Percy, Walker. "Notes for a Novel About the End of the World" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
Mention of the end of the world occurs frequently in Percy's novels. It is a big part of Love in the Ruins. The novel was published four years after this essay was published. The apocalyptic novel is a form of prophecy warning what will happen if changes are not made. This type of novel is written by a particular type of novelist. It is the type of novelist that wants to see changes in his reader. Percy writes, "A serious novel about the destruction of the United States and the end of the world should perform the function of prophecy in reverse. The novelist writes about the coming end in order to warn about present ills and so avert the end" (101).
Percy thinks the novelist is not a prophet, but is like a prophet. He does not think the novelist is necessarily called to be a prophet. He,nevertheless, sees what going on in the world and he has a certain knowledge where it might end. Percy writes, "The novelist is less like a prophet than he is like a canary that coal miners used to take down into the shaft to test the air. When the canary gets unhappy, utters plaintive cries, and collapses, it may be time for the miners to surface and think things over" (101).
Percy describes the kind of novelist he is talking about. He is defined not necessarily by "merit" but by the "goals" he has. I often think Percy is describing himself when he writes about the serious novelist. Percy continues: He is a "writer who has an explicit and ultimate concern with the nature of man and the nature of reality where he finds himself" (102). Instead of writing a novel driven by plot with familiar characters, he is more likely to "set forth with a stranger in a strange land where the signposts are enigmatic but which he sets out to explore nevertheless" (102). He thinks you could the novelist as "philosophical, metaphysical, prophetic, eschatological, and even religious." (102) He has a special meaning for calling the novelist religious. He thinks both believers and nonbelievers can be considered a religious novelist. He uses the term 'religious' in its root sense signifying a radical bond, as the writer sees it, which connects man with reality--or the failure of such a bond--and so confers meaning to his life--or the absence of meaning" (102-103). He thinks of the following novelists as religious: Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Camus, Sartre, and Flannery O' Connor. He says that some might object since Sartre is an atheist. He thinks Sartre's atheism is religious in the following sense: "that the novelist betrays a passionate conviction about man's nature, the world, and man's obligation to the world" (103). Along the same line, Percy would exclude many English writers like Jane Austen and Samuel Richardson. Percy did not seem to have a high opinion of English novelists. He states that nineteenth century Russian novelists were haunted by God, as were Southern novelists like Flannery O' Connor. He thinks that English novelists were indifferent to the topic.
Percy believes that true prophets are called by God to deliver a particular message to a particular people. He says that novelists exercise a "quasi-prophetic function" (104). His message is bad like the true prophet. He thinks that the "novelist's art is often bad" (104). The novelist seeks to "shock" the reader and warn them about "last things." They might be in "disagreement" with their countrymen. Unlike the prophet, the novelist is not often killed. He says something worse usually happens to them. They are ignored.
He compares these novelists with secular theologians. He thinks that the novelist is likely to believe in original sin and judgement, but the secular theologian is not.
Percy wonders what is the connection modern, secular society and violence. He notes how he is often asked why he does not "write about pleasant things and normal people" (105). He agrees that there are nice people in the world and that it seems people are growing "nicer," but he wonders why as the world grows nicer that it also grows more violent. He writes: "The triumphant secular society of the Western world, the nicest of all worlds, killed more people in the first half of this century than have been killed in all of history. Travelers to Germany before the last war reported that the Germans were the nicest people in Europe" (105). One could point to the Holocaust of babies in our own time. Percy in his novel, The Thanatos Syndrome speaks about our death culture.
Percy thinks the modern novelist is concerned with catastrophe like the orthodox theologian is concerned with original sin and death.
Percy presents his own view of his writing: "As it happens, I speak in a Christian context. That is to say, I do not conceive it my vocation to preach the Christian faith in a novel, but as it happens, my world view is informed by a certain belief about man's nature and destiny which cannot fail to be central to any novel I write" (111).
Percy thinks that "being a Christian novelist nowadays has certain advantages and disadvantages" (111). He thinks that the Christian faith is complementary to what a novel does. Percy writes, "Since novels deal with people and people live in time and get into predicaments, it is probably an advantage to subscribe to a worldview which is incarnational, historical, and predicamental, rather than, say, Buddhism, which tends to devalue individual persons, things, and happenings" (111). He thinks with the current alienation or "dislocation" of man that it is "probably an advantage to see man as by his very nature an exile and wanderer rather than as a behaviorist sees him: as an organism in an environment" (111). He thinks that Camus's stranger has certain connections with the "wayfarer of Saint Thomas and Gabriel Marcel" (111). Percy also thinks if the time we are living in is eschatalogical, "times of enormous danger and commensurate hope, of possible end and possible renewal, the prophetic eschatalogical character of Christianity is no doubt apposite" (111).
There are, however, certain disadvantages in being a Christian novelist. But he wants to return to his question: "What does he see in the world which arouses in him the deepest forebodings and at the same time kindles excitement and hope?' (111).
