memories and reading Moby-Dick behind the counter of The Bookstore. Going on a journey with Ishmael was what I often did to make myself feel better. If Ishmael dealt with the "damp drizzly November in [his] soul" by seeking out the sea, I could deal with the November in my soul by reading about Ishmael.
As I was reading, the boy who in my head was Orson Scott Card finally came up to the counter. He rang the little bell on the counter and startled, I looked up at him.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
"I was wondering if you were doing anything tonight?" he said to me and I laughed at his sudden directness. Was this why he had kept coming into the store?
I told him that I did not have plans.
"Would you maybe want to do something with me, then?"
"Sure," I said "what do you want to do?"
He told me that he hadn't thought that far ahead because he thought that I would have said no. I smiled at how shy he seemed.
"Well, maybe we could go for a walk. Sometimes, after work, I go for a walk," I said to him.
Then I began to reflect upon the fact that I didn't know anything about this boy. Had I really gone all this time without asking him about himself? I asked him his name.
"Call me Ishmael," he said looking at the copy of Moby-Dick in my hands. This made me smile.
"My name's Charlotte Jennings. And if you don't give me your real name, I'll be perfectly happy to call you Ishmael," I was surprised at how easily I could talk to him. I felt oddly comfortable around him.
"My real name's David Pollock," he said and again I laughed.
I wondered why he wasn't laughing along with me.
"Wait a minute," I said. "Is your name really David Pollock?"
"Yup. Just like your name is Charlotte Jennings. David Pollock is not that unusual of a name, is it Charlotte? "
"Good Lord, you really are Ishmael," I said staring with an open mouth at David who still looked perplexed. Finally I collected myself and asked him if he'd ever read Ahab's Wife.
"Ahab had a wife?" he asked me and I told him that I'd tell him all about it later that evening when I was done with work. Watching David exit the front door of the bookstore, I felt something inside me get lighter. I was going to spend more time with the boy, David, that night! When I looked at the floor I realized that my feet were raised slightly off the ground. It had been so long since I had flown.
Chapter 17: First Date
"Do you live on this Island, David?" I asked him this as we started to walk along the beach later that night. It was a beautiful warm night. The moon looked like a small white blemish in the sky and the ocean was calm and dark.
"I've lived on 99th Street for a couple of years now, with my dad. But I grew up in Florida," he said walking closer to the water, "How about yourself?"
"I was born here. I've lived here all my life."
I found out that David attended the public high school on the mainland and I told him that I went to Tuckerton Day School. As we talked we got closer and closer to the wet sand and he started walking closer to me. Eventually, he asked me what I'd meant when I said that he really was Ishmael.
"Last year, at Tuckerton we read this book called Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. It's a wonderful book, written at the end of the last century. Not many people know about it but I really can relate to it. It's based on Moby-Dick actually. And it's from the perspective of Ahab's wife. I can understand why you wouldn't remember Ahab having a wife because he's only mentioned a few times in Moby-Dick. But Naslund gives her a name: Una. Una is her name." I realized that I was speaking quickly; rambling a bit and I wanted to get to the point quickly so that he would understand where I was coming from. "By the end of the book, Una encounters Ishmael and Ishmael tells her that his real name is David Pollock."
"Wow," said David looking quite sincerely impressed, "I've always liked Moby-Dick. It's so fascinating that I have the same name as Naslund's Ishmael.
"I think it means something really important," I said to him.
"I never would have known it without you telling me," he said turning his head towards me and looking at my face.
I didn't want David to walk me home because I didn't think my grandparents would be ready to meet him. But I told him that I'd let him borrow my copy of Ahab's Wife the next time I saw him.
"I don't think I can wait too long to have that book," David said to me smiling.
"Do you think that I'll be able to have it tomorrow?"
"Sure, I'd like to see you again tomorrow."
Chapter 18: Granny and Grandpop
"Charlotte, why you so happy all of a sudden," Grandpop said to me before I went to school the next morning.
"I can't just be happy?" I said to him smiling.
"Hey, you be whatever you want, Charlotte I ain't gonna stop you, learned that lesson a long time ago," my grandfather said.
"She's got a boyfriend named Ishmael," my grandmother said matter-of-factly to my grandfather.
"Jesus Christ! Ishmael? Like from Moby-Dick?" my grandfather exclaimed.
"Granny! That's not true. Well, I mean... he's not my boyfriend and his name isn't Ishmael. It's David. Why am I telling you this; this is none of your business."
"Not another word from my mouth then. But you have some fun, O.K.? It's far time you had a little fun in your life," Granny said to me.
I wasn't even going to begin to try and understand how she had figured this one out. But I was thrilled that she was so happy for me.
Chapter 19: Flying and NASA
During my second date with David we sat on the beach rather than walking along the water. It was a windy night and the sand was blowing lightly on our faces. My copy of Ahab's Wife was sitting in front of us. I'd brought it along to give to David because I still wasn't comfortable with him coming home with me.
"Tell me something I don't know about you," David said to me.
"You know enough," I said to him. I was suddenly scared that if he knew anything more, he wouldn't like me anymore.
"Why don't you tell me about yourself instead, David"
This time, David was the one to laugh. "What do you mean I know enough? I know next to nothing about you, Charlotte. How about your parents? What are they like?"
