Posts tagged wonder

An excerpt of an excerpt of the wonderful Marilynne Robinson's When I Was a Child I Read Books.

re: creation, dualism, religion, science, wonder

Nate:

We live in a time when many religious people feel fiercely threatened by science. O ye of little faith. Let them subscribe to Scientific American for a year and then tell me if their sense of the grandeur of God is not greatly enlarged by what they have learned from it. Of course many of the articles reflect the assumption at the root of many problems, that an account, however tentative, of some structure of the cosmos or some transaction of the nervous system successfully claims that part of reality for secularism. Those who encourage a fear of science are actually saying the same thing. If the old, untenable dualism is put aside, we are instructed in the endless brilliance of creation. Surely to do this is a privilege of modern life for which we should all be grateful.

I agree, but I also protest: Henry Adams' awe at seeing a 40-foot dynamo attractively displayed at the 1900 Paris Exhibition is one thing, but my guess is that an early-20th-century worker-with-dynamos might have eventually found them boring, utilitarian, only worthy of special emotion when they malfunctioned. And is awe of machines truly absent when Apple can call a new product "magical and revolutionary" and one can make a reasonably intelligent case that it might be? For my part, I do feel wonder along with fear and trembling on occasion over the mysteries of email, say nothing of free Skype conferences with friends in Africa, or the reasonable expectation that I can now find out most things I want to know nearly instantaneously.

re: awe, technology and change, wonder

Nate:

In the early age of machines, they inspired awe by proving capable of doing what man could never do alone (such as power an entire factory), or what we once believed only man could do (play chess). Now we expect our machines to do just about everything for us, from organizing our finances to writing our grocery lists. Our machines not only ease the mundane burdens of daily life (cooking, cleaning, working), but also serve, increasingly, as both our primary source of entertainment and the means for maintaining intimate relationships with others. Henry Adams’s dynamo has been replaced by Everyman’s iPod, and awe has given way to complacence and dependence. Your computer’s e-mail program doesn’t inspire awe; it is more like a dishwasher than a dynamo. Nineteenth-century rhapsodies to the machines that tamed nature, such as the steam engine, have given way to impatience with the machines that don’t immediately indulge our whims.

I love this sort of list-making: on the one hand, calling out a tired old cliche and making the case for better writing; but on the other, injecting new life and wonder into the same cliche. Reading through the list, and imagining (sometimes with great difficulty) the possible contexts becomes an exercise in wonder.

re: cliche, horizons of the possible, metaphor, wonder, writing

Nate:

The Aquaman of the Democratic Party
The Dr. J of murdering people
The Ludwig Wittgenstein of trash TV
The Ned Flanders of the gay blogosphere
The Mae West of fowl
The Sydney Bristow of Miss Hosie’s fifth grade
The Brangelina of the lion kingdom
The Ron Burgundy of the three-feet and under set
The New Jersey of the Batman dimension
The Tina Fey of crazed retrograde gender pundits
The Bea Arthur of diet sodas
The Dr. Doom of my teenage existence
The Nancy Reagan of giant mutant cockroaches
The Mini-me of oscillating tools
The James Brown of neurotransmitters
The Sarah Silverman of operating systems

Though he's now more known for his earnest interpretations of old-school political posters, designer Shepard Fairey first, of course, gained noteriety with his ironic/absurdist interpretations of authoritarian propaganda, with his Obey Giant viral campaign. Ironic and cool, in a particularly American sense that I both find attractive and uncomfortable, kind of the way I feel about ironic t-shirts after travelling in Africa and seeing them everywhere, courtesy bales of donated and resold used American clothing (shirt on a kid begging from me at the bus depot in Vilankulos, Mozambique: "There's only one thing to make for dinner: Reservations!"). The more I learn, the more I wonder about the effort we put into being connoisseurs of manufactured irony. There's real stuff out there that's so much more amazing.

re: africa, art, cultural worlds, horizons of the possible, irony, mozambique, nigeria, posters, propaganda, wonder

Nate:

Side 1
Alowo Majaiye
Aiye Laba Ohun Gbogbo
Rora
Gba Mi Lowo Ota
Ma Di Oni Kanra
Ile Baba MI

Side 2
Miliki
Pepeiye Bimo
Maje Nyo Aiye Wa
Baiye Nsata