First, he sees the failure of Christendom. He says, however that the novelist is more concerned with the "person of the scientific humanist than in science and religion" (111). Not is he interested in seeing that the common Christian complaint that materialism and atheism are the enemies.
Percy thinks that the novelist is interested in a "certain quality of the postmodern consciousness as he finds it and as he incarnates it in his own characters. What he finds--in himself and in other people--is a new breed of person in whom the potential for catastrophe--and hope--has suddenly escalated" (112). People are aware of the massive weapons at our disposal to destroy ourselves. Percy thinks the change in the postmodern conscious is what is not realized. He thinks that the "psychological forces presently released in the postmodern consciousness open unlimited possibilities for both destruction and liberation, for an absolute loneliness or a rediscovery of community and reconciliation" (112).
He describes the subject of the postmodern novel: "The subject of the postmodern novel is a man who has very nearly come to the end of the line" (112). It is odd that when he comes to a new city after overcoming all the sufferings of the past that he loses meaning. It is like he bought a ticket to take the train and when he gives the ticket to get off the train that he "must also surrender his passport and become a homeless person" (112). Percy says the American novels in the past focused on characters suffering "social evils," or about people who attacked those evils, or "expatriate Americans," or people in the South haunted by their past. This is not true of the postmodern novel. The protagonist of the postmodern novel has overcome his "bad memories" and overcome certain setbacks and he "finds himself in the victorious secular city" (1120. he has only one major problem: How does he keep himself "from blowing his brains out" (112).
Percy wonders if the Gospel is relevant to the postmodern man. In other words, can he hear the message? Does it register in his consciousness? Does the Secular Age allow the postmodern man to consider Christianity as a possible option to live in this world? Percy writes, "The question is not whether the Good News is no longer relevant, but rather whether it is possible that man is presently undergoing a tempestuous restructuring of his consciousness which that does not allow him to take account of the Good News" (113). Percy states that it is because of the success of scientism: "It is the absorption by the layman not of the scientific method but rather the magical aura of science, whose credentials he accepts for all sectors of reality" (113). He says that people are seduced by scientism "which sunders one's very self from itself into an all-transcending 'objective' consciousness and a consumer-self with a list of needs to be satisfied" (113). Percy continues: "It is this monstrous bifurcation of man into angelic and bestial components against which old theologies must be weighed before new theologies are erected" (113). Percy thinks that this postmodern man is unable to take account of God, the devil, or the angels. This is the reason that a catastrophe or ordeal is needed for the man to recover himself. Percy writes, "When the novelist writes of a man 'coming to himself' through some such catalyst as catastrophe or ordeal, he may be offering obscure testimony to a gross disorder of consciousness and to the need of recovering oneself as neither angel nor organism but as a wayfaring creature somewhere between" (113).
Friday, November 30, 2018
The Man on the Train
Percy, Walker. "The Man on the Train" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
Percy's essay, "Man on the Train" is about alienation. It is a popular essay mentioned often in works on Percy. Percy writes, "There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a literature of alienation. In the re-presenting of alienation the category is reversed and becomes entirely different. There is a great deal of difference between an alienated commuter riding a train and this same commuter reading a book about an alienated commuter riding a train" (83). Here, Percy makes a distinction between someone riding a train and the same person reading about someone alienated riding the train. Why does he make this distinction? It probably has something to do with his theory of language and theory of man. Reading about an alienated man riding a train somehow names his experience for him and in a sense, he is no longer alienated. Percy says, "The nonreading commuter exists in true alienation, which is unspeakable; the reading commuter rejoices in the speakability of his alienation and in the new triple alliance of himself, the alienated character, and the author" (82).
Percy describes what he means by alienation: "I mean that whereas one may sit on the train and feel himself quite at home, seeing the passing scene as a series of meaningful projects full of signs which he reads without difficulty, another commuter, although he has no empirical reason for being so, although he has satisfied the same empirical needs as commuter A, is alienated" (84). Other terms Percy uses to describe alienation is boredom, unhappy, a feeling of emptiness and being out of place.
Percy thinks that alienation is a "reversal of the objective-empirical" (84). This means that the man should not be alienated because all of his empirical needs have been met. Why do people feel alienated in the best environments. For example, I am a Christian, I have a good job, I have a good family, I have a roof over my head, and all the food I could want. Why do I still feel alienated? Why do I feel lost, out of place? Why does it feel like that this is not my home? Why do I long for something more? Is the materialist, scientific view really satisfying?
I like the image of the train. It indicates that man is on a journey, as we all are.
As Percy earlier said, alienation can be reversed by art. Alienation can be depicted in art, and this somehow decreases the sense of alienation.
Percy was influenced by Kierkegaard and used some of his ideas for his own use. A key idea was the theory of the stages or spheres: Aesthetic, Moral, and Religious. Then, there was Kierkegaard's distinction between the apostle and the genius. Two concepts that appears frequently in Percy's novels are rotation and repetition. One thing one must understand that when Percy appropriates ideas from others he transforms the ideas to his own purposes. In other words, they may look different than the ideas from the original source. Percy is an original thinker. That is why it is incorrect to think that Percy is simply applying the ideas of others in different contexts. Percy has his own fish to fry.
