(Dr Jennifer Minter, Whose Reality Notes, English Works)
Views, values, assumptions and interpretations
“What is now clear is that the brain is not a stimulus-driven robot that directly translates the outer world into a conscious experience . . . What we’re conscious of is what the brain makes us be conscious of . . . While the images we experience may be influenced to a certain degree by information that’s incoming, we need to get away from the idea that they reflect exactly what’s out there. In the absence of incoming signals, bits of memories tucked away can be enough for a brain to get started with.” (Kaspar Meyer, a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Cosmos magazine: “Minds of the future”.)
The way the 80 billion neurons in our brain interacts with our surroundings, and the manner in which the incoming signals trigger memories creates a reflection of reality that differs among individuals.
In other words the brain is a crucible: a melting pot of intersecting ingredients that forges a reality that is deceptively the same, but often vastly different for each individual. That reality is a construct is a fashionable term these days. It means that we tend to see reality from a particular frame of reference. There is always a context – it maybe political, social, cultural. It may relate to age, race or gender. Who we are and where we live influence our personal, subjective perspectives.
In the following anecdote, consider the host of intersecting factors that complement each other and lead to Isaac Newton’s famous discovery of gravity.
“Isaac Newton’s eye caught the red glint of an apple as it plunged towards the ground. He heard the leaves rustle in the light breeze and felt the warmth of the tea he was drinking at the time. These sensory inputs streamed into his brain, where they met his vast stores of knowledge, his internal musings, his peculiar brand of curiosity and perhaps even a fond recollection of escaping the ground’s hold while climbing a tree as a boy. All at once sights, sounds, emotions and memories converged to form a whole, rich experience.”
Thanks to Newton’s imagination he wondered: why didn’t the apple fall sideways or upwards. Why straight down?
Professor Brian Greene, a leading scientist in physics and string theory (director of Columbia’s Institute for String, Cosmology and Astroparticlephysics) said that the possibility of multi-universes, which, mathematically, has proven to be a distinct possibility, would be one of the most “dramatic upheavals ever to our picture of how reality is constructed. I mean, we’ve all thought that what we see out there is more or less reality, right? The stars, the galaxies. We’ve learned about dark matter and dark energy, all sorts of wondrous stuff that’s out there but pretty much what we can see out there in the universe we thought was the be all and end all of everything and then along come mathematical theories that do make some contact with observation, like inflationary cosmology or areas that I focus on, string theory and the maths suggests that what we have long thought to be the universe might be one small part of a much grander hole and the grander hole might have other realms that would rightly be called universes of their own.”
According to Professor Greene, if there are infinitely many universes, then there could be copies of us out there having similar conversations, like us! (Q&A, 14th March 2016)
In the 18th century, French philosopher Renee Descartes reminded us that the stick half under water may appear bent although it is really straight. Does that mean some of our perceptions are “real or “true” and others are merely crooked “illusions”?
The way people process “reality” is subject to interpretation; it depends upon
- their mindset, views, values; level of education, gender; experiences;
- how people “see”; senses; our perception – how perceptive are we – what are we capable of seeing, noticing and feeling?
- self-interest – we see things to protect our integrity, sense of self and honour, pride.
- the past, memory, our upbringing; we remember things to suit ourselves; we suppress uncomfortable truths; we reinterpret or suppress trauma; positive memories usually determine an optimistic outlook on life; see opportunities not obstacles
- their fears and phobias
- sexual and subconscious desires
- depending upon who is relaying the story – firsthand, second or third-hand experiences.
Consider:
At the scene of a crime or an accident, there are numerous different interpretations of the assault, or of the shootings or the accident.
- Much depends upon our degree of perception; those who have sharper powers of perception may notice more details.
- Who we are? Our personalities matter: if we are calm and confident we might notice more details; if we panic, we are bound to miss details or forget things.
- Proximity: How close were we to the scene? Those who were first on the scene, or closest to the accident will have perhaps a clearer understanding.
- Memory: When two people make a statement, their degree of recall may differ. They need to process the event in terms of cause and effect; they need to sequence their memories and often people will recall things in a different order and will make different priorities. This means that our understanding will not be the same.
