The reading that I have done up to this point has been incredibly thought provoking. The writing is not as difficult to read as I expected, but the pages are filled with interesting comparisons and arguments. Because there are so many ideas within the writing that I want to explore, there are places I wish ideas could be expanded on further. In all honesty I think that I enjoyed the introduction of chapter two, “The Eye of the Beholder,” from Better Living Through Criticism, more than the majority of the chapter. Something that I found particularly interesting are the ideas of biologist E. O. Wilson. He said, “Rich and seemingly boundless as the creative arts seem to be, each is filtered through the narrow biological channels of human cognition.” Being a person who is especially dedicated to the arts, I felt slightly shocked that someone would boil them down to “biological channels,” but I was also fascinated. My interest was truly sparked as he went on to say, “ the creative arts became possible as an evolutionary advance when humans developed the capacity for abstract thought.” As a person who is fascinated with science, philosophy, and religion, this line drew me in. I was expecting a “Sapiens” style argument to form, but instead the lines which followed lead me further down a rabbit whole of thoughts. The paragraph goes on to say “ we became conscious of our enormous power and also our limitations.” This quote immediately made me think of two things which go hand and hand - the story of Adam and Eve and the saying “ignorance is bliss.” Along the same biblical story lines, the paragraph ends by referring to the biblical story of creation. It argues we are “Not unlike the original critic in Genesis, who cast his eye over what he had made and decided it was good.” The choice to end the introduction with the comparison of human creation and critique to God's creation and judgement fascinated me, so I would like to elaborate on my Common Book Pages related to this choice. For a few pages I brain dumped my thoughts surrounding quotes from the introduction. Additionally, I did a brain dump from two quotes that are in the first few pages of “The Eye of the Beholder” chapter. The first quote I chose was “There is axiomatically, no disputing taste, and also no accounting for it. And yet, the conventional wisdom applied to this fundamental human attribute [...] amounts to a heap of contradictions.” The second quote I chose was “Do you know, somehow, in advance? Do you like what you like because of who you are? Or is it the sum of your likes and dislikes that makes you who you are?” The questions these quotes created for me were: How do we know if we actually like something? Does culture decide for us? Does this mean that the creator of the universe is the only one who can be an authentic critic? Or was the story of the creator just made by a well known critic? Can we ever rightfully say our opinion is our own? To show my thought development around these questions, I created an additional page filled with timeless questions. Where did people come from? Does perspective shape our understanding of everything? Are we all different or the same? I used the picture of Adam and Eve in the garden taking the apple from the snake because it reminded me of the introduction. Adam and Eve gained the wisdom of God, and this was both beautiful and the worst mistake in history. Then I chose a political cartoon from a case arguing evolution should not be taught in schools. I thought this was interesting because the introduction uses both science and religious stories to make a point (something that I think is somewhat uncommon). Then I used a picture showing the evolution of man because I wondered who the first person to evolve to have abstract thought was. On the Next Page, in the center there is the cover page of the book ZOOM. This is a children's book that reflects how different the world can look depending on your perspective. Surrounding the title I divided the page into different sections oriented around a small star. I did a brain dump about perspective around this because I think this is a complex subject which is tightly bonded with critique. Based on the reading, I am excited for this class. I hope that we continue to read pieces like this and have interesting conversations about them. I am looking forward to hearing a teacher perspective about these ideas and also other student perspectives. I can already tell this class is going to make me a deeper thinker. (You can see all of these pages in order below)
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AuthorElizabeth Finley is a 12th grade AP Lit student. She enjoys theater, dance, singing, playing the piano, and watching movies. If she could only do three things before she died, she would go on a Safari, sky dive, and visit her grandparents at church and help them work in daycare. Archives
December 2019
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