Each of the three readings presents the common themes in its own way, acting as a very good example of perceiving things differently. As an Indian, Highwater presents a fairly comprehensive discussion on the difference between the western and the Indian ways of seeing things. Taking the making of animal images as an example, Highwater (1981) quotes from Herbert Read, an art historian, that a primal artist " is able to select just those features which best denotes [the animal's] vitality, and by exaggerating these and distorting them..., he produces a representation which conveys to us the very essence of the animal (p.58)," while the western artists merely imitate animals' appearances until the twentieth century came (p.59). I know that there was a period when western artists tried to imitate reality and to create a "second nature" in their paintings by perfecting their eye-hand coordination. They make their paintings as realistic as possible, including an object's size, shadows, colours and texture. Today when we look at many old paintings, we are still amazed by the painters' skills that enabled them to draw such paintings that resemble today's photographs. As for human sculptures, they are made according to anatomical proportion of various body parts. Interestingly, if the western sculptors did not pursue in imitating the real human body in their sculptures, today we would not see any people standing still in the streets and imitating as sculptures.
Now lets take a look at the relationship between humans and the nature. Highwater (1981) explains that "Indians do not address nature as underlings nor do they command (p.74)."He also quotes from Dorothy Lee that "[the western] attitude towards nature is colored by a desire to control and exploit" and the "Wintu (Indian) relationship with nature is one of intimacy and mutual courtesy..., [one] kills a deer only when he needs it for his livelihood, and utilizes every part of it... because the deer had died for him"(Highwater 1981, p.74). It is quite right that humans create immense impact on the nature everyday. We remove mountains, reclaim lands, build tunnels, dams and reservoirs, extract fossil fuel and collect timber from the tropical rain forests. What is more, we release pollutants into the air from our incinerators, factories and vehicles, dump the nuclear waste and test our nuclear bombs in the lands and oceans. Are we treating our Mother Nature with intimacy and mutual courtesy like the Indians? I doubt it. Is it really that harsh for people to maintain the balance between advancing technology, enhancing living standard and keeping the well-being of our Mother Nature? Perhaps it is. It truly indicates how different our attitude towards the Mother Nature if compared with the Indian's.
For Lusseyran, his way of seeing is, indeed, distinctly different from others, as he cannot see the light with his eyes. "Yet the light was still there" (Lusseyran 1973, p.9). He speaks of something blind people had developed which nearly all other people forget how to use: attention, which enables him to feel the world by its pressure ( Lusseyran 1973, p.12). As a seeing person, it is quite hard for me to understand how the "attention" works, since I have got used to rely on my eyes to tell me about the reality. When I was studying in high school, a teacher told us that sometimes students are physically present and mentally absent during classes. Here in this case paying attention is to listen carefully what the teacher says to you, but the "attention" developed by the blind is much more powerful. They do not actually see the appearances of the surroundings, but by being attentive they know how the surroundings look like. "Every single tree projected its form, its weights, its movement... in my direction" (Lusseyran 1973, p.12). I think that the attention is another sense, another way of seeing the world, which is rarely used by the seeing people. It is really a gift for blind people in order to substitute for what they have lost.
In Another Way of Telling, the variety of ways of perceiving things is shown in the "ambiguity of a photograph's meaning" (Berger and Mohr 1995, p.128). It talks about how different meaning each of us can receive from the same photograph. There is not just one meaning for one photograph. This is because different people relate themselves with the photograph in different ways. "When we find a photograph meaningful, we are lending it a past and a future" (Berger and Mohr 1995, p.89). Each time when we look at a photograph, we do not merely receive the image of the photograph. It triggers us to relate the photograph with other images, as "[appearances] both distinguish and join events... and... [the] sight of any single thing or event entrains the sight of other things and events' (Berger and Mohr 1995, p.113). Therefore, each of us gives a different meaning to a photograph and sees different things from a photograph.
Nowadays, it is not uncommon to hear people say that there are different ways of interpreting and analysing things and it is always important not to be subjective, but to be objective, especially in a scientific and technological world and in the western culture. However, who defines objectivity? Though people try to be objective and to achieve something, it seems to me that the outcomes often lie beyond our expectation.
Actually, the writers of the three readings reveal some of the problems they have discovered or encountered. In Highwater's (1981) book, he claims that "Western mentality... has meticulously built an entire system of values and judgements upon the assumption that the people of the West are superior to everyone else; and... has been supported by something called objectivity" (p.21). He even suggests that "most groups believe their view of things to be an exclusive kind of reality, [so] we are all prone to make evaluations without employing any of the ideas and visions of the things we are attempting to evaluate" (Highwater 1981, p. 20). As for the dominant society's children, they seldom have the chance to know how others see the world, so they are prone to dismiss other worlds, other realities and other truth (Highwater 1981, p.6).
For the blind people, Lusseyran (1973) thinks that people do not trust the blind (p.17). People should judge them by their value, not by what was believed to be their value (Lusseyran 1973, p. 18). Blindness is just another "state of perception, another realm of experience" (Lusseyran 1973, p.20).
As for photography, it brought the problem of "the subordination of all other values to those of a world market which treats everything as a commodity" (Berger and Mohr 1995, p.99) and the problem of "the suppression of the social function of subjectivity, ...meaningful democracy..., ...social conscience..., ...history..., (and)... hope" (Berger and Mohr 1995, p.100).
In conclusion, as there are so many ways of perceiving the world, the reality and the truth, we should now recognize others' point of view by giving others opportunities to prove their values. It is extremely essential for the people living in the "global village" to maintain a concord, positive and constructive relationship with each other in order to have a bright future society.
List of References
Berger, John and Jean Mohr. 1982. Another Way of Telling. New York: Pantheon.
Highwater, Jamake. 1981. The Primal Mind: Vision and Reality in Indian America. New York: Harper & Row.
Lusseyran, Jacques. 1973. "The Blind in Society & Blindness, a New Seeing of the World".
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