For those of you missing in action last week, the assignment is to read the first 4 chapters of Abram. Although this is about 130 pages, it's fast reading, relatively speaking. It might be helpful, also, to read pg. 137-9 as Abram sums up his project in those first 130 pages in 3 short pages. If you're wondering what to do with all his theorizing, you might also check out the last chapter, "Coda: Turning Inside Out."
OUTING UPDATE: Due in part to our own deliberate hemming and hawing and in part to the slow wheels of bureaucracy, we couldn't get the Cowee Meadows cabin for our planned April 20 outing. So we'll head to Blue Mussel instead. Hope that's acceptable.
until Wednesday,
kevin
5 comments:
First, let us all admit that Abrams is by far the most readable and engaging author we’ve encountered so far in this class. The discussion and history Abrams draws upon are absolutely fascinating to me. Taking into consideration that the steady abstraction, from pictorial writing to phonetic writing, has contributed to a loss of connection between humans and nature seems particularly poignant to me. What especially solidified this notion is Abrams elucidation of Plato’s dialogues of Socrates, in which Socrates questions Meno about virtue. Meno explains what virtue is within particular situations and experiences – essentially, refers to interactions and not abstractions. Socrates on the other hand is seeking the abstract, the ultimate nature of virtue, which ultimately leads to abstraction or disconnect between the world of perceived experience and what Abrams calls “incorporeal” (110-111). Extrapolating upon this example, we can see that our contemporary pursuits to understand the world usually entail breaking it down, or getting to the essence of something, rather than seeing the subject or object as part of a large context and whole. It is also apparent how Abrams ideas and view points can be, in most cases, readily adopted into an ecological perspective – in considering the whole rather than individual parts.
What I find hard to comprehend is the problem of anthropocentric or anthropomorphic tendencies, that so concerned Cronon and others. In one instance we see how anthropocentric thinking, as described by our past readings, have aided in destructive tendencies towards nature and the environment. However, though Abrams doesn’t point out this slight contradiction, Abrams points towards several instances where indigenous cultures and indeed ancient Western cultures held anthropomorphic attitudes towards particular animals and landscapes. How are we to grapple with this? In one instance anthropocentric projections led to destruction of the biotic community and in another lend itself towards a more respectful or ‘enlightened’ attitude towards nature.
March 4, 2008
John S. Sonin
Eng. 423—Blog 7
(Self-)Loving Linguistics
Solidifying an ever-molting natural world—an ever-embellishing cycle of birth and death—through the socially-glazing “permafrost” of the alphabetized written word, as Abram posits in The Spell…, maybe the harbinger of self-consumption (an ego-mirror, oxymoronically reflecting inward for extraction of the commodity elements upon which humanity can add value) and a retardant to the “blossoming” of social progress (not to mention “its” {alphabetized communication’s} essential lack of reciprocity—the cycle, in a natural “system” of energy exchange), as well as a catalyst to a human-centered perspective (and I certainly could say a lot about the consequent natural maturity of fascism in a said society’s development), barring humanity’s inhumanity to man and bombing us back to Paleolithic relationships of natural unity, or the impending revelation of environmental disaster, is it possible the “written word” will be able to inspire deterrence?
Freezing Flea
With a caterwauling constitution,
Joints screaming their way to dust
Powdering a panoply of nutrients
Once scouring with instinctual lust.
Time is twining soon to be one.
Crumbled powder destiny
Of life ubiquitously composed
Yet soon to unify thee.
By John S. Sonin
Billowed Blankets
Depending on demise,
depleting or disguised,
distending discord in the sky
divines a day wet dry.
Does it simmer with the storms
to aerate searing terra-forms?
Or will its seedless clouds
create tundra frozen shrouds?
Excessive comfort
for the few
have donned a quilt
so none see yet all feel blue.
By John S. Sonin
I’m interested in Abrams thoughts on the psychology of dwelling places and how language effected dwelling places. Abrams and Gerrard discuss the use of ‘primal’ styles of writing: pictography, cave drawings. Abrams in specific posits that this original language causes an inherent connection to nature because of the natural elements it portrays and the ‘truth’ behind the phenomenon of the sensation that caused that basic symbol. Then when we began creating our own form of communication with humans, non-inclusive of animalistic qualities, which allowed us to separate from the dwelling places and eventually nature. When we start making these assumptions we start trying to make corrections, but how do we correct the phenomenon of language? I don’t believe that it is a simple insertion of the ‘sensual’ as Abram puts it, or a return to a more primitive, animalistic stage. I would like to think this, but not being a deep ecologist I don’t view it as a plausible idea. I’ve been watching Planet Earth, a BBC production about the planet earth, and have seen some things that I’ve never would have dreamed of. Maybe even a deeper understanding of the complex communities of flora and fauna that cover our planet. But the sense is all in my eyes, ears and emotions, I don’t actually go diving into the ocean to see vast herds of 6 foot long snakes, but I see what we would be missing even if we never see it. Can mass media of this sort help bring the sensual back into our language by making us appreciate what we don’t see? Maybe books like Abrams or shows like Planet Earth will help change the linguistical problem of lack of the sensual.
Well, Forest, I cannot agree with you that Abrams is the "most readable and engaging author," he is very readable and engaging, however, I found Gerrard's writings on Native Ecology to be rather engaging as well as readable! I thoroughly enjoyed Gerrard's disection of noble savage rhetoric. I still find it very conflicting that while the political incorrectness of the topic poses a problem it also pitches a good message. Although I still cannot grasp how and why this sort of rhetoric has not inspired more people like Jon Dunbar. People seem to revere simplicity and those with valuable ecological knowledge, but chose consumption culture instead. i guess it is far easier to partake in the culture and impossible to partake and not contribute to devastating effects. Indigenous cultures around the world, as Gerrard suggests, have been able to commune and exist in relative harmony with the Biotic community, in fact becoming a part of it. I do disagree with remarks made regarding the negative effects of animism that Gerrard makes. The anecdotal evidence that he presents in this section seem to me to be outliers to the general trend that suggests respecting animals and attributing human or more than human qualities encourages a more equal give and take relationship in the biotic community. Within the T and H societies in southeast AK the totemic animism does not allow for rampant killing or disrespecting of the animals that different clans represent and since clans are exogamous they are interrelated between clan groups, making many totemic societies very respectful to the animal kingdom. The point is that Gerrard goes too far in making generalizations to all animistic societies. One could make the same sort of argument that the problem with the US military is that they lack human compassion and hate all middle easterners. Certainly there are some that actually think and act in this manner, but not all, in fact most probably don't, but this is the same sort of rhetoric used by Gerrard in his "problem with animism" section. As for Abrams, I am not quite finished yet, so I will let you all know what I think in a couple hours.
-Matt
This week I am supposed to present on this subject. I read the chapter on Phenomenology in the Eagleton book to see I could make any connections between Eagleton and Abram. Both books used the philosopher Edmund Husserl to show how western civilization could reconnect with the natural world if it changed its science based subject-object relationship to the natural world. Husserl argued that Phenomenological criticism should reduce the text to a pure embodiment of the author’s mind (51). The social conditions or the history in which the text was created should not be considered. The text and its literary tools should be read to try to gain a deeper understanding of the authors mind. This idea would have been difficult to apply to Abram and would not have made a lot of sense unless I had read N. Scott Momaday’s Memoir, The Names. Momaday’s Memoir uses the landscape of his childhood to show how he is a product of mixed ancestry- native and Euro-American. Place becomes central to his Memoir because the landscape becomes the meeting place of these to cultures.
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