Connecting Concepts from Percy, Abram, and Berger - Assignment Example

Number] Connection Between “Animism and the Alphabet” by David Abram "The Loss of the Creature" by Walker Percy And "Ways of Seeing" by John Berger Customs, norms, traditions and perceptions play significant role in the lives of human beings and they signify about facts, actions and things, which are vital or vile for human development or survival. Hence, to understand these norms and ethics, which develop or diminish the significance of any subject in the environment one has to study the behaviour and language of its participants. David Abram in his chapter “Animism and the Alphabets” sheds light towards the denial of natural world by the European civilization. Europeans emphasized on the need of developing a comprehensive structure “a perfect image of man-built artificial society”, which should have a hierarchal order and sequence. Thus, it declined and disregarded the North American native style, which entailed the idea of innate human connection with earth and all the species in it. Nevertheless, European society psychology revolved around the key ideas to demonstrate etiquettes (even if they were irrational or unhealthy), organized arrangements (housing, clothes, construction, food, reliance on machine and chemicals for the sake of perfection), flawless perfection (to produce artificial perfection) and everything reproduced/replaceable was important, but nature and natural entities were vile (94). Hence, these perceptions can be easily detected in the lifestyle of European civilization, which held the notion of development so close to its heart that they cut down forests to build rail tracks, factories, and buildings. And used timber for production purposes (furniture on large scale), killed animals for their skin/fur, craned habitants of extinct species for the sake of construction, polluted water, destroyed marine species with oil spills and chemicals spills. They used pesticides which poisoned the land in long term, developed vehicles to replaces horse carts and depleted rich soils with chemicals so they became permanently infertile. The pollution caused by these developments increased, since significance changed into to necessity with the passage of time. Europeans declined the human and Earthly connection, which was innately bounded since its inception. Moreover, Abram sets culpability of this degradation of Earth (European perception of perfection and power) on Religion. He explicitly points towards Jewish and Christian trends of population expansion and superiority of humans on all beings of Earth. Many excerpts claim that man should benefit from all, as these natural phenomena were created for his benefit only and not vice versa. Yet, all these perceptions were developed and expressed through the aid of language and this language developed few norms, which undermined the worth of nature and its existence for humans. Early writings were images hand and foot prints, pictorial tales of native hunters. However, they also depicted how humans have evolved through time and how their perceptions have developed with the help of language as well. Simultaneously, Walker Percy in his excerpt “the loss of the creature” discusses the impact of human preset perceptions on his comprehension of new subjects. According to his theory, value of any object or subject is increased or decreased in respect to individual’s pre-set notion of it. If he consciously or subconsciously appreciates any entity and deems it worthwhile, he will surely be amazed and happy to see it, but if he has no regard or taught to have no respect for it, his actual appearance (physical awesomeness) will also mean noting to him (2). The key idea here is the preset perception and these most likely come from specific family background, influence of religion, culture or society. Furthermore, His pleasure will be dependent on his perception of what gives him pleasure of sight and how he can take pleasure from it, but it all revolves around how his initial perceptions were nourished in his society. Additionally, he suggests that there are many ways to view or gaze a sight (Grand Canyon for example); however, sightseer will only chose a new one if he thinks that the pain is worth taking due to his preset perception. If he is not awed by its majestic fall beauty then he will simply watch it, but if he has comes with a notion to view a breathtaking view he will surely be pleased and amazed at the same time. Yet, how one expresses his pleasure or displeasure, individuals interpret their perceptions into dialectic version and prove that they witness the deemed miraculous entity, which beholds or let go the spectator. Simultaneously, Percy discusses the power of gaze, interpretation and levels of amazements. A person observing a natural wonder, man-built mind boggling spectacle or observing a religious festival of ‘Corn Dance’ in a rocky Indian village will be intrigued with curiosity, amazement, excitement, and thrill (3-4). However, the difference in the aforementioned three ideas is movement through perception. As natural wonder can be perceived from many diverse angles, but it can neither show new horizons nor it can change. A man-built monument or art is constructed once and is also based on a single theme. However, a