- Self-interest always plays a critical role. If there is a suggestion that you may have been involved in the accident, perhaps as a pedestrian, you will aim to minimize (reduce) your involvement (degree of culpability/ blame).
Typically, in a court case the defence and the prosecution will present two contrasting narratives, which clearly symbolise the degree to which self-interest influences our version of reality. For example, the Diamond Geezers (6 men aged between 60 and 75 years of age) broke into a safe deposit company in London and filled plastic garbage bins with $27 million in gems, gold and cash. During the trial, the defence sought to portray the gang as pill-popping, doddering old men, with ailments such as diabetes and bladder-control problems, who had engaged in a stupid exercise. The prosecution depicted the men as ruthless and selfish criminals who had wanted to sweeten their pension pots and were robust enough to wield heavy power tools. (Don Bilefsky, Diamond Geezers sentenced for Hatton Garden Jewels heist” New York Times)
In a recent article, “Abbott targets the sick, the poor and the elderly”, (the Age, 19 May 2014) Mr Hugh Mackay, author and social researcher, analysed the public’s response to the budget in terms that clearly illustrated the theme, “Whose Reality”.
“How you responded to last Tuesday night’s budget speech would depend on your point of view, your preoccupations and your prejudices – political and otherwise.” According to Mr MacKay, your reaction would vary: if you were a clinical psychological, a spin doctor, an economist, a moral philosopher, an advocate of public education or a worker in the welfare sector, or just a concerned citizen, your response would reflect your background, status, views and political and social biases. Each might believe that the other has “misrepresented” reality.
Likewise Julian Burnside (“The Morrison legacy: a calculated cruelty” 23/12/14) says that “Scott Morrison’s performance as immigration minister will be assessed differently, depending on where you stand. For those who think boat people are criminals who should be locked up, his time in the immigration portfolio has been hailed a success. For those who understand the truth of the matter, Morrison’s time as immigration minister is a terrible stain on our history.”)
At the end of the day, according to Robert Manne (The Monthly, November-December, 2015), behavioural studies have shown convincingly that most of us aren’t swayed by “hard” science (with regards to climate change theories). No matter how well educated or well informed we think we are, what “evidence” we accept, and what we reject, is determined almost exclusively by our pre-existing mindsets.”
Whilst the vast majority of scientists endorse the reality of man-made climate change, one-fifth of ordinary Australians do not according to a survey by social scientists at the University of Tasmania. Countries that are heavy users of fossil fuels, the study found, are likely to be more sceptical than others.
Evidently, self-interest plays a large part, as does, according to Jonathan Holmes, the media. “News Corp’s papers, websites and apps are still read daily by a higher percentage of Australia’s population than is reached by any other single publisher in any other sizeable democracy in the world. The majority (if not all) of its columnists are sceptical of or openly derisive about climate change.” Holmes states that not one of its journalists convey the scientific consensus on climate change science. (“News Corp: champion of climate change sceptics”, 2/12/15).
Shared realities: Consider this anecdote
The story of the elephant and the blind man is a popular proverb in Buddhist mythology. The three blind men all touch a different part of the elephant but are unable to recognize that it is indeed an elephant. Based on their own subjective impressions, thoughts and feelings each arrive at different conclusions. The man who touched the trunk, said it was a snake; the man who touched its belly, said it was a wall. And the man who felt the elephant’s tusk and said it was a spear and another felt its ear and said it was like a hand fan. All of the men were in heated disagreement.
What is the link to Whose reality?
- The blind men were dependent upon different spheres of perception.
- They all made inferences (came to a conclusion) about the object based on their assumptions, their biases, and prior experiences (or lack of experience).
Likewise, an African-American professor, Henry Louis Gates tried to enter the window of his house because he had lost his house key. He was arrested by the white policeman, Sargeant Crowley who thought that the professor was trying to break into a house. In 2010, President Obama held a “beer summit” at the White House so that the two people could get to know each other and broaden their horizons. He believed it was important for people to see things from different perspectives.
Link to Whose Reality: Evidently the policeman jumped to conclusions about the fact that the African professor was a thief. His conclusions were based on his prior experiences as a policeman, his level of understanding and possibly his prejudice towards the African American community.
Subconsciously, factors such as the colour of our skin, our gender or even our socio-economic status in society have a big impact upon how we see ourselves in the world and how we relate to others. The assumptions we make and the people we admire are often influenced by our views, values and experiences and the path we wish to tread.