"They're sort of dead," I said and as soon as I said it I looked downward and shook my head thinking how strange that must have sounded. "Not sort of. Let me try that again. They're dead." Remarkably I'd never yet had to say that to anyone since my father died. It felt very strange on my tongue.
"I'm really sorry," David said.
"Well, you know. It is what it is. It's okay. Not a big deal. I mean maybe it is. Anyway I live with my grandparents. They're nice people. I'll introduce you soon. Not yet though." I took a deep breath and exhaled. "So, maybe you can tell me about your parents?"
I could tell that David was really upset about asking me about my parents. I knew he felt awkward about speaking but eventually he did.
"My mom and dad are divorced. My mom lives in California with her new husband. My dad works for NASA. We moved here so that he could do some research for the Mars Project. They're really close to being able to get astronauts up there. My dad's going to go. I told him that I'd go on the expedition too when they're ready."
I imagined the red rocky pictures I'd seen on the internet. I imagined the unfathomable distance between the ocean which we were looking at then and that planet.
"Mars looks so empty in pictures," I said. "It's hard for me to imagine people living there."
"They already got those two cats up there, remember?"
I did recall the moment when I was thirteen and NASA sent two cats up to mars. The Land Rover had sent back information that the cats had lived for fifteen minutes on the planet. What they had to do to those cats to get them to survive seemed slightly cruel to me. And the fact that they knew there would be no way to get them back felt even more terrible. But I was suddenly getting a new outlook, a new perspective on Mars when I thought about the fact that David might someday go there.
All of a sudden I got really excited and wanted to tell David more about me. I still am not sure what the exact impulse for wanting to disclose the information was. It must have had something to do with distance. It must have had something to do with the beyond which I perceived that David would someday enter. "I can fly, David," I said to him. And I stood in front of him and lifted myself off the ground.
"It doesn't look like you are going anywhere to me," David said. For the first time I realized that maybe my flying was something personal. For the first time I realized that maybe no one would ever be able to see me doing it. This should have made me upset but it somehow pleased me. It was a secret so deep that it would not allow itself to be revealed to anyone.
"If you'd really like to fly, maybe you could come with us on the expedition to Mars when we're ready." I made myself a promise that no matter what, I'd go on this journey.
"I've always wanted to experience the distance of the stars," I said to David.
Chapter 20: Charlotte and Una
We had been dating for two weeks when David finished reading Ahab's Wife. By this point he knew just about everything there was to know about me. He knew about my relationship with my grandparents, how I aspired to be a writer, how I was born and how my mother died. The only thing that I was not completely honest with him about was my father. I felt like I might be able to tell David about what had happened with my father but I wanted to wait.
As soon as David finished Ahab's Wife he came into The Bookstore.
"You are not Charlotte!" he said to me.
"You're Una, Charlotte."
I giggled at his insistence and at the fact that the two customers in the store were staring at him.
"Yes, I can definitely relate to Una more," I said to him in a soft a voice as possible not to draw more attention to ourselves. But David continued loudly.
"Charlotte is too simple. Too kind. She doesn't have your wild mind. I don't imagine her having the same sparkle in her eyes. She could never have gone where Una went. Una's mind was as deep as the ocean that she traveled on. Your mind is as vast as the sky. I'm not calling you Charlotte anymore. I'm going to call you Una."
And he kept his word. David called me Una for the rest of our life together.
Chapter 21: Kisses
The night after David decided to call me Una, he invited me to his place to see video footage of Mars from a Land Rover. As we watched the rocky space, David took my hand and leaned over towards me. I felt myself getting nervous and my heart beating quickly. But as soon as his lips touched mine, I pulled away. And without wanting to, I started to cry. He reached out his hand to stroke my hair but I wouldn't let him. I had known that the moment would come when he wanted to be more intimate with me. He had been very patient with me, sensing that I didn't want to get too close. I knew on a very conscious level that I was petrified of anything remotely sexual, that I was afraid of getting close. Could I really tell him why I felt that way?
"It's O.K, Charlotte," he said to me. "I love you."
I knew then that I loved him too. Or at least that the love that I was experiencing felt more like love than anything I'd known before.
"Give me time, David," I said.
Remaining Chapter Summaries:
Chapter 22: The Truth
Outlines the first moment when Charlotte and David Kiss.
Chapter 23: Haverford and Bryn Mawr
Talks about the fact that Charlotte and David go to college together, David to Haverford, Charlotte to Bryn Mawr.
Chapter 24: The Way it's Supposed to Be
Takes place when David and Charlotte are in there second year in college. David's father tells them both that they are ready for the Mars mission. David decides that he is going to go. He tries to dissuade Charlotte from going. Charlotte and David have sex for the first time. Charlotte feels as though it's very right that it's the way it was supposed to be.
Chapter 25: On the Pequod
The name of the shuttle and Land Rover is the Pequod. David's father allows David to name it. We find out that some of the people going on the mission are Nikki Giovanni (the oldest member of the expedition), Jonathan Safran Foer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sigrid Nunez, James Lasdun and several retired Bryn Mawr professors. ;)
Chapter 26: Research
A class at Haverford which both Charlotte and David are in help with the NASA project. Charlotte decides to tell her grandparents that she'll be going to Mars. They are afraid for her life and also don't want her to drop out of college.