civilization mainly formulated on norms and traditions is in motion always displaying its ethics, beliefs, trends and traditions through its routine actions. Likewise, John Berger also emphasises on the significance of ways of seeing by a person. According to his theory a person can interpret any image by his peculiar gaze. His type of gaze interprets what, how and which category the image belongs to similarly, how much it is worthy. This complex style of perception development is often associated to preset social perception of the subject in question. For instance, he represents the perception of male and female gender and their mere presence in our society. Female gender is introspective in nature, she has been and will always be gazed and perceived by male members of the society. Her presence has a meaning, her attire, quietness, movements, actions, intentions all are observed by male and herself too. Since her inception she is evaluating herself for criteria, which have been developed for her by male spectators. She strives hard to fit in to it to be glanced with admiration and if she fails she is then even looked at with dismay and disregard. Her entity and being is based on perceptions developed by her male counterpart in the society (5). On the other hand, man’s presence is linked to power, the idea of how he would do things to the world or to his female counterpart. It’s all about control and development of platform for her; yet, he has the privilege to create norms, traditions, ethics, code of conducts for her and the society. Whereas, she has been left to comply with his preset perceptions and to fit in for his comfort, whether it’s physical, moral, and ethical, religious or for pleasure of gaze. Moreover, John Berger discusses how language changes the meaning of any image, which is commonly observed in advertisements and this phenomena is known as publicity. For instance, lately a new trend/tradition/norm/perception has emerged in our modern society, in which the term “Transgender” is coined frequently. A transgender is a person who has some psychological reasons to decline his biological gender and claims to be of opposite gender by nature. These individuals would have been burnt to death in the past for claiming such an absurd aver or would have been considered worshippers of Satan. However, in the 21st century and with the advent of media, spread of new perceptions and their acceptance has become an approvable idea. Therefore, up recently “Transgender” has gained popularity with the aid of media (positive publicity). One can observe transgender models on magazine covers, movies, soaps thus, slowly but gradually society has accepted this previously absurd idea as a new and acceptable reality of modern society. In the aforementioned process, publicity of an image, idea, perception is interwoven with proactive language and it generates positive impact on readers and viewers to accept it as a new tradition. Hence, one can observe how proactive language can change the meaning of unacceptable images into positive trends (10). However, Percy describes that acceptance and approval are key elements, which humans require from others for their perceived/invented notion (4). They cannot foster any idea, trend or practice unless it is approved by their peers, acquaintances and society in general. Thus, for the sake of approval John Berger’s idea fits best here “publicity images”. These images are produced with the intension of engraving conscious and subconscious perception in human mind that by approving, accepting, and imitating, one can become a part of acknowledgeable. These acknowledgeable are set of individuals, who have a broader vision and acceptance of change (7). However, for the sake of approval media produces envy and depicts image as glamorous so spectators easily get inspired by it (9-10). Teen pregnancy can be the latest trend one can point towards, as it’s a by-product of celebrity pregnancy trend. Yet, according to Abram it is the power of inscription, which instils life in the image, perception norm or visual of any type (113). These perceptions can only survive and approved by the community, if communicated frequently and prudently. Visuals do play inevitable part in depicting meaning and purpose, but power of expression can explicitly alter the meaning of any image or perception. Abram’s writing entail how man learnt through nature like from rivers, trees, land, mountains and so on and yet he declined their worth by harming them. Concurrently Percy presents the idea of human fascination with “Corn Dance festival”, which is celebrated to thank rain maker by native Indian tribe. Likewise, Berger proclaims that image gives no pleasure unless human has a preset perception behind it. If the perception is of approval the image will give a feeling of excitement, satisfaction, amazement and glee, but if preset perceptions disapprove it, the vision (till or in motion) will be seen with disdain. Work Cited: Abram, David. Animism and the Alphabet. 1st ed / pdf. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.Bottom of Form Top of Form Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin, 2008. Print. Percy, Walker. The Loss Of The Creature. 1st ed / pdf. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.Bottom of Form Read More