Likewise, God is meant to represent a timeless “truth”. God is universal. However, God means different things to different people, often depending upon a person’s gender, level of education and their cultural context.
A Western Muslim woman will interpret the Koran in a completely different way than an Imam in Afghanistan, who, some theologians contend, use the Koran to justify the oppression of women.
Accounts
Perspectives of Jesus differ: some scholars draw a distinction between the historical and the mythological Jesus: Jesus the man and Jesus the Christ.
According to Reza Aslan,(The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth) there is a difference between James’s (Jesus’s brother’s) vision of Jesus and that of Paul (a successor who never knew Jesus personally.) James and Jesus’s immediate band of followers (up until 70 A.D.) inherited Jesus’s vision of a religion anchored in the Law of Moses; his religious beliefs are those of a Jewish nationalist who fought against Rome, who challenged the Jewish priesthood, and lost. Paul’s vision of Roman religion, which was more readily adopted by second and third generations of Jesus’s followers, divorced Christianity from a narrow Jewish focus on the law and the authority of the Temple; Aslan states, their vision “requires nothing for salvation except a belief in Christ”. The selection of letters in the New Testament reflects this struggle between James and Paul for authority; it shows a bias towards Paul. Specifically, the New Testament consists of one letter from James, the brother and successor of Jesus and 14 letters from Paul, the “deviant and outcast who was rejected and scorned by the leaders in Jerusalem”. Clearly, the religious, political and social context in which Paul lived, favoured the mythical and spiritual version over the historical Jesus, brother of James. (The various religious perspectives and offshoots will once again believe that the other has “misrepresented” the ‘true’ religion.
- Likewise, many people have different ideas about beauty. As they say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. Much depends upon one’s background and cultural and social environment. For example, 20 years ago I knew an adopted Asian girl who grew up in a white family and was taught that only “white” was beautiful. She felt inferior because of her Asian appearance and believed that Asian people could not be beautiful. However, she eventually realized just how conditioned she had become when she saw an advertisement featuring a beautiful Asian model in a magazine advertising pantyhose and this gave her hope.
Different perspectives (Link to whose reality)
In the wake of the Wikileaks scandal and one of the biggest security leaks in United States’ history, Army Private Chelsea (Bradley) Manning who passed 700,000 secret documents to Wikileaks was seen as a hero to some and a traitor to others. More than 100,000 people signed a petition calling for his nomination for a Nobel peace prize. Contrastingly, others viewed him as the most reckless traitor in US history.
Likewise, the worn cliché, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, could be applied to Sydney Siege lone wolf crusader Man Haron Monis (also known as The Brother or Mohammad Hassan Manteghi or Ayatollah Manteghi Boroujerdi), who, in his obsessive and demented way, tried to attract attention to the deaths of civilians in the Afghanistan war. A string of failed court challenges relating to his right to freedom of speech failed. In his perception, the many charges against him were “trumped up” by authorities seeking revenge over his public attacks on Australia’s military role in Afghanistan.
Is it magical or real?
Okwiri Oduor, the Kenyan writer, won the 2014 Cain Prize for African Writing for her story “My Father’s Head” (in The Gonjon Pin). In response to a question concerning the prevalence and focus on magical realism in her winning story, Oduor says, “one person’s magical realism is another’s realism. I grew up in a colourful world, one in which mysterious things happened. People talked of spirits visiting and of lighting balls rolling down hillsides and seeking out people with whom one had a score to settle. I write things that may be fantastical to one audience and uncannily real to another”. (An Interview with Chris Brazier, New Internationalist, (October 2014).
Let’s consider an artist’s perspective:
Salvadore Dali uses the technique of a trompe d’oeuil to show how “reality” can create numerous illusions. He challenges the notion that “reality” is out there, the same for everyone as if they were seeing through the same eyes, from the same vantage point, and with the same set of beliefs. According to Dali people are influenced by their subjective inner life; the subconscious props up reality and informs and conditions people’s behaviour. He also discredits an objective reality by blurring the distinctions between conscious and unconscious thought processes and reality and irrationality. In paintings such as the “Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire”, Dali wonders whether it is possible to see “reality” from different perspectives. If something as straightforward as a painting of two women was simultaneously a portrait of a man then how could anyone really trust what they see? Dali shows how it is possible to hold both contrasting perceptions at the one time. (For those of you who have studied George Orwell’s 1984, one is reminded of the concept of “double think”.)