Chapter 27: Marriage
The plans for the Mars expedition are delayed slightly. Technology is developed so that the crew will be able to stay on Mars for a full year. David and Charlotte complete their junior years in College. In the summer they are married. The date for the expedition is set for June 10th. Shortly before getting ready to go, Charlotte finds out that she is pregnant. She decides not to tell anyone so that she can still go on the journey.
Chapter 28: Anne
We meet the captain of the expedition, a woman named Anne Dalke :) We see the interaction between the writers, astronauts etc. present. Charlotte is thrilled to converse with writers. She eventually confides in Anne some of the events of her life. Anne is not like Ahab but there is another member of the crew who is. This person is yet to be determined. There will be an Ahab like character.
Chapter 29: Tharsis Mons
All of the travelers make it onto the surface of Mars. Charlotte gives a poetic description of the surface. Slight problem and some of the crew members are almost lost. Time spent recording data. A large crater-like mountain found and examined by the crew.
The crater reminds Charlotte of what's going on inside of her. Charlotte tells David that she is pregnant. David is very angry with her. Charlotte then tells Anne who begins making plans about how to get Charlotte back to earth.
Chapters 29-33
More adventures on the surface of Mars. Some troubles. Charlotte is six months pregnant. By now all the members of the crew know. Some are angry that she decided to go on the voyage. Charlotte's conversation with Sigrid Nunez about writing.
Chapter 34: Premature
Charlotte goes into labor. Description of the moment is long and drawn out. Charlotte probes her memory about her life while she is in labor. Anne delivers Charlotte's baby on Mars. The baby is a girl, remarkably healthy and breathing well. This was a concern. David and Charlotte decide to name their daughter Sena after Sena Naslund.
Chapters 34-36: The Voyage Back
Outlines the journey of Charlotte, her child and the crew members who go back to earth with her.
36-40: Sena
Shows Charlotte raising Sena. Charlotte's Grandfather dies. Charlotte moves to Florida with her daughter. David comes back for a period of 5 years. David enjoys his daughter but grows restless.
Chapter 40: Icarus
David goes back to Mars. On the way up there is an accident and he and everyone on the second expedition dies. Telling Sena. Charlotte's grief.
Chapter 41: Correspondence
Charlotte's correspondence with some of the members who were on her voyage to Mars. Charlotte moves again. This time to California.
Chapter 44: Important Conversations
Charlotte tells her daughter about her life. Idea of absorbing infinity inside oneself. Charlotte has a more honest conversation with her grandmother who is remarkably still living.
Chapter 50: Distance
Charlotte and her daughter Sena decide that they are going to go on another space expedition together. Sena is 17 by this point and is interested in astronomy and physics. She has come up with an experiment that might make life sustainable on Mars in a long term way and wants to test it out. Charlotte's inner battle about going to Mars again.
Chapter 51-53: The Voyage
The expedition and how it goes.
Chapter 54: The Beginning
Frame story brought back, Charlotte sitting on the beach, writing. Sena has remained on Mars. Structures are being built on Mars for humans to live in. Charlotte talks about how proud she is of her daughter and how worried she is that she is safe. Charlotte revisits the ideas about dreams and shadows of dreams and ends by writing about how life is beyond any one person living in it. She imagines what will come after her. She imagines another woman sitting on the beach, her daughter's daughter maybe, writing about her experiences, feeling the same sand on her face, the same feel of mosquitoes tickling the back of her leg. She says that she is open to being changed as the world changes. She falls asleep under the stars.
| Combining Evolution and Literature: A More Complet Name: Patricia P Date: 2004-05-15 16:29:58 Link to this Comment: 9890 |
"How many writers are there... who, breaking up their subject into details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about the parts." - Cardinal Newman
Combining Evolution and Literature: A More Complete Look at Both Subjects
Now, I see no reason to accept this quote as one that applies only to writers. At the start of my Bryn Mawr College writing seminar, entitled "The Story of Evolution and The Evolution of Stories", I expected the class to contain the appropriate elements of correlation between the two, although, it did seem unlikely that the two fields could peacefully join. I was curious to see how the field of biology and that of English planned to join in what was promised to be the business of making two "interrelated and reciprocal" inquiries. But nonetheless, I accepted the invitation to consider whether the biological concept of the creation of life might be a useful one in understanding the creation of literature. For me, the value of the subjects was separate, and by no means equal. Dissecting the facts underlying our existence seemed much more pressing to me, as opposed to the interpretations of our existence, as I believed to be the obstacle taken on through literature. It was the medium I was concerned with... mixing fact with fiction. But as the class came to a close, I would argue quite the opposite about mixing the subjects of fact with fiction, or more specifically, literature with science: studying the two side by side provide you with an understanding of both that can be achieved with "anxiety about the parts." The rise of organic diversity is inseparable from the rise of meaning.
What I previously considered to be an isolated fact was this: Fossil discoveries estimate that life on Earth originated 3,800 million years ago. Several theories have developed to explain the reason for this origination, but nothing is completely unchallengeable. The very first organism, prokaryotic bacteria, can be dated back to 3,500 million years ago (6). For at least 1,000 years prokaryotes were the only living organisms on earth, until something incredible happened. The process from which that happened splintered off into another process. Some biologist would argue that this took place due to unilateral gene transfer, but what seems to be the key is that we eukaryotes, and from there a plethora of other multicultural organisms were given an infinite number of possibilities sprung out of chaos.
