The only culture I can claim to understand is that of the United States, because I have been through the socialization process here, like so many other Americans have. In our culture, taking a "step back" to see the "whole picture" is very important. We study why interactions happen between two people or things. These studies go by many names: sociology, biology, chemistry, business, psychology, etc. Taking third person perspectives to a situation is our forte. This is the looking "at" perspective. Similar to when Lewis was looking at the beam of light from across the shed, often times we simply look at, and not along.
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| The Scream, Edvard Munch |
In fact, we are so concerned with taking a few steps back, that we are encouraged not to look "along" a whatnot until it has thoroughly been looked "at." While being useful in discerning intentions of something, as long as the whatnot will not harm yourself or others, looking along is the other piece of the puzzle. For example, studying a piece of art. When we observe a piece such as "The Scream" (pictured above) we have two separate ways to observe it. There is the initial looking at, where we notice focal points and different color themes, but there is also a deeper layer of observation. In order to look along a painting, we study the artist and attempt to discover his mindset, even by attempting to recreate his piece. When using this looking along observational technique we can begin to look at the painting from the other side of the canvas. Attempting to look through the artist's perspective as he painted this will give us a new and more full understanding of the painting.
Of course, there are exceptions, which I hinted at earlier. Things that will be harmful to yourself or others when looking "along" are not appropriate to do. For instance one may look at a person stealing something, observing it from a distance. Observing that incident through the thieve's shoes by actually stealing something yourself is morally wrong, and should not be done, so in that sort of instance looking along is inappropriate. However, using specific situations like that in order to devalue the priceless ability observe "along" is also wrong, and should not be credited. Looking along is a valuable part of our impressively designed minds, looking along is like adding color to a black and white picture.
2 comments:
It is so true that our culture is designed to look at everything. We are always searching for the "why" and "how" of knowledge through objective lenses. It is not wrong to look at things scientifically, in fact I think it is a good thing. But there is a horrible misconception that the only truth we can find comes from science. We ignore the fact that we are all inextricably connected to looking along. And certainly there are times when one is more useful than the other, but we have become to comfortable in only accepting looking at the light.
I appreciated your connection to art and how we can look at and along art to get deeper understanding. That is another good every day example that can be used to illustrate Lewis' point.
I enjoyed how you tied Lewis's writing to art. It seems to me that are is something that you can look at with a first impression and look along by trying to experience the art. I think that this is why some music touches different people in different ways. Most people are looking at when they are listening to music. Some people have stronger experiences we listening to certain music because they have tied something about it to their own experience. These people seem to be looking along because they are experiencing the music as if they were in.
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