Constructed realities: what is the frame?
My thoughts, views, values and feelings appear to be my own. However, they may also be a reaction or response to a reality that is subtly controlled by forces greater than myself. Mass entertainment, media, governments, and the gatekeepers of our social and cultural institutions often manipulate and shape our views, values, thoughts and feelings. (Refer to Jonathon Holmes’ analysis of climate change views as influenced by News Corp.)
Companies employ motivation analysts to study human weaknesses. They use their analysis to control our realities, exploit our ignorance and fears for monetary gain. It should come as no surprise, that whenever a new iPad is released there is a world-wide storm of desire.
In Brave New World Aldous Huxley shows how skilled mind-manipulators trained in the science and art of suggestibility are able to exploit and control the thoughts, feelings and responses of both individuals and the crowd. The science-dictator appeals neither to reason, nor to self interest, but to passion and prejudice – hidden forces in the unconscious depths of every human mind.
According to Huxley, the technique of sleep conditioning, subtly implants moral suggestions in the child’s mind, until the “child’s mind is these suggestions and the sum of these suggestions is the child’s mind. But all these suggestions are our suggestions (i.e. those of the state.) In other words, the child learns to associate subconsciously a range of emotions with different activities and objects. Thus the dictatorship is able to control their automatic reflexes from an early age, and hence their moral choices, attitudes, desires and outlook on life. (p 15-29) (In this case, the children are programmed subconsciously to associate the roses with horror.)
Evidently Brave New World typically depicts a heavy-handed dictatorship intent on controlling reality; but our gatekeepers, also manage to control our realities in subtle ways: through the media, language, slogans, laws and values.
So one must wonder, to what extent do we respond intuitively? To what extent have we been conditioned or programmed to react?
Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman) is living in a world dominated by the views and values associated with the American dream. He constructs his reality according to Ben, who is promoted as the epitome of the dream. He made it “big” in Alaska. Ben provides the benchmark or a frame of reference from which Willy seeks to evaluate his own success or lack thereof. In fact he increasingly laments the fact that he is a failure. Consider the Dave Singleman narrative and how Willy’s memories of Dave influence his reality and self-concept. Is he conditioned to follow the great dream of success, popularity and fame? Or does he truly believe that such fame will result in happiness?
Compare the American and the Australian Dreams. Apart from the superficial aspect of owning one’s own home, what does it mean to be an Australian? What is our collective reality; what are our collective memories and how are they filtered down to us? Michael Leunig’s cartoon published in The Age on Anzac Day (25th April 2013), points to the manner in which Governments shape our views, values and outlook on life. How many Australians is too many? he asks. Typically, cynically, he suggests, “We shall find out on ANZAC day when what it means to be an AUSTRALIAN is drummed into us”.
Many commentators who seek to control the national identity debate often identify Anzac Day as a defining moment in our collective psyche. However, others believe that it obliterates other significant milestones, not to mention the 40,000 year indigenous contribution to our cultural heritage.
Thus our values and the national focus often seem selective.
First hand experience fuels different perspectives
Our life experiences shape how we see the world; for example, our proximity (closeness) to events influences our responses, reactions and the way we process our world.
- The fact that Leunig and his father worked at an abbatoir taught him lessons in bloodlust and cruelty. Leunig states that the real experience of killing an animal humbles a person and reduces their pride and arrogance. This is displayed when the slaughterman had “ no sense of aggression or violence” when he killed the animal.
- Contrastingly, he believes it is easier for politicians to go to war because they have had no first-hand experience of such cruelty. Wars are started by those who are ignorant of the business of “violence and blood and guts”. They are primally “inexperienced, unconnected and unwise”.
Compare, too, how Leunig believes the governments and media create the climate of fear necessary to justify war and for the populace to sanction such barbarous bloodletting. (See Language and Realities.)