What I previously considered to be an isolated understanding of our interpretation of meaning: The word originated, with no specific explanation suiting all sides of the discussion, but none-the less, from what I believed to be a derailment from our top-down processing of language, we arrived at the origin of meaning.
First, the idea of top-down processing must be introduced. Top-down processing is a psychological term referring to the speech production. It was originally, and understandably, once accepted that language is a completely cumulative process, where by you work your way from the bottom-up. It was a natural assertion considering that we first produce sound, and from sound we are encourage to combine the sound into words. Our words are then organized in sentences, and so on and so forth. Hence, you have to understand a word before you can understand a sentence- or do you?
At a closer look at language and speech production, we find a variety of interesting things. For instance, language comprehension is incremental meaning that the listener is trying to interpret the sentence before it is finished, showing that we do not need to work from the root up on speech understanding, but rather, we are draw to using our collective intelligence and inference abilities to interpret a sentence. Secondly, sentence processing is too rapid to be done at the close of a sentence. However, because of this top-down way of producing and understanding speech, our comprehension keeps up with our words, so much so that if a person is asked to shadow a reader while telling a story, the shadower of a reader is normally only one syllable behind the reader! (1) And thirdly, due to the ambiguity in sentence structures and words, we are forced to read through a sentence, making hasty assumptions, (displaying a conceptual process) and then checking back to adjust them based on how unpredictable the following word or phrase was. Studies following the movement of the eye while reading found that once we reach a new stage of the sentence, or the top, we constantly check backwards (down) for the meaning, not the other way around. (1) It seems like such a simple yet rule-governed way the mind processes language information.
So, why is this important you might wonder? Well, it should come as no surprise that our ability to process language has such a great deal to do with our ability to process a piece of literature as a whole. It would be a logical assumption that when we read through a great work of literature, take Moby Dick for example, we will attempt to combine the whole of its parts to arrive at a meaning. First we must understand the words, and from the words we can understand the passages, and from the passages we might be able to interpret the text as a whole. Or, you can take slightly more evolved approach to literary interpretation: that we read the novel as a whole and look for ways that it can apply to our lives and speak of a bigger picture at its conclusion.
But if a top-down process were governing over literature comprehension as well, than we could entertain the following; Firstly, that literature comprehension requires the reader to provide incremental meaning, or more simply, the reader is trying to finish the piece before it is finished. To refer back to my aforementioned writing seminar, a fellow student concedes, "I find myself very content to be back in familiar territory reading Moby Dick. Although I have never read it before, I know what to expect in a general sense; not so much to do with the plot, rather how I'm expected to act in relation to the text ... I feel as though I can almost imagine the vein of stories we will tell as we venture through the novel." (3) Parallel to language processing, we process literature by making immediate assumptions, or pondering possibilities, as to the meaning we will arrive at later.
Secondly, literature processing may be too rapid to be done at the close of a book. Fortunately, because of this top-down way of processing literature, our comprehension keeps up with our passages. We are attributing meaning to the characters actions, not based on the author revealing their purpose, but by using conceptual understandings to arrive at a good enough guess for now.
And finally, ambiguity and opportunities for interpretation run rampant in literature, as we a mass of assumptions, displaying this amazing conceptual process... but then, the metaphor derails! It seems as if we don't check back to adjust where we have come off track. Unlike correcting a verbal slip up due to a misleading structure, and replacing it with the right word, (as we tend to do in language comprehension,) contemporary "literary processing" or literary theory has changed our challenge entirely. "When I say I am having difficulty with the book, it is not because I do not understand the book...the footnotes explain most of the allusions ... and rereading a sentence a few or more times will generally unravel the basic meaning of it... where I am at a loss is the meaning- "the meaning"- the meaning," (4) or "Reading Moby Dick is hard for me. It's not that the book is exactly boring, [but] the story being told on paper is not as interesting as the stories which the words inspire. They stay separate stories and demand equal amounts of attention, so then I go off and make up my own story" (5). It is through literature, or through unwritten forms of storytelling and self reflection, that the search for meaning is introduced. It began with a single word, that had no real meaning, and from it we arrive at an entirely new plane of reality. Concerning language processing, all words are changed with the concept of infinite meaning, as they are all ultimately more purposeful now.
But what does this have to do with science? What is the purpose of looking at our interactions with literature as a top- down process similar, but distinctly divergent from, language processing? By looking at literature from this lens, we can see important parallels between the process of language and the creation of literature and the process of the creation of life and our study of science.
We consider our study of science to be much like what we originally considered our processing of language: that we add on a new piece of understanding bit-by-bit until we arrive at the whole. But what if we truly take the time to look at evolution and the study of science as being governed by the same principals of top-down processing. So, just as "words can bring into potential existence things that had not previously existed," science brings into existence something in the evolutionary process that did not previously exist. Our search for answers through science and our search for meaning through literature are both responsible for the warping of the original subject. So it would be hard to consider science the study of facts under this process. Just through the study of science, all organisms are more purposeful now.