So two terms that Percy appropriates from Kierkegaard are repetition and rotation. These are things that people do to escape their alienation. Another term to try to escape alienation is the ordeal. The problem is that these things work only temporarily. Percy describes rotation and repetition: "It is by virtue of the fact that rotation is the quest for the new as the new, the reposing of all hope in what may lie around the bend, a mode of experience which is much the same in the reading as the experiencing" (86). Percy thinks repetition is a little harder to understand. Percy notes, "Thus when Charles Gray Marquad's Point of No Return returns to Clyde, Massachusetts, or when Tom Wolfe's hero returns to the shabby boardinghouse in St. Louis, the reader can experience repetition only if he imagines that he too is a native of Clyde or has lived in St. Louis. (He doesn't have to imagine he is Huck--it is he, the reader who is drifting down the river.)" (86). Maybe, it will make sense if I give an example from one of Percy's novels. Will Barrett, in The Second Coming returns to his childhood home where his father killed himself. He relives the earlier experience, but he looks at it from a different perspective. For example, he concludes that his father did not have to kill himself. In another episode, he realizes when he was shot by his father, it was not an accident as he earlier thought.
Percy's essay, "Man on the Train" is about alienation. It is a popular essay mentioned often in works on Percy. Percy writes, "There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as a literature of alienation. In the re-presenting of alienation the category is reversed and becomes entirely different. There is a great deal of difference between an alienated commuter riding a train and this same commuter reading a book about an alienated commuter riding a train" (83). Here, Percy makes a distinction between someone riding a train and the same person reading about someone alienated riding the train. Why does he make this distinction? It probably has something to do with his theory of language and theory of man. Reading about an alienated man riding a train somehow names his experience for him and in a sense, he is no longer alienated. Percy says, "The nonreading commuter exists in true alienation, which is unspeakable; the reading commuter rejoices in the speakability of his alienation and in the new triple alliance of himself, the alienated character, and the author" (82).
Percy describes what he means by alienation: "I mean that whereas one may sit on the train and feel himself quite at home, seeing the passing scene as a series of meaningful projects full of signs which he reads without difficulty, another commuter, although he has no empirical reason for being so, although he has satisfied the same empirical needs as commuter A, is alienated" (84). Other terms Percy uses to describe alienation is boredom, unhappy, a feeling of emptiness and being out of place.
Percy thinks that alienation is a "reversal of the objective-empirical" (84). This means that the man should not be alienated because all of his empirical needs have been met. Why do people feel alienated in the best environments. For example, I am a Christian, I have a good job, I have a good family, I have a roof over my head, and all the food I could want. Why do I still feel alienated? Why do I feel lost, out of place? Why does it feel like that this is not my home? Why do I long for something more? Is the materialist, scientific view really satisfying?
I like the image of the train. It indicates that man is on a journey, as we all are.
As Percy earlier said, alienation can be reversed by art. Alienation can be depicted in art, and this somehow decreases the sense of alienation.
Percy was influenced by Kierkegaard and used some of his ideas for his own use. A key idea was the theory of the stages or spheres: Aesthetic, Moral, and Religious. Then, there was Kierkegaard's distinction between the apostle and the genius. Two concepts that appears frequently in Percy's novels are rotation and repetition. One thing one must understand that when Percy appropriates ideas from others he transforms the ideas to his own purposes. In other words, they may look different than the ideas from the original source. Percy is an original thinker. That is why it is incorrect to think that Percy is simply applying the ideas of others in different contexts. Percy has his own fish to fry.
So two terms that Percy appropriates from Kierkegaard are repetition and rotation. These are things that people do to escape their alienation. Another term to try to escape alienation is the ordeal. The problem is that these things work only temporarily. Percy describes rotation and repetition: "It is by virtue of the fact that rotation is the quest for the new as the new, the reposing of all hope in what may lie around the bend, a mode of experience which is much the same in the reading as the experiencing" (86). Percy thinks repetition is a little harder to understand. Percy notes, "Thus when Charles Gray Marquad's Point of No Return returns to Clyde, Massachusetts, or when Tom Wolfe's hero returns to the shabby boardinghouse in St. Louis, the reader can experience repetition only if he imagines that he too is a native of Clyde or has lived in St. Louis. (He doesn't have to imagine he is Huck--it is he, the reader who is drifting down the river.)" (86). Maybe, it will make sense if I give an example from one of Percy's novels. Will Barrett, in The Second Coming returns to his childhood home where his father killed himself. He relives the earlier experience, but he looks at it from a different perspective. For example, he concludes that his father did not have to kill himself. In another episode, he realizes when he was shot by his father, it was not an accident as he earlier thought.
