As I started reading Chapter G of Reality Hunger, fragment 185 caught my
attention. Shields states, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant---“ (63). I
don’t know about you, but I see some irony here. If you start telling the truth
slanted, it means that you are leaving some important parts out. Therefore, not
telling the truth completely. Telling the truth means spilling out all you know
and going straight to the point. From my own experience, the more you try to
avoid telling the real truth, the more lies you start to make. So does this
mean that Shield is lying to us?
To be honest I wasn’t able to understand Chapter
H, titled as “now”. Still, fragment 242 caught my attention: “Our culture is
obsessed with real events because we experience hardly any” (82). When I read this fragment I kept thinking
about the arrow of Zeno. In order to stop and analyze what we are feeling at a
certain event we would have to stop the time, which we all not it´s impossible.
In a way I agree with this fragment because we can’t experience any event because our
life is like a movie that can’t be paused.
On Chapter I, fragment 254 caught my
attention. It states that Obama was able to win the elections because of his “commitment
to reality”. How was he able to do so? He appealed to popularity by using
his Blackberry and playing basketball. The best way to win an election is by
relating to your public. It is proven that you are more likely to like someone
that shares your same hobbies and ideas. Teachers and parents have taught us to always
tell the truth, but in such events (an election) lying is necessary. So my
question for you is: when should we lie?
Intrestingly we both chose the same passage in chapter H about the lack of real events in our lives. While you related it to Zeno's arrow and an everlasting movie I took a different approach by focusing on how we tend to yearn a reality that we can't have. Anyhow, my idea can be perfectly explained with your relationship between film and life since perhaps what we really need to do is press pause.Only then maybe will we finally expirience the reality of events in our lives.
ReplyDeleteI really like your analysis and how you connected an aphorism with Zeno's Arrow. It hadn't occurred to me, but it makes perfect sense. However, I disagree with you on the final fragment when you say "... in such events (an election) lying is necessary." I don't think candidates must lie, they must simply display only the traits that will appeal to the public (rhetoric). Obama probably does like Blackberry's and basketball, so he chose to show this. What he doesn't show are the negative traits that the audience won't like. But this isn't lying, it's simply omitting, (telling the truth "slant-") which actually relates to the first fragment you mentioned.
ReplyDelete