“Until you have been there in that country, you can’t grasp what we are doing there” says one ex-war veteran. After losing 10 mates in three months from IED explosions during the Afghanistan war in 2007, Sapper Tom Williams states that he quickly lost his “innocence” and developed the typical “long stare” of someone who had seen a great deal of brutality and trauma.
(Link to whose reality) Such first-hand experience may prompt a different line of thought, a different set of values, and a different world-view (reality) than those that filter from the “top down”.
When the soldiers have to fight on the ground in foreign countries, many soldiers change their views about the war, and question the quest to “bed down democracy” (ex-Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbons). The soldiers realise that they are killing innocent women and children, (just like their own family members). They are often forced to kill children who are also sent by the Taliban as human shields. They go to war to kill “bad people” but they soon realise the Government selectively chooses which “bad people” it will kill and which it will help.
Often it is important to solve disputes or conflict that arise from different versions of the truth, people must see things from another perspective.
A useful anecdote:
A picture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon Bomber, appeared on the cover of the fashionable magazine, Rolling Stones in America. Many people, especially those close to the victims, vilified him. They called him a traitor to America. However, the editor justified the image stating that he wanted to challenge people’s perspectives about reality – in particular our fundamental ideas about terrorists, about evil and therefore about goodness. The cover poses the question, “do we all have the same concept of evil”. Is “evil” the same for everyone”. Can we easily identify evil?” According to this editor, evil and goodness may be subjective; they are changeable; just like reality. In this case, the context matters. It provides a frame of reference. Why does the recent image of Boston Bomber in one magazine create an outcry, while the same photo was uncontroversially used in The New York Times. Perhaps, because the Rolling Stones is a more glamorous magazine, readers automatically assumed that the editor was presenting a favourable picture of the bomber to minimise his evil. The editor however suggests that “evil” may live next door and challenges us to think about how any ordinary boy next door may turn into an evil killer.
A ticking time bomb and hindsight
As reporter Rick Fenely reminds us, “the benefit of hindsight depends on whose it is” (“The lone deranged”, The Age, 20th/12/14).
In 2009, Monis’s name was dropped from the ASIO watch-list; he was not considered a serious threat. He had no known convictions for violence. Former lawyer, Manny Conditsis who represented Monis in his murder conspiracy, says “there was nothing I observed, as a criminal lawyer of 30-odd years, that would have given me concerns about his mental health. The person I knew, or thought I knew, would not have done what he did. The man I knew, or thought I knew, would not have had an intent to kill a person”. And yet Monis became “unhinged at some point prior to taking hostages. I’m not sure when that was.”
However, as Fenely notes, owing to a string of anti-government activities, “the wisdom of hindsight tells us that this was a tragedy waiting to happen.”
Language and words:
Playwright Harold Pinter laments “a disease at the very centre of language, so that language becomes a permanent masquerade, a tapestry of lies”.
Author Salman Rushdie asks, “does reality remain essentially outside language, not susceptible to description”? “Or is that we are obliged to use language only in order to obscure and distort reality, because we fear it?”
In his acceptance speech (as the winner of the 2014 PEN/Pinter Award) Rushdie asserts that the “mangling of language” makes tyranny possible. The “deformed medievalist language of fanaticism”; the “‘hate-filled religious rhetoric” has become the most dangerous new weapon in the world today .
“Like Harold Pinter, I greatly prefer the artist’s language of ambiguity and indirection, which allows a work to have many readings.” He contrasts this to the language of literal religious jihadi extremism; it’s the language of hate-filled barbarians; the language, which has been dubbed ‘jihadi-cool’; which justifies religious mayhem so that young men commit acts of extreme brutality in the name of a just war.
We think in language; we learn through words. The words we use, the words governments and the media use and each individual’s grasp of language plays an important part in the world we experience as our own.
Desmond Tutu says, “Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.” Likewise, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein pointed out, “the limits of my language define the limits of my world”. He alludes to the fact that we cannot know anything until we have a word for it, until we identify it in language, so our grasp of language can extend or contract our horizons. Individuals who are born into multilingual environments have a gateway to multiple cultural environments.
In everyday conversations, we often have to “read between the lines”; often there are thoughts unsaid that we must guess. Some people “read” more literally than others. Some are more adept at ‘reading’ hidden meanings. This often depends upon our powers of perception and intuition.
