Don't be fooled, these things are deadly as blue ringed octopuses (octopii?) |
Similarly, when summer vacation started in June, I didn't really expect that a single quote in a single summer reading book would spark a chain of thought that would radically change own personal philosophy and perceptions of art and the world around us, but c'est la vie. Unorthodox and unpredictable as it is.
I came across a quote while reading Saturday by Ian McEwan, where the protagonist Henry Perowne remarks, "They stopped to drink coffee from a flask, and Perowne, tracing a line of lichen with his finger, said that if he ever got the call, he'd make use of evolution.", in response to a Philip Larkin quote, "If I were called in to construct a religion, I should make use of water."
Larkin references how important and essential water is for human existence, an importance that cannot possibly be overstated. Perowne, as the character fixed in the material world as he is, prefers to make use of the theory of evolution in his belief system.
This is an interesting juxtaposition between religion and science, one that would at first glance seem almost contradictory. But what makes this juxtaposition interesting is how it is ultimately a reminder that science is a system of faith just as much as religion. Sure science deals with the observable, material, natural world, but we go to sleep every night with the faith that the natural world will remain and behave the same tomorrow as it was today. That it will hold constant and that the laws and theories we make today will be concrete. We have as much faith in that as we do when we sit in a chair, with the faith that whoever built that chair built it to be able to take our weight. We don't consciously think about it or try to prove it to ourselves that the chair will take our weight, we just know without knowing. And it's the same thing for the assumption that the world today will be the same as the world tomorrow. We know that without knowing it, and there isn't any scientific law or theory that can definitively prove that statement. Indeed, the acceptance of that statement is the prerequisite to be able to form our scientific laws and theories.
While in Australia, I payed a visit to the Manly Art Museum. For those that don't know, Manly is a city very close to Sydney known for its beaches. But as I said, while I saw plenty of beaches, and plenty of kangaroos, the real highlight was this art museum, and the reason was because of one particular piece on display. This piece consisted of several straw dolls covered by a blanket and raised on a plinth. A nearby plaque explained that the intention behind this piece was that a viewer would construct their own narrative to go with the piece, perhaps the scene was of children hiding under a blanket, or perhaps it was a funeral. But truly the remarkable thing was that 100 people could look at this piece, and possibly none of them could see the same thing. It is the ambiguity of the world given form, and it embodies this concept that people chose how they want to view the world and what is in it, and in doing so, they construct their own reality from the material world.
Robert Frost once said, "Unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere." We could chose to see this as a reference to actual metaphors, but I see this as referencing how the world is ambiguous and open ended, much like a metaphor. And unless we can be comfortable with the ambiguity of multiple realities and accept other peoples realities as well as our own, then we will not be able to overcome the fallacy that only a single reality we all live in exists, and thus be doomed to ignorance.
Admittedly, I'm not big on faith in the traditional religious sense. But strangely, I have as much "faith" in literature and art as I do in things of reason and logic. Odd?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, it would be impossible to have art without reason. It is through our ability to reason more than other members of the animal kingdom that give us the ability to think on a deeper level, making possible our pursuit of knowledge in the natural world as well as our pursuit of expression in art and literature. This also makes possible our ability to interpret and understand such things.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, it makes sense that you have as much faith in art and literature as you do in reason because they are so intrinsically tied together.