It should come as no surprise then that literature can help with our understanding of evolution and the study of science. It is possible to put in action, in a few pages, a process that in evolution could take place over millions of years. Only "fiction" can provide us with the possibility of creating our own multiple possibilities from chaos, in order to illustrate evolution in a few pages rather than millions of years. In order to fully understand evolution it is important somehow to witness the process; and we may be able to best understand the process of evolution from the process that we oversee ourselves, as similar principals may govern them. In this sense, a piece of literature, for instance, can be understood as a model that enables us to simulate complex processes and make them work in a particular situation and in a particular time scale. There may have been no better template to study evolution than that of literature.
My original misconception that fact and fiction, or more specifically the fields of science and literature, were incommensurable is precisely what kept me from understanding some greater concepts about the two. I fear I may have been guilty of missing the "whole" due to my anxiety about the parts. So, based on the my realization that science and literature are evolved from such a similar process, I would revise Newman's quote to not only accuse the writer, but also the scientist and those who study either subject: "How many peoples are there... who, breaking up their subject into details, destroy its life, and defraud us of the whole by their anxiety about the parts.
Works Sited
(1) Lecture Notes of Bryn Mawr College Human Cognition 212 psychology class. Obtained on March 14th 2004.
(2) Lotman M.Yuri (1990), "Universe of the Mind", in: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Great Britain: Indiana University Press.
(3) Nancy Evans. "The Other Side Of Stories." Forum Posting on Serendip Evolution of Stories, Forum 9, Onward to Moby Dick. 2004-03-24, 21:39:29.
(4) Em Madsen. "English Major Identity Crisis." Forum Posting on Serendip Evolution of Stories, Forum 9, Onward to Moby Dick. 2004-03-25, 16:28:49.
(5) Fritz Dubuisson. "The Whale." Forum Posting on Serendip Evolution of Stories, Forum 9, Onward to Moby Dick. 2004-03-23, 22:13:06.
(6) Ernst Mayr. "What Evolution Is." Basic Books, 2001. pp 44-45.
| Inner M(em)ory: Searching For My Wail Name: Em Madsen Date: 2004-05-25 20:36:25 Link to this Comment: 9912 |
I was always looking for justice. But I was not expecting to fall in love with Justice. It is, the wise man said, when we are not looking that we find our self in the other. When we are alone that we are the most careful listeners. When we are crying that we are fully alive. When we enter the world that we begin the long joyful process of dying.
September 24, 1984
Yesterday
all at once/always/like breathing
i am watching myself be born. i am the dark pit hiding in the center of a most beautifully luminous white fruit. i am jellied in the bowl of my mother's pelvis. they are cutting her open, making her stomach a big pink door which i surge through.
i am plain (though my father claims i smile at him): blotchy red face and a shock of black hair. they were expecting a boy. i was to be named samuel owen. but i am, without a doubt, a little girl. my parents cry because they are happy. my mother, i think, has never looked so radiant. i keep watching.
after three days, they name me emily, because my round moon-face does not fit the one delicate girl's name they considered: elise. now, i wonder at how tiny and sturdy i was. my family wears white hospital gowns and expressions of disbelief and tired pride. my great-uncle holds me to the side, as if i might break. there is a little gunk in the corner of my left eye.
I met Justice at a march sponsored by Greenpeace in D.C. My sign said "Save the Whales." His said, "Whales Save Us." I sat on the front stoop of a building and watched all the people stream by. I cried. I could not help it; the sheer numbers and strength were so beautiful. Justice came and sat beside me, a silent witness to the crowd and to my tears. He waited until I was finished. Then he suggested we go get something to eat at the deli around the corner.
The suburbs of Hartford, CT
Down the street from Dave's Pizza
in time/out of time/where I'm standing
The super 8s I've watched have stolen my real memories. I'm left with the impossible image of my parents on mother's day when I am one year old. They are taking turns filming each other holding me in front of the azaleas and the rhododendrons. The colors are painful and delicate on the old film. Last summer, I showed my mother a reel I'd found of me and my Oma. She is swinging me in her arms and singing to me. I look about two and I am laughing. My mother cries. She looks so young, she says.
Or I'll look at a picture and swear I can recall the moment it was taken: light on linoleum and me in the pot drawer; the taste of that watermelon and how my cousin smells musty, like the underside of a bed; wearing my Oma's high-heels clicking on the sidewalk, itch of wool.
I curl up inside the photos and the films and seek the inner side of memory.
When I was very small, I sheltered insects in the folds of my clothes and picked drowning earthworms up off the pavement after rainstorms. Insects were the downtrodden in my world, beset by forces beyond their control. I was the benevolent policewoman-- separating fighting ants, saving caterpillars, and brushing away mosquitoes. This was before I realized that I could not possibly manage the short lives of these creatures for them. They lived their own peculiar rhythms that had nothing to do with honor or revenge.
I loved Justice before I knew him, but justice was not always easy.
I might have been four, or even younger. There was a blue plastic pool my Oma would fill with water for me in the early summer afternoons when the sun was the warmest. I played in my red and white polka-dot bathing suit as she sat by the pool and told me stories. The tablespoon measure was sturdy brown plastic, and I scooped up the drowning wasp with great care. It sputtered up onto my shoulder, stinging me. You cannot change the true nature of a wasp. For a good deed, I had received a smarting shoulder. I cried hard, but the lesson was not lost on me. Not everything is interested in justice.
