Three Distinct Thoughts About the Reading:
When reading Lewis's examples of the differences between looking at and looking along, such as with the view of the lovers as opposed to the view of scientists, I was reminded of the differences between connotation and denotation. Connotation is the associated meaning of a word, while denotation is the dictionary meaning of a word. Thus, connotation is like looking along, as it deals with experience, and denotation is similar to looking at, as it deals directly with the word without considering associations or experience. And as with looking at and looking along, both are necessary, and one should not be rated as consistently superior to the other. If you only consider what a word means to you, it often leads to miscommunication with others. Likewise, connotation can aid in writing skillfully and speaking eloquently, and therefore one should not be limited to dictionary defintions. As Lewis said, "One must look both along and at everything." A balance of the two can lead to truth and clarity.
I think Lewis's ideas about contemporary thought were very applicable in our world today. He said "It is perfectly easy to go on all your life giving explanations of religion, love, morality, honour, and the like, without having been inside any of them." I think this statement is very true of the current society. With the technological advances of recent years, people have a seemingly endless amount of information at their fingertips. The problem with this is that most of this so-called "knowledge" hardly straches the surface of any meaningful topic, and as a result, people believe they understand something fully, when in reality they are only speaking from a limited outside view. It is important to be aware of this, so that we can instead actively pursue deep understanding, both through looking at and looking along.
One of the things that struck me in this piece was how Lewis took the seemingly insignificant event of noticing a beam of light in a toolshed and related it to a much larger topic. I think it highlights his ability to relate everyday life with the big picture. It is easy to spend all day without ever noticing the surroundings. It is even easier to not notice the possible implications of the small details of the environment and how those details relate to other aspects of life. His decision to use common images of the light beam and the trees help give his message relatability. For me, the mental pictures of the light beam in the dark shed and the contrasting images of the trees and the sun help understanding the somewhat abstract concepts discussed in the reading.
I really like the example you used of connotation and denotation. It's true that we need to look at both aspects before being able to properly use a word, just like we have to look at and along everything before properly having a full picture of something. Also, I agree with what you said about how Lewis takes an abstract idea and puts it into a visual of the light beam in the tool shed. He is able to take an idea and put it into terms that we are able to understand.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you related the concept of looking at and looking along to connotation and denotation. It is a great analogy that helps to understand this idea. I totally agree with what you wrote about in the second paragraph. People have so much information that they often fill their minds with useless unrelated bits of it and pass it of as knowledge. I also thought you made a great point in the third paragraph about noticing and doing the little things. It makes me think about the parable of the talents in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteThe connotation/denotation is very striking but I'm not entirely sure that I agree with it. The idea of connotation as looking along doesn't seem to fit that well to me. I feel that looking along something you are immersed in it and if anything then less aware of the associations because you are so locked in to the single experience. At the same time when you look at something, you take into account the connotations, it's surroundings and so on, for instance in the shed you look at the light and it is noteworthy because it is in a dark shed.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the word metaphor; I think it really brings out the misunderstanding of meaning one gets when one only looks at or along something.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is much better to do things right the first time then to cut corners and just get away with doing something or pretending to know something. That is where I really think that people should be more involved in where and if they go to college. Parents can have a huge power in the decision and often times whether they know it or not their money is being wasted because their child does not want to go to college. Or sometimes their money is going to the right place because their child does want to attend a university. From what I have seen from my own experiences and from my friends experiences the parents strong influence in whether or not their child attends school and which school the child should attend is greatly overshadowed by what the child thinks will be best for them. In my opinion education and learning should be more seriously considered by those entering into it and by their parents.
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