The Loss of the Creature
Percy, Walker. "The Loss of the Creature" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
"The Loss of the Creature" is how man surrenders his sovereignty to experts. He gives the example of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. You cannot see it because you are seeing it through the eyes of others, and not your own, For example, you see the Grand Canyon on a tour with a tour guide. The expert is telling you what you ought to see. Another barrier is that instead of looking at the Grand Canyon, the first thing the tourist does is photograph it. Percy asks the question, how can the tourist see the Grand Canyon with fresh eyes. One way is "by leaving the beaten path" (48). Another way is there could be a disruption or a "breakdown of the symbolic machinery by which the experts present the experience" (49). Percy thinks one's sovereignty may also be "recovered in a time of national disaster" (49). One is reminded how ultimate things become real at the time of a disaster. Another example of surrendering one's sovereignty is the need for others to certify it. Instead of confronting the thing directly, the "present experience is always measured by a prototype, the 'it' of their dreams" (53). The loss of the creature occurs when "sovereignty is surrendered to a class of privileged knowers, whether these be theorists or artists" (54).
Another problem is when the object becomes captive to the theory. Percy thinks things can become invisible because of theory. We try to make the thing fit the theory. Percy argues, "The dogfish, the tree, the seashell, the American Negro, the dream, are rendered invisible by a shift of reality from concrete thing to theory which Whitehead has called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. It is the mistaking of an idea, a principle, an abstraction for the real. As a consequence of the shift, the 'specimen' is seen as less real than the theory of the specimen" (58). Kierkegaard thought when people are "seen as a specimen of a race or species, at that very moment" they stop seeing people as individuals.
"The Loss of the Creature" is how man surrenders his sovereignty to experts. He gives the example of seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. You cannot see it because you are seeing it through the eyes of others, and not your own, For example, you see the Grand Canyon on a tour with a tour guide. The expert is telling you what you ought to see. Another barrier is that instead of looking at the Grand Canyon, the first thing the tourist does is photograph it. Percy asks the question, how can the tourist see the Grand Canyon with fresh eyes. One way is "by leaving the beaten path" (48). Another way is there could be a disruption or a "breakdown of the symbolic machinery by which the experts present the experience" (49). Percy thinks one's sovereignty may also be "recovered in a time of national disaster" (49). One is reminded how ultimate things become real at the time of a disaster. Another example of surrendering one's sovereignty is the need for others to certify it. Instead of confronting the thing directly, the "present experience is always measured by a prototype, the 'it' of their dreams" (53). The loss of the creature occurs when "sovereignty is surrendered to a class of privileged knowers, whether these be theorists or artists" (54).
Another problem is when the object becomes captive to the theory. Percy thinks things can become invisible because of theory. We try to make the thing fit the theory. Percy argues, "The dogfish, the tree, the seashell, the American Negro, the dream, are rendered invisible by a shift of reality from concrete thing to theory which Whitehead has called the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. It is the mistaking of an idea, a principle, an abstraction for the real. As a consequence of the shift, the 'specimen' is seen as less real than the theory of the specimen" (58). Kierkegaard thought when people are "seen as a specimen of a race or species, at that very moment" they stop seeing people as individuals.
Walker Percy's Delta Factor Part 5
Percy, Walker. "The Delta Factor" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
As mentioned earlier, Percy was attempting to diagram what happened to Helen Keller at the well-house. In his diagram, he has Helen, water (word), and water (the liquid). He concluded that what happened to Helen was not a stimulus-response event. Helen received "both the sensory message from the hand Miss Sullivan was spelling in and that from the other hand, which the water was flowing over" (37). Percy wonders after this happened, then, "What happened in Helen's head?" (37). He believed that Helen's breakthrough had great significance. Before her breakthrough, she had acted like "a good responding organism" (38). After her breakthrough, she acted "like a rejoicing symbol-mongering human" (38). Before she was simply like other animals responding to an environment. After, she had become completely "human."
What was Percy's breakthrough? His breakthrough was determining that Helen's experience was a triadic event, not a dyadic event. He calls this event the Delta Factor. There were three elements involved in this triadic event: Helen, water, and the word water. Percy writes, "The Delta phenomenon lies at the heart of every event that has ever occurred in which a sentence is understood, a name is given or received, a painting printed or viewed" (40).
Percy wonders if by using this Delta phenomenon, one could come up with a theory of man. Would it help to understand man as the languaged animal. Could it explain "the manifold woes, predicaments, and estrangements of man" (41). Remember, Percy believed that a Theory of man had to account for the alienation of man. He knew that the "conventional wisdom was a mishmash: man set forth as 'organism in an environment' but man also . . . set forth as repository of democratic and Judeo-Christian 'values.' (41) In other words, the modern theory of man is incoherent.
Percy's breakthrough would hold his attention for a very long time.
As mentioned earlier, Percy was attempting to diagram what happened to Helen Keller at the well-house. In his diagram, he has Helen, water (word), and water (the liquid). He concluded that what happened to Helen was not a stimulus-response event. Helen received "both the sensory message from the hand Miss Sullivan was spelling in and that from the other hand, which the water was flowing over" (37). Percy wonders after this happened, then, "What happened in Helen's head?" (37). He believed that Helen's breakthrough had great significance. Before her breakthrough, she had acted like "a good responding organism" (38). After her breakthrough, she acted "like a rejoicing symbol-mongering human" (38). Before she was simply like other animals responding to an environment. After, she had become completely "human."