"Tell me about your childhood," he said, between mouthfuls of good warm bread.
We have a large rock by our house. I tell people that it is large, but they never believe me. It is taller than my father. It sits in our side yard, near the apple tree and the flowering quince. When I was little, climbing it was a daunting task. From the top of the rock, I would look out over the yard and our white bungalow with brown wood trim. The house hunkered down, low and comfortable, flanked by dogwoods and a japanese maple that my father and I bought for my mother on Mother's Day. Tall pines feathered upwards at the edges of our yard, and a crooked wooden fence rambled next to the street, swamped in forsythia tendrils. I could see the lilacs from there, a wall of green and purple that sweetened the air. There was an incline to the rock that I could slide on. I remember tumbling down it once, scraping both knees. I cried on all fours, crushing violets with my hands.
When I was young, I cried often. There seemed to be many reasons to cry. Bike accidents, dead grasshoppers, and the various injustices of a little person's world, like having to eat your vegetables. Sometimes I would cry out of embarrassment, as in group class when I didn't know the piece well enough. I cried at school when I got in trouble for dispensing vigilante justice on the playground: in all fairness, it was time for Karen to give someone else a turn with the Skip-it. I was still held accountable for stepping on her foot. Months later, I told my first grade teacher "I don't care," when it was time to come in for recess, and had to stay in for the next two days. That time I refused to cry. I sat and drew a picture of our family cat, singing to myself.
I gradually realized that tears were a strange sort of currency. My tears could get me sympathy, and withholding my tears, well, that made me feel powerful. Whenever a grown-up chastized me after that playground incident, I imagined myself a stoic heroine refusing to give in. I would not allow them the satisfaction of my tears. Crying would mean exposing my self and that was the last thing I wanted. Since I was always in the right in my small world, any criticism was an injustice I had to weather. I was a strong child: sturdy, compact, and stubborn.
This is not to say that I didn't cry. I remember falling and scraping my elbows on the blacktop in second grade on our class field trip. I was terribly in love with my second grade teacher, and I wanted to hold back the tears to show that I was brave. But they came anyways, hot and sticky and embarrassing. She held me until they were over, then cleaned me up and held me a little while longer. The cuts stung and I didn't want to leave the circle of her arms.
In grade school, everything seemed close to the surface and volatile. There were betrayals by friends, rough boys playing kickball, complicated and unspoken seating patterns on the buses. My third grade teacher tried to help me with my writing, saying it needed improvement. I was overcome with anger in response to her suggestions, and allowed my face to turn to stone as we played out the longest staring contest in the history of Pine Grove Elementary. When she finally turned away in frustration, I ran off and shed hot tears behind the maintenance shed. I emerged from my childhood with the idea that tears were something to be ashamed of, and something to be guarded fiercely. I tried not to let my parents see but I cried in frustration when I had to practice.
"The violin," he said, and it was not a question. "I saw the mark on your neck as soon as I sat down next to you." "Yes," I said, and held out my left hand. He touched the callouses on my fingertips and did not take his hand away.
11:30 p.m.
The Modern Era
30 years after Roe v. Wade
Sometimes as I fall asleep, I imagine I am curling up inside of my violin. I am so small, and my back is bent in a comfortable curve, my stomach snug against the soundpost. This gives me solace: the idea of falling asleep in the silence of potential. My breathing resonates ghost notes. The label prints the maker's name along my ribs and I test the braille of the wood-grain with my fingertips. It is dark and warm, a wooden womb. My violin cradles me into the night and we sleep away each other's trembling.
My violin knows tears other than the reluctant ones of my childhood. When my face is tight with holding in, I take my violin under my chin and play the saddest whole notes I know how. I ache the notes out, and the top of my violin shines wet and clear. One time before an audition, I dropped my bow and it split. I felt like my hand had been cut off. Sorrow sank through my marrow, and I cupped the broken bow to me as I began to cry. I grieved then: I could not hold it in and I didn't want to. After I play a concert, tears sometimes come, especially if I have felt the music. I am inside the piece, wrapped in sheets of music and hardly breathing. Re-entry into the real world, so different from the intersection of music and time that liberates me, is painful, and I cry.
Sometimes I feel I am a violin. I think of Man Ray's photograph of the woman with f-holes on her back and dream the curves of my body. I am so close to the surface of my skin when I play, I want my body to merge with the wood: the natural feel of the instrument under my chin remains even after I've put the violin away.
I think words and music keep me alive. Words process like notes, and once I've written about something, it is mine. I preserve it with lyricism. I use words and the music to distill memory.
"What is the secret memory at the heart of your self?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. His curls fell across his forehead in dark calligraphy. I had to think. Then I began, shaping the words as I went along.
It is a hot summer afternoon. I am sitting on the stone steps to my grandparents' house with my aunt. Her black hair sticks to her temples and I can see the smooth white nape of her neck as she raises her arms to pin her hair up. In one hand I am holding a pear from the pear tree in the back yard, and in the other, a small knife which my Opa has given me. It is a dull knife, but I am very proud of it. I am six.
