|
Discussion
comes to life
| The
last two paragraphs of the article "When stones come to
life" (SN: 6/5/99, p. 360) suggest that those who battle forest
fires might be perceiving life in the fires when they use terms like
"devious" and "cunning." I would suggest that
perhaps the author has lost sight of the fact that metaphor is an
integral part of everyday life.
Bob
Mauritsen
Seattle, Wash.
The
suggestion is that firefighters think of some fires as being alive,
a process that certainly may in as yet unspecified ways relate to
metaphor use. For more on this, see Philosophy in the Flesh,
by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999, Basic Books). —B.
Bower |
| I was
intrigued by your article on animism, in particular this provocative
and tantalizing incomplete statement: "Even scientists find it
difficult not to assume that nonhuman animals, natural phenomena, and
theoretical entities operate on the basis of intentions and
beliefs." As a linguist who has worked for 33 years with Native
American languages, I have developed great respect for the diversity
of expression of humans. I have also come to recognize that maligning
the beliefs of the vast majority of the human race is tantamount to
judging one’s own forebears as ignorant and unworthy of respect.
Given our vastly limited perspective, who are we to judge?
Jeff
Leer
Fairbanks, Alaska |
| In our
Western culture, we seem to practice animism in several ways. We name
ships, especially in the female gender. And we name hurricanes. I
think most people in coastal areas assign a great many human qualities
to named tropical storms, especially their unpredictability. These
storms seem to come to life with their motion, power, shape, and
"eye." Ships, like storms, can have the power of life and
death over those who are closely involved with them.
Eric
Adams
Delray Beach, Fla. |
| It
should surprise nobody that animism is popular among sophisticated
adults in any culture, including our own. People (and presumably other
critters) use animistic explanations because, under most real-world
conditions, animism provides the best model available for predicting
how the world will respond to what people do.
A firefighter
facing a blazing building, prairie, forest, or oil refinery has
neither the time nor the means to develop a three-dimensional finite
model to predict the fire’s future evolution. It’s much more
efficient to mentally model the fire as a hungry animal that can be
stopped by depriving it of fuel to "eat" and air to
"breathe."
Animism is the
first resort for anyone trying to deal with a situation that is too
complex or has too many unknowns to be modeled in a more
"rational" way.
When the chips
are down, sophisticated adults use the best mental approach available
and really don’t care whether theologians, psychologists, and
philosophers approve of it or not.
Charlie
Masi
Golden Valley, Ariz. |
|