What was Percy's breakthrough? His breakthrough was determining that Helen's experience was a triadic event, not a dyadic event. He calls this event the Delta Factor. There were three elements involved in this triadic event: Helen, water, and the word water. Percy writes, "The Delta phenomenon lies at the heart of every event that has ever occurred in which a sentence is understood, a name is given or received, a painting printed or viewed" (40).
Percy wonders if by using this Delta phenomenon, one could come up with a theory of man. Would it help to understand man as the languaged animal. Could it explain "the manifold woes, predicaments, and estrangements of man" (41). Remember, Percy believed that a Theory of man had to account for the alienation of man. He knew that the "conventional wisdom was a mishmash: man set forth as 'organism in an environment' but man also . . . set forth as repository of democratic and Judeo-Christian 'values.' (41) In other words, the modern theory of man is incoherent.
Percy's breakthrough would hold his attention for a very long time.
Thursday, November 29, 2018
Walker Percy's Delta Factor Part 4
Percy, Walker. "The Delta Factor" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
Percy says the old modern age ended in 1914.
The Martian concluded two things: (1) that man "had crossed the language barrier and spent most of his time symbolmongering and;" and (2) that man had a tendency for "upside-down feelings and behavior, feeling bad when he expected to feel good, preferring war to peace, and in general being miserable at the time and in the place which he had every reason to expect to be the best of all possible worlds, it seemed to the Martian that earth scientists might do well to search for the explanation of trait 2 in trait 1, or at least to explore the connection between the two" (28).
Percy thinks that "man's capacity for symbol mongering in general and language in particular" is deeply connected to their being human, "of his perceiving and knowing," of consciousness, that it is difficult to study what man sees through to know everything else (29).
To see it, one had to be a Martian or a person on earth, "sufficiently detached, marooned, bemused, wounded, and lucky enough" to become a Martian for a brief time to "catch a glimpse of it" (29).
Percy describes how he had his awakening experience: "The day I was thinking about Helen Keller and became a Martian for five seconds, making a breakthrough like Helen's, the difference being that her breakthrough was something she did and my breakthrough was a sudden understanding of what she did" (30).
He, on a typical day in the summer was sitting at his desk thinking about a day in Helen's life. He explains: he was trying to understand what happens "when a child hears a word, a sound uttered by someone else, and understands that it is the name of something he sees" (30). Percy tried to draw the process with diagrams. He thought for a long time that a few short paragraphs of Helen's story contained the mystery of language, and if one could understand this secret mystery one could understand what it meant to be a symbol-mongerer.
He was unsatisfied by the literature on the subject. The behaviorists wanted to explain the mystery as a "stimulus-response event" (30). For example, they wanted to explain it like Pavlov's dog salivating when he heard the bell. He thought it was a simple, but "valuable model" (31). He says it works in certain circumstances. For example, when a person cries for help and someone comes to help him. The problem was how could it be used to explain people gathered around a fire telling stories. He would try to diagram what occurred, but it was problematic. Percy explains, "Something in fact usually went wrong with the behaviorist S-R model whenever it was applied to a characteristically symbolic transaction, telling a story, looking at a painting and understanding it, a father pointing at a ball and naming it for his child, a poet hitting on a superb metaphor and the reader 'getting' it with the old authentic thrill Barfield speaks of" (32). The behaviorist was forced to stretched his theory all out of proportion to fit the event. In other words, it did not fit the event. It just did not work for symbolic transactions. Percy inquires with questions: "how does it happen that you can talk and I can understand you? Or, how does it happen that you can write a book and I can read it? Or, if the world is really unknowable, why do scientists act as if there were something out there to be known and as if they could even get at the truth of the way things are?" (33).
He was sitting at his desk in Louisiana thinking about these things. Then he began to think about what happened to Helen Keller at the well one summer morning in 1887. Before the event, Helen had responded like "any good animal" (34). When she wanted something she would sign it into her teacher's hand. Miss Sulivan took Helen for a walk to the well. Percy quotes from Helen's story:
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant that wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seem to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. [She had earlier destroyed the doll in a fit of temper.] I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me, like Aaron's rod with flowers. It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
Percy notes that something mysterious happened at this well-house. Helen had gone from being like any other animal in an environment to being a languaged creature: a "strange name-giving and sentence uttering creature who begins by naming" typical objects like shoes, boats, and ink, and then "tells jokes, curses, reads the paper. . . or becomes Hegel and composes an entire system of philosophy" (35). Percy reasoned that if he could figure out what happened at that well-house, he would be able to know about the "phenomenon of language and about man himself" (36).
Percy says the old modern age ended in 1914.
The Martian concluded two things: (1) that man "had crossed the language barrier and spent most of his time symbolmongering and;" and (2) that man had a tendency for "upside-down feelings and behavior, feeling bad when he expected to feel good, preferring war to peace, and in general being miserable at the time and in the place which he had every reason to expect to be the best of all possible worlds, it seemed to the Martian that earth scientists might do well to search for the explanation of trait 2 in trait 1, or at least to explore the connection between the two" (28).
