Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Henry Adams
The Law of Acceleration was a hard chapter for me to understand. I don't really understand the relevance of this section, maybe I missed it. Also, I noticed that he never seems to have a smooth transitions from one idea to the next. He starts out the chapter talks about images, then switches to motions, coal output and it goes on. I think this sort of speaks to the stream of conscience we talked about in class. Something that just caught my eye from this chapter was the first sentence. I hope we can try and talk through this. Adams writes, "Images are not arguments, rarely even lead to proof, but the mind craves them, and, of late more than ever, the keenest experimenters find twenty images better than one, especially if contradictory; since the human mind has already learned to deal in contradictions." I never thought of images as arguments, I wonder what makes him say this right off? Also, I think it is important to develop a sound definition of what images are. An image could be as simple a symbol for something just how someone views something. With that said, images can help enhance your argument. The mind craves images because it brings their thoughts into perspective. I wonder why Adams brings this up because I do not really understand what he means by the image needed is a new centre. Does this mean that he is now needs an image to prove his point contradicting his first statement?
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I found your entry to be extremely attractive since I am driven by imagery and I can appreciate the same questions you're posing as Adams did. I really think Adams was trying to relate two types of imagery in the passage you quoted, which is visual imagey and imaginative imagery.
ReplyDeleteAdams was fortunate to see the beginning of the 20th century, as it brought forth the ability to produce ones own images and view others. After all, the Kodak camera was beginning to provide a way for the ordinary person to capture what was important to them (family, friends and such) and have a very intimate look into their lives. I can look at the images from two photo albums from my grandparents from around the same time as Adams to get a feel for this view, as I'm sure we all can. Also, the beginning of motion pictures, although silent, was available to someone like Adams and he could see the potential. He alludes to the past where one image, such as a painting, drawing or the like is one image that was preserved while seeing the future through 20 images (or more).
One thought to the "new centre." He could be alluding to the fact that with advancements in technology we tend to gravitate toward the "latest and greatest" when we need to remember what was there before to keep a clear perspective on our present place in life. It's a never-ending pursuit of seeing life as it really is, but does it ever match the perspective we can see ourselves visually and the imaginative imagery we associate with memories? After all, we are individuals that are always in pursuit of preserving the past while maintaining our place in the present. Also, we have vivid imaginations, so when we read something written a thousand years ago, or even ten minutes ago, we can place ourselves at the author's desk to imagine what was going through their mind as they were writing for us, the reader.
Michael