My aunt takes the pear and the knife from me. "Watch," she says. She cuts the pear in half. There is a sudden warm scent as the fruit releases its rainy perfume. Coiled in the middle of the pear is a small white grub. She hands me the opened book of fruit, the skin of the pear green and a little gritty. I rub my nose against the pulp and nibble the sour edges. With the tips of my fingers, I stroke the tight comma of the grub's soft body.
"It's hidden," I say. "Like a secret." Sliding the halves back together, my aunt and I put the pear under the tree in the shade. Sweat cools on my skin and I want to run very fast. I tell my aunt that she will not be able to catch me no matter how hard she tries. My secrets twist inside of me and I grin crazy at her.
Later that year, we lay in bed together and talked deep into the night. Justice's father had been at sea for most of Justice's childhood, and had died before Justice reached adolescence. "I fear," he said, "the leaving. It tears me open and love bleeds from the seams." "But you do not fear giving yourself to another." "No," he said, "I fear that some day I will be too tired and hurt to love completely. If I do not risk the leaving and the hurt, then I am not true." I shifted beneath the blankets to raise myself up onto my elbow and look into his dark eyes. "Is that why you need to go away?" I asked. He looked out the window."Tell me a story," he said.
There is a science museum near my white bungalow house that I used to visit when I was small. In the front of the museum, there stands a giant full-size replica of a sperm whale. Every half-hour, a geyser of water spurts from her blow-hole and the spectators applaud. The most amazing thing about the whale is that she is hollow. The whale's belly is cool and damp in the summer. I used to dream that I crept into that cavernous space and hid in the darkness of her empty tail until everyone forgot about me and left. Then I would be alone with the whale, a thought that frightened and excited me.
The wail that I know is lurking inside of me frightens and excites me too. After holding in for so long, when I do cry nowadays, it is something that takes me by surprise. I feel like my wail waits in ambush, and I cannot see any pattern to the way it takes control of me. When I cry now, it is a loosening of my bones that leaves me exhausted and calm. The effort of not crying tires me out, and when the tears do come, they empty me and I can breathe again.
The first time Justice and I made love, I cried. He held me until we fell asleep. The next morning we ate fresh canteloupe in bed and did not get dressed until noon. At one point, he looked over at me and said, "Thank you." I looked at him with a question mark in my eyebrows. "For your tears," he said.
I used to think that I could be strong by not crying. Now I am learning to be strong enough to cry. It is the easy way out to appear smooth and uncomplicated and brave. It is difficult to acknowledge that I am messy and full of those pear-secrets. I want to connect so badly, and share my shakiness.
One day not too long ago I looked at the cupboards and drawers of my heart and realized I couldn't open them. They were jammed tight, stifling my secrets and making it hard for me to feel. I processed in my head, which got me by. But I do not want to only live in my mind. I want to think and feel with my heart whole being. Now I am living more openly and honestly, close to the surface and bright: I want to open those cupboards and drawers wide.
But I hold myself back. I open them carefully to let things out. It hurts. It astounds me. I have only just begun. And even my view of the process is changing. I can see the unstuffing happening and the long-shut-in secrets sparkling in the dark corners like lovely lonely Christmas ornaments. But I can also see myself blossoming, my tight-packed peony-bud slowly opening and opening. I water it with my tears. They come more quickly now than they used to.
Justice is leaving on his trip. We are saying our goodbyes. "So I am staying here and you are going," I say. He shakes his head and takes me in his arms. We are crying together. "It won't be long," I say, refusing to wipe my eyes. "No," he says. "Soon," I say. "Yes," he says. The choke of grief is short and loud, startling the birds from the nearby trees. "Let it go," he says. And I do. It is the last crashing chord of the third movement of Barber's Violin Concerto. It is the double stops from Vitali's Chaconne. It is jangling pizzicato from the second movement of the Ravel String Quartet in F major. It is a blistering line from Ginsberg's Howl and it is Mary Oliver's simple words of loving and losing. But we love and we do not lose. We hold and we let go and we grow stronger.
While Justice is away I roam our house alone, startled by how much noise I make. There is no one to steal up behind me as I practice and hold me until the notes turn to liquid under my fingers and my body is no longer my own. There is no one singing to me at night, making up melodies and trying to find rhymes for "emily." There is no one to sit in the sun and read poetry with. I call my mother and cry on the phone as we talk. "What's wrong?" she asks. "Nothing," I answer, "I miss him." Missing him is not wrong, it is the only thing I can do. I admit this without fear of sounding dependent. I can tell my mother this and I am not ashamed or worried or anything besides full of joy that I am so deeply in love.
I begin finding messages Justice has left for me. The first I come across is taped to the inside of the medicine cabinet above our bathroom sink. It says "An honorable human relationship-- that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love"-- is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of redefining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in so doing we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us. --Adrienne Rich." And below, in Justice's cramped scrawl, "My truths are yours, hard ways and all."
I imagine him planting it there and closing the door, accidentally catching sight of his reflection out of the very corner of his eye. He hates mirrors, and I can see him scowl at himself before moving on. I conjure him in the mirror, his crooked nose and wide brow. Clear eyes and long dark lashes like black petals. The thick thatch of his hair snarling around his temples. I kiss the mirror where I imagine the reflection of his mouth hovered. My skin smudges the surface and I step back to rub at my eyes.
