1. The question that the reading left me with the most was whether or not Percy took his own points in to consideration when he wrote this essay. Percy’s main point is that people will never be able to value something the same way as another person. If this is true, how are we supposed to be able to comprehend and think about his points the way that he wants us to?
2. The part that I struggled with the most in the reading was simply trying to keep up with what Percy was saying. He had very valid points that were illustrated in his essay but I needed to reread what he said a several times in order to fully understand his points.
3. The reading’s main point of the essay related back to our discussion of cliche. The example of the grand canyon illustrated this perfectly. Percy discussed that the value of appreciating the grand canyon can not be shared among people because of our differences. This relates with our discussion of cliches in the sense that even though people might be using the same cliches, the meaning and the value of what we are trying to say varies because of the fact everyone’s differences and biases.
The reading also talks about how sightseers have a preformed symbolic complex when going into experience sightseeing the grand canyon. Cliches work in the same way because they are also preformed symbolic complexes that people use.
September 11, 2006 at 4:38 am
Percy’s a bit of an egoist. Thus, his desire to lead humanity to righteousness with his own thoughts on how to “savor the experience”. You’ve got a point, there’s just a hint of hypocrisy mixed into this. Unless, of course, that in itself is a hidden point. Perhaps we should be more original than to read his own regurgitated thoughts, and instead savor the experiance ourselves. Or maybe I’m just tired and making things up (of course, in philosophy, this is totally plausible, pseudo-intellectual in fact).
September 11, 2006 at 10:12 pm
Dear Kristin,
I feel the same way. When answering the second reading questions, I realized that Percy is being a complete hypocrite if he wants us to understand his points from his essay because that would mean that instead of thinking of this issue by ourselves, we started thinking from reading his preformed complex about this issue.
Boo Percy.
Rachel
September 13, 2006 at 9:53 pm
rachel,
What makes you think that this is his main point – can you anchor this reading in the text more specifically?