Percy thinks that "man's capacity for symbol mongering in general and language in particular" is deeply connected to their being human, "of his perceiving and knowing," of consciousness, that it is difficult to study what man sees through to know everything else (29).
To see it, one had to be a Martian or a person on earth, "sufficiently detached, marooned, bemused, wounded, and lucky enough" to become a Martian for a brief time to "catch a glimpse of it" (29).
Percy describes how he had his awakening experience: "The day I was thinking about Helen Keller and became a Martian for five seconds, making a breakthrough like Helen's, the difference being that her breakthrough was something she did and my breakthrough was a sudden understanding of what she did" (30).
He, on a typical day in the summer was sitting at his desk thinking about a day in Helen's life. He explains: he was trying to understand what happens "when a child hears a word, a sound uttered by someone else, and understands that it is the name of something he sees" (30). Percy tried to draw the process with diagrams. He thought for a long time that a few short paragraphs of Helen's story contained the mystery of language, and if one could understand this secret mystery one could understand what it meant to be a symbol-mongerer.
He was unsatisfied by the literature on the subject. The behaviorists wanted to explain the mystery as a "stimulus-response event" (30). For example, they wanted to explain it like Pavlov's dog salivating when he heard the bell. He thought it was a simple, but "valuable model" (31). He says it works in certain circumstances. For example, when a person cries for help and someone comes to help him. The problem was how could it be used to explain people gathered around a fire telling stories. He would try to diagram what occurred, but it was problematic. Percy explains, "Something in fact usually went wrong with the behaviorist S-R model whenever it was applied to a characteristically symbolic transaction, telling a story, looking at a painting and understanding it, a father pointing at a ball and naming it for his child, a poet hitting on a superb metaphor and the reader 'getting' it with the old authentic thrill Barfield speaks of" (32). The behaviorist was forced to stretched his theory all out of proportion to fit the event. In other words, it did not fit the event. It just did not work for symbolic transactions. Percy inquires with questions: "how does it happen that you can talk and I can understand you? Or, how does it happen that you can write a book and I can read it? Or, if the world is really unknowable, why do scientists act as if there were something out there to be known and as if they could even get at the truth of the way things are?" (33).
He was sitting at his desk in Louisiana thinking about these things. Then he began to think about what happened to Helen Keller at the well one summer morning in 1887. Before the event, Helen had responded like "any good animal" (34). When she wanted something she would sign it into her teacher's hand. Miss Sulivan took Helen for a walk to the well. Percy quotes from Helen's story:
We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motion of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant that wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away.
I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seem to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. [She had earlier destroyed the doll in a fit of temper.] I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time felt repentance and sorrow.
I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them--words that were to make the world blossom for me, like Aaron's rod with flowers. It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come.
Percy notes that something mysterious happened at this well-house. Helen had gone from being like any other animal in an environment to being a languaged creature: a "strange name-giving and sentence uttering creature who begins by naming" typical objects like shoes, boats, and ink, and then "tells jokes, curses, reads the paper. . . or becomes Hegel and composes an entire system of philosophy" (35). Percy reasoned that if he could figure out what happened at that well-house, he would be able to know about the "phenomenon of language and about man himself" (36).
Walker Percy's Delta Factor Part 3
Percy, Walker. "The Delta Factor" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
A big emphasis in Percy's writings is the alienation of man. A theory of man must be able to account for this alienation. The scientific theory that man is an organism in an environment fails to account for the alienation of man.
Percy notes that the Judeo-Christian anthropology does account for the alienation of man. Percy writes: "By the very cogent anthropology of Judeo-Christianity, whether or not one agreed with it, human existence was by no means to be understood as the transaction of a higher organism satisfying this or that need from its environment, by being creative or enjoying 'meaningful relationships,' but as the journey of a wayfarer along life's way. The experience of alienation was thus not a symptom of maladaptation (psychology) nor evidence of the absurdity of life (existentialism) nor an inevitable consequence of capitalism (Marx) nor the necessary dehumanization of technology (Ellul). Though the exacerbating influence of these forces were not denied, it was not to be forgotten that human alienation was first and last the homelessness of a man who is not in fact at home" (24).
The Judeo-Christian anthropology was "cogent enough and flexible enough, too, to accommodate the several topical alienations of the twentieth century" (24). The problem with accepting this theory one had to accept the idea of an original Fall. To believe this was an obstacle for the scientist and the humanist.
Instead of accepting a Fall, they accepted that people are basically good. Percy states that the scientists "re-entered Eden, where scientists know like the angels, and laymen prosper in good environments, and ethical democracies progress through education" (24). Percy says be believing this they deny themselves the ability to deal with the particular predicament of man: "deprived themselves of the means of understanding and averting dread catastrophes which were to overtake Eden and of dealing with the perverse and ungrateful beneficiaries of science and ethics who preferred to eat lotus like the Laodiceans or roam the dark violent world like Ishmael and Cain" (24).
"Then Eden turned into the twentieth century" (24).