As Ms Judy Sharp says of her renowned autistic-son-artist Tim who created the TV show Laser Beak Man, “in autism, language has a literal meaning”. She recounts: “We were going to a barbecue and I asked Tim to draw it. So he drew a line of Barbies in a queue, waiting for a barbecue. No one looks at a barbecue the same way any more.”
Primatologist Jane Goodall was one of the first researchers in 1960 to assign names not labels to the apes she was observing. In scientific journals she attracted the condemnation of the scientific world because she assigned a gender, “he” or “she”, to the apes rather than “it”. Such terms humanise the apes and reflect her belief in the ability of apes to feel and have emotions; scientific words that seek to objectify the apes reflect the mindset of many scientists who prefer to keep the apes in the animal world. The use of human terms and labels evidently blurs the boundaries.
Words shape public opinion and influence people’s reactions and responses to issues, incidents and events. For example, Justice David Davies, who presided over the death of Mohd Shah Saemin in Sydney in 2012, said the reference to an “honour” killing was incorrect. As a member of the Australian-Indonesian Muslim community, Mr Hazairin Iksander claimed that his wife’s affair with the murdered victim brought shame on their religion, as well as on their family and on his role as husband. In his view, the act of “honour” justifies the killing.
However, not only does the label “honour” killing point to different cultural perspectives, but, as the Judge pointed out, such a word also tends to legitimize and rationalize a crime committed against women. It suggests that the men acted honourably by protecting and prioritizing the tribe’s reputation. The origins of such killings, the Judge said, lay in “the notion that a woman is the chattel or possession of a man … such a notion has no place in this country”.
Similarly, as Leunig reminds us the words used by Governments or media institutions shapes our political and social realities. Specifically, he believes the case for the Iraq war as presented to the public consisted of slogans about a murdering devil and “babies on bayonets”. This type of language, he believes, makes it easier for the government to whip up the necessary hatred and fear against an enemy. The media and the government assured the public that the war would be “quick clean and clear” which justified the case for war.
Likewise, the recent decision to return to Iraq is to implement a “humanitarian mission” rather than a war; terms such as “boots on the ground” euphemistically conceal the bloody battles that will be waged.
The official and “deceptive” use of language to refer to refugees coupled with the trappings of military defence used by Scott Morrison such as “illegal maritime arrivals”, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection”, and Operation Sovereign Borders (and military secrecy) ensures that the public view refugees as dangerous criminals. (Julian Burnside, The Morrison legacy: a calculated cruelty, 23/12/14)
“War on terror” says linguist Louise Richardson is deceiving as it gives legitimacy to an enemy that exists purely in and through language. Recently, many political commentators criticise the term ISIL, an abbreviation for the Islamic State; they prefer to use the Arabic term “Daesh” which carries negative connotations and undermines claims of legitimacy on behalf of radical Sunnis.
In 1984 George Orwell depicts the relationship between language and our thought process and social and political realities. Big Brother disempowers the citizens of language and hence of thought itself. Big Brother’s use of the party’s propaganda machine and its ownership and control of language, enables it to control the past and the present and shape people’s future realities. The aim of Newspeak is to reduce language and narrow the range of thought. As Winston states the “whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality only one word.” (60) He cynically states, “It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.” The philosophy of Newspeak is that if people do not have the word, then they cannot think of the concept. By eliminating words, the party can control people’s range of thought. O’Brien predicts that by 2050, the language will be reduced to such an extent that no one will be able to understand a typical 1984-conversation.
Historical events often attract a great deal of discrepancy depending upon who is recording history and whose version gains priority. Often the official version is accorded priority because of a Government’s access to media outlets. Minor voices struggle to be recorded.
Thus proving as George Orwell would state, “whoever controls the past controls the future” because as Winston knows only too well if the party is constantly right and their version is the only one that gains credibility, then it is difficult for people to rebel and question the dominant views and values. They are always guaranteed to have a favourable impression of authority. In this case the supply of information, what the government reveals and what it conceals, influences the nation’s historical perspective and hence the people’s collective reality (present and future).
Then there’s the point that the questions we ask pre-empt certain answers, or, in other words, the version of reality that transpires is often a consequence of our own biases and prior assumptions. For example, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Paul Dirac identified how light appears to be a particle if we ask a particle-like question, and a wave if we ask a wave-like question. (As Ludwig Wittgenstein would say, “all I know is what I have words for.” Those experiences that are starved of language will affect the reality we perceive.