The second message is taped to the cranberry juice, way in the back of the refrigerator. "The Fear of Love: I come to the fear of love/ as I have often come,/ to what must be desired/ and to what must be done./ Only love can quiet the fear/ of love, and only love can save/ from diminishment the love/ that we must lose to have./ We stand as in an open field,/ blossom, leaf, and stem,/ rooted and shaken in our day,/ heads nodding in the wind. --Wendell Berry." Justice has underlined the word "blossom" twice. I stand in front of the open refrigerator door to read it and do not notice the goosebumps on my arms until I am long finished.
I find another note wedged into the stone wall that stumbles down our front walk on its way towards our garden. "I fall in you with the blind fall of a wave/ your body sustains me like a wave reborn/ wind blows outside and gathers the waters/ all the forests are a single tree --Octavio Paz" Justice has circled the word "body" and drawn a line to the blank bottom of the page where he has written "I trace these words in your mind like I would trace them across your skin, fingertips burning." The wind tugs the scrap of paper from my hand and it sails over the trees and out of sight. I shiver and imagine that if I turn around, Justice will be walking up the drive behind me, arms open wide, head tilted to the side. But I do not look. I walk into the house and rest my back against the door after I close it behind me.
The last message flutters out of the book I am reading at night. It is smaller than the others, and has two phrases on it. "I am using my heart," and "We are talking to each other." Justice has drawn illustrations above both, with the overarching caption Ojibwe Picture Songs. I pin this message to the inside of my pajamas next to my chest. As I fall asleep, I feel the paper singing to my heart and my heart singing back. I am wrapped around the songs, and the blanket is wrapped around me. We are contained in the house, which is cradled by the banks of the river. And above, the bowl of the sky shivers with its pinpricks of light.
He comes back to me at the very end of the summer. He stores his steamer trunk under the bed and presses his cheek against mine, bone on bone. Later, tangled together, sharing breath, he places his hand under my shirt and the Ojibwe paper rustles. "A secret?" he asks. I nod. "I'll tell you a secret," he begins. "At night, I would stand on the deck of the ship and watch the moon. I thought of your pale skin, and the story of the round-faced baby who was so secret no one knew what to call her for three days. The salt of my tears joined the ocean's. I don't need to go to sea again: I am through with self-delusion and fear and the steamer trunk will never move from beneath this bed."
Justice and I lie side by side one night after years of living our own steady rhythms, and are struck by the same delicious tremor. There, in the nighttime, is the tentative yet unmistakeable presence of a new cadence to our lives. He places his hand on my stomach and the moonlight streams in through the window, silvering the hairs on his arm and my skin. Winter is a beautiful time to be newly pregnant. We are incandescent like the snow in the moonlight.
Justice's mother Una and her life partner Ishmael come to stay with us through the long cold months on into the spring. Una teaches me to sew, and I find satisfaction in piecing together scraps of cloth for the baby's blanket. I grow larger and so does the quilt. Una and Ishmael sit with us at night after long days of work and tell us their own stories. One morning, Ishmael and Justice go out to gather river-stones and Una and I are left alone. We sit in the pale April sunlight coming in from the eastern windows and I tell her about looking for my wail.
"You have felt a lot about crying," she says when I am finished. "And I have had my share of sadness. But ever since I began living with Ishmael, I have been discovering my laughter."
I think of her deep rich alto that settles comfortably in the air of the house. When she laughs, it is a natural and true laughter that invites listeners in and does not presume anything.
"What is the secret memory at the heart of your self?" I ask, thinking of Justice in that small hot deli in Washington D.C.
"I am a cannibal," she replies. She puts down the piece of toast she has been eating with an abrupt movement and covers her face with her hands. Her shoulders shake with laughter. For a moment I am left bewildered, but she reaches out her arm and draws me to her side. "Are you scared?" She says to me. "No," I reply, placing my head on her shoulder. She tells me the story of the open boat. We are left with nothing except laughter at the absurdity, the irony, the pain. We laugh until we cry.
Now the four of us wait for the baby: Ishmael paces on the porch with me at night when I cannot sleep, while Una and Justice sit on the stoop watching the stars. It has been a hot and restless summer, and sometimes only the thread of Ishmael's stories draws us away from our anticipation. Justice brings me strawberries from the garden and holds his arms around my belly. At night, we sit up in the dark and his strong fingers walk up and down my spine, soothing my aching back. Una will be our midwife, and she moves through the house in her methodical way, checking to make sure everything is in place and that we lack nothing. I can only play my violin if I rest my bow arm on the cumbersome bulk of my stomach. Ishmael puts the Schubert Quintet on the turntable over and over again for me and all four of us lie on the floor and listen. I spend time with my words, writing a series of short letters to our unborn child. I seal the letters and place them under our bed in the steamer trunk. Justice takes a photograph of me standing in our backyard by the river. I am enormous, holding a ripe pear he has found to satisfy my craving for sweetness. My water will break any day now, joyful tears from my womb loosing the moorings of our secret as it begins its difficult and thrilling passage into the world.
Characters derived from:
Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
Sena Jeter Naslund's Ahab's Wife
quotes and inspiration from:
Berry, Wendell
Paz, Octavio
Rich, Adrienne
Vizenor, Gerald