Percy thinks that the modern world has ended and we are now in some kind of post-modern, post-Christian world. Possibly, Charles Taylor's Secular Age. In this new age people are unable to understand themselves by the theories of this age.
Percy notes that scientists and humanists were saying something different than the poets and artists of this age. Scientists and humanists were saying that we are progressing in knowledge about people and this world. We just need to apply their theories and we will make a better world. But the poets and artists were saying something different that though man should be happy in this age, they were actually homeless in this world. Percy points out that "something was wrong" (25). Percy thinks the poets and artists are correct.
Percy thinks the world ended when people could no longer understand themselves by the theories of the age "which was informed by the spirit of abstraction," and they could not speak a single word to the individual, but could speak to him "only as he resembled other selves" (26).
A big emphasis in Percy's writings is the alienation of man. A theory of man must be able to account for this alienation. The scientific theory that man is an organism in an environment fails to account for the alienation of man.
Percy notes that the Judeo-Christian anthropology does account for the alienation of man. Percy writes: "By the very cogent anthropology of Judeo-Christianity, whether or not one agreed with it, human existence was by no means to be understood as the transaction of a higher organism satisfying this or that need from its environment, by being creative or enjoying 'meaningful relationships,' but as the journey of a wayfarer along life's way. The experience of alienation was thus not a symptom of maladaptation (psychology) nor evidence of the absurdity of life (existentialism) nor an inevitable consequence of capitalism (Marx) nor the necessary dehumanization of technology (Ellul). Though the exacerbating influence of these forces were not denied, it was not to be forgotten that human alienation was first and last the homelessness of a man who is not in fact at home" (24).
The Judeo-Christian anthropology was "cogent enough and flexible enough, too, to accommodate the several topical alienations of the twentieth century" (24). The problem with accepting this theory one had to accept the idea of an original Fall. To believe this was an obstacle for the scientist and the humanist.
Instead of accepting a Fall, they accepted that people are basically good. Percy states that the scientists "re-entered Eden, where scientists know like the angels, and laymen prosper in good environments, and ethical democracies progress through education" (24). Percy says be believing this they deny themselves the ability to deal with the particular predicament of man: "deprived themselves of the means of understanding and averting dread catastrophes which were to overtake Eden and of dealing with the perverse and ungrateful beneficiaries of science and ethics who preferred to eat lotus like the Laodiceans or roam the dark violent world like Ishmael and Cain" (24).
"Then Eden turned into the twentieth century" (24).
Percy thinks that the modern world has ended and we are now in some kind of post-modern, post-Christian world. Possibly, Charles Taylor's Secular Age. In this new age people are unable to understand themselves by the theories of this age.
Percy notes that scientists and humanists were saying something different than the poets and artists of this age. Scientists and humanists were saying that we are progressing in knowledge about people and this world. We just need to apply their theories and we will make a better world. But the poets and artists were saying something different that though man should be happy in this age, they were actually homeless in this world. Percy points out that "something was wrong" (25). Percy thinks the poets and artists are correct.
Percy thinks the world ended when people could no longer understand themselves by the theories of the age "which was informed by the spirit of abstraction," and they could not speak a single word to the individual, but could speak to him "only as he resembled other selves" (26).
Wednesday, November 28, 2018
Walker Percy's The Delta Factor Part 2
Percy, Walker. "The Delta Factor" in The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, And What One Has To Do With the Other. New York: Picador.
Percy wants to look at the Delta Factor through a person not familiar with the situation. For example, what would it look like to a martian? Percy believes he qualifies for a martian: "As a nonpsychologist, nonanthropologist, a nontheologian, a nontheologist--as in fact nothing more than a novelist--I qualift through my ignorance as a terrestial Martian. Since I am only a novelist, a somewhat estranged and detached person whose business it is to see things and people as if he had never seen them before, it is possible for me not only to observe people as data but to observe scientists observing people as data--in short to take a Martian view" (11). Percy considers himself to be a martian with an outsider's view. The interesting thing is he sees the whole picture even the scientist observing people, the perspective that gets left out in the scientist's account. The Martian view would observe how frequently people use language: "That they are forever making mouthy little sounds, clicks, hisses, howls, hoots, explosions, squeaks, some of which name things in the world and are uttered in short sequences that say something about these things and events in the world" (12). Before he came to the earth, the Martian had read many books on man by biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and others. They emphasized that man was not much different from the animals. The Martian, however, noticed that the "earthlings talk all the time or otherwise traffic in symbols: gossip, tell jokes, argue, make reports, deliver lectures, listen to lectures, take notes, write books, read books, paint pictures, look at pictures, attend plays, tell stories, listen to stories. . ." (12-13). The earth scientists insist that man is not much different from other earth creatures. They tell him how they spend millions on studying monkeys, chimpanzees, and other animals. The Martian responds that people talk all the time. "Why don't you investigate that?" (13).
Percy asserts, "It was no coincidence when the Martian discovered that earthlings, who have a theory about everything else, do not have a theory about language and do not have a theory about man" (17). Percy is pointing out that language might be the key to developing a theory of man.