Musings on the role of memory in shaping realities
If all conscious experiences can be thought of as what Nobel laureate and neuroscientist Gerald Edelman calls a “remembered present”, then the way we remember impacts upon how we see ourselves and our place in the world.
The process of remembering often casts us in the role of narrator as we seek to make sense of and order our memories. As Michael Frayn suggests, our memories are often a “collection of vivid particulars” consisting of a kaleidoscope of ingredients: “certain words, objects glimpsed, moods, gestures, expressions”. Often the subject searches for the hidden links, which suggests that the person who digs into memories is cast into the role of the narrator.
Or as Xinran the author of The Good Women of China states: “When you walk into your memories, you are opening a door to the past; the road within has many branches, and the route is different every time.”
We must ask, what makes the route different?
As Michael Leunig says, when “it’s about a loss of dignity, the memory plays tricks and makes everything soft and cloudy; it’s a protective thing.” (24) We often, distort, magnify or exaggerate elements of the past to suit our self image. Paradoxically, remembering is also a process of forgetting the inconvenient or painful events or uncomfortable experiences.
No matter the emotive colour attached to our memories, generally the way we select, organise and (re)construct our memories will have a bearing on our mental stability. Typically, we spin things in our favour to preserve our integrity and dignity. Willy Loman spins reality to accord with his vision of Dave Singleman, a successful salesman. He wants to believe that he is following in his footsteps. (After the affair, he accuses Biff of being ‘spiteful” as a tactic to protect and defend himself from the knowledge of his betrayal.)
However, sometimes this attempt to control and interpret our experiences in a positive way backfires. Through the prism of his youthful experiences, Stephen Wheatley exaggerates his own significance in the spy narrative-adventure in such a way that sets him up for a fall. He recasts his memories as a test of manhood and concludes that that he has betrayed his country and “left a sick and starving man to die”. (191)
As Stephen Wheatley admits, “it is possible to “know” and “yet not know”. Willy Loman is aware of his contradictory behaviour, but fails to make the necessary adjustments. He knows that the car is dangerously skidding off the rails, much like his life. He knows that he has not got a “story left in his head” and that he will continue to feel “kinda temporary” about himself if he does not try to confront his demons. So he invests more fancifully than ever in the salesman myth and the Loman brand.
Often, the larger the contradiction the more fragile the individual.
On stage, the past and present intermingle in ways that shore up Willy’s defences but undermine them at the same time. As Miller writes in his stage directions, “in the scenes of the past these boundaries are broken and characters enter or leave a room by stepping through a wall on to the forestage.”
Willy Loman’s increasingly dream-like status is not unlike what David Campbell, Age writer, refers to as the dream-like reality experienced by people suffering from dementia, such as his mother. He tries to understand her vanishing grip on reality, by suggesting that she grasps a “kernel of reality” and then follows pathways that are largely random. She picks up and fits virtually anything into her mental landscape with absolute conviction. For example, she lived in a world that intermingled the past and the present and could not, like Willy, in his attempt to distinguish fantasy from reality, the “temporary” from the permanent. For Campbell, people from his mother’s younger days, such as her long-dead parents would feature in her conversations about the present, much as Ben strategically occurs to help Willy make sense of his dreams or unravel his failures. (“Go with the dream to deal with dementia” David Campbell, The Age 17-18 December 2010).
(See Memory and Desire in Death of a Salesman and Spies)
Other realities: food for thought
See “Memory and Desire” and “Framing our Realities“.
by Dr Jennifer Minter: Whose Reality: VCE Study Notes (English Works)
See also our VCE workbook for students: The Language of Persuasion: an essay-writing guide.
Please click here to download a PDF version of the Exercises in the Language of Persuasion: an essay writing guide for immediate use. By using these exercises, you will be able to follow our support material on each exercise (See “turn to exercise”). Each “turn to exercise” includes key strategies, suggested responses, students’ samples and assessors’ marks and comments.
© English Works (2014). Please attribute quotes. Disclaimer: These notes are designed as teaching aids only to be used in conjunction with workshops conducted by English Works.