Percy states that there is the traditional view of man from a religious perspective: a person with a soul and the scientific view that man is an organism in an environment. Percy wants to develop his theory of man differently. He describes man as man the talker or man the symbol-monger. He asserts, "Instead of starting out with such large vexed subjects as soul, mind, ideas, consciousness, why not begin with language, which no one denies, and see how far it takes us toward the rest" (17). Percy accepts the biblical view of man, but he knows that simply describing man from a Biblical perspective with not work in a secular age. So he wants to work from a foundation that most people accepts. Percy describes the irony of behaviorists studying people through a stimulus-response theory which does not account for the activity of the behaviorist. He suggests that we study the behaviorist through a "larger theory of language" (17) because they are not accounted for in behaviorist theory since behaviorists "not only study responses; they write articles and deliver lectures, setting forth what they take to be the truth about responses, and would be offended if anyone suggested that their writings and lectures were nothing more than responses and therefore no more true or false than a dog's salivation" (17).
Percy says that his theory will make certain assumptions. First, the current theory of language is incoherent; second, the current theories of man are incoherent, and that the incoherences are related. Percy thinks there are two different options for a theory of man: one, he "can be understood as an organism in an environment"(20). Second, he can be "understood to be somehow endowed with certain other unique properties which he does not share with other organisms" (20).
Percy believes there are certain limitations with the scientific method. For one, science can say nothing about the individual. Percy asserts, "Science cannot utter a single word about an individual molecule, thing, or creature in so far as it is an individual but only in so far as it is like other individuals" (22). Percy often states that the problem is that laymen in science idolize scientists, but science cannot say anything about them as an individual knower, only how they are similar to other knowers.
Percy wants to look at the Delta Factor through a person not familiar with the situation. For example, what would it look like to a martian? Percy believes he qualifies for a martian: "As a nonpsychologist, nonanthropologist, a nontheologian, a nontheologist--as in fact nothing more than a novelist--I qualift through my ignorance as a terrestial Martian. Since I am only a novelist, a somewhat estranged and detached person whose business it is to see things and people as if he had never seen them before, it is possible for me not only to observe people as data but to observe scientists observing people as data--in short to take a Martian view" (11). Percy considers himself to be a martian with an outsider's view. The interesting thing is he sees the whole picture even the scientist observing people, the perspective that gets left out in the scientist's account. The Martian view would observe how frequently people use language: "That they are forever making mouthy little sounds, clicks, hisses, howls, hoots, explosions, squeaks, some of which name things in the world and are uttered in short sequences that say something about these things and events in the world" (12). Before he came to the earth, the Martian had read many books on man by biologists, psychologists, sociologists, and others. They emphasized that man was not much different from the animals. The Martian, however, noticed that the "earthlings talk all the time or otherwise traffic in symbols: gossip, tell jokes, argue, make reports, deliver lectures, listen to lectures, take notes, write books, read books, paint pictures, look at pictures, attend plays, tell stories, listen to stories. . ." (12-13). The earth scientists insist that man is not much different from other earth creatures. They tell him how they spend millions on studying monkeys, chimpanzees, and other animals. The Martian responds that people talk all the time. "Why don't you investigate that?" (13).
Percy asserts, "It was no coincidence when the Martian discovered that earthlings, who have a theory about everything else, do not have a theory about language and do not have a theory about man" (17). Percy is pointing out that language might be the key to developing a theory of man.
Percy states that there is the traditional view of man from a religious perspective: a person with a soul and the scientific view that man is an organism in an environment. Percy wants to develop his theory of man differently. He describes man as man the talker or man the symbol-monger. He asserts, "Instead of starting out with such large vexed subjects as soul, mind, ideas, consciousness, why not begin with language, which no one denies, and see how far it takes us toward the rest" (17). Percy accepts the biblical view of man, but he knows that simply describing man from a Biblical perspective with not work in a secular age. So he wants to work from a foundation that most people accepts. Percy describes the irony of behaviorists studying people through a stimulus-response theory which does not account for the activity of the behaviorist. He suggests that we study the behaviorist through a "larger theory of language" (17) because they are not accounted for in behaviorist theory since behaviorists "not only study responses; they write articles and deliver lectures, setting forth what they take to be the truth about responses, and would be offended if anyone suggested that their writings and lectures were nothing more than responses and therefore no more true or false than a dog's salivation" (17).
Percy says that his theory will make certain assumptions. First, the current theory of language is incoherent; second, the current theories of man are incoherent, and that the incoherences are related. Percy thinks there are two different options for a theory of man: one, he "can be understood as an organism in an environment"(20). Second, he can be "understood to be somehow endowed with certain other unique properties which he does not share with other organisms" (20).
Percy believes there are certain limitations with the scientific method. For one, science can say nothing about the individual. Percy asserts, "Science cannot utter a single word about an individual molecule, thing, or creature in so far as it is an individual but only in so far as it is like other individuals" (22). Percy often states that the problem is that laymen in science idolize scientists, but science cannot say anything about them as an individual knower, only how they are similar to other knowers.
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