Amongst the many things that I appreciated in Dillard’s writing was her emphasis on the banality of statistics. In one section of “numbers” on pages 130-131 she begins with the statistic that all of your family members and close friends don’t even amount to a sampling error. That is, your whole world could disappear and the rest of the 6.6 billion people on earth would scarcely notice. Yet, effects of the loss of a loved one are much more real than the 2,000,000 children who die a year of diarrhea. At a certain point numbers become inconceivable, even meaningless. It is at this point that it is easy to sever all emotion from even the most horrific catastrophes, in which case the catastrophes become statistics. This detachedness from external events makes it painfully clear that when it comes to death: quality is always more important than quantity. Admittedly, it is difficult to resist succumbing to apathy simply because it is difficult for me to put 1000 deaths into perspective, much less 1,000,000. It is an arduous, yet worthwhile, struggle to prevent human suffering from merely becoming “table talk.” Dillard’s frustration in dealing with the statistics of death is matched by her doubt in an omnipotent God. On pages 164-167 Dillard makes the argument that it is senseless to try and subject “our partial knowledge of God to the rigors of philosophical inquiry.” I empathize with Dillard on the notion that it is impossible to use earthly logic to try and define a “universal” being. Arguments attempting to reconcile genocide alongside an omnipotent God come out flimsy.
Alex Leeds
Although the two have their share differences, as I read chapters five and six of Annie Dillard’s For the Time Being, I couldn’t help but think back to Karen Armstrong’s The Case for God. While Dillard uses series of anecdotes to help illustrate her thoughts on religion and other related topics and while Armstrong is straight to the point, the two authors both address the confusion that comes with religion. For Armstrong, she understood that religion was not a simple matter and thus wrote, “I am concerned hat many people are confused about the nature of religious truth, a perplexity exacerbated by the contentious nature of so much religious discussion at the moment.” Therefore, instead of trying to explain religion and to try to give an answer to many people’s questions about God and religion, etc. she tried to bring forth a different perspective for her readers. She introduced the idea of that people’s view of God could be too limited, she discussed people’s faith, etc. Dillard also does a similar thing. Although her approach is not the same as Armstrong’s, she recognizes that the topic of religion is a confusing one and addresses it with different stories—never coming to one answer but instead leaving the reader with several. Taking stories from Rabbi’s, quotes from the Koran, etc. Dillard also offers up different perspectives for religion. Although this similarity is a bit on the general side, it was the one that stood out to me the most and what I also found most intriguing.
ReplyDeleteI was especially fascinated by the anecdote Dillard shares in Chapter 5, the one detailing a fascinating image of a young American tourist she saw in the Judean desert; the one who put a kitten over his face. “Like many visitors to Jerusalem,” she says, “he had, for the nonce, gone crazy.”
ReplyDeleteThough we are programmed to turn a skeptical eye to this sort of behavior, attributing it only to those with airs for dramatics, or simply the already crazy, situations like the one Dillard describes are hardly uncommon. They, in fact, fall under the umbrella of travel psychosis, a clinical condition that, in the particular situation of the young man we are studying here, is known as “Jerusalem Syndrome.” A tourist may be completely sane, but the same symptoms always occur. Anxiety sets in, then an indescribable need for “purity” (which usually results in the subject shaving his body utterly bald, washing all over, or robbing himself in white) and then a mad impulse to sing hymns, cry, pray, or do all at once. The subject might then attempt to deliver a sermon or preach words of wisdom. They will often stand in wide-eyed silence, perfectly still, at holy sites and simply absorb the atmosphere for hours on end. Oddly, the affliction seems to disappear at the end of the tourist’s holiday, that is, within a few days or weeks.
This leads me to ponder what causes this syndrome to strike. Is it the inherent holiness of the place, or is it the attraction of humanity, that draws us? That is, do we value the place because it is truly valuable, or because, like Disneyland or a similar theme park, so many have valued it for so long?
The section of Numbers that Alex is referring to shocked me actually. I ended up reading one of the passages aloud to my friends because it was something that caught me off guard. The idea the even though we know people are dying all around us, we never try to comprehend the exact numbers. However, Dillard lays it out on the page and really makes you wrap your head around the large quantities. As Alex said these numbers are incomprehensible and I think Dillard is trying to make the point that God, as well, is incomprehensible and we can never fully understand him.
ReplyDeleteI think this also ties into another maybe "theme" in these chapters which is the complexity of the world in which we live. I loved the line on page 130: "Among us we speak ten thousand languages." This was after a paragraph about statistics of our world but that sentence really struck me. We live in an ever evolving world and as time passes the world becomes even more complex, and even at this point we can't take it all in. Just like we can't fully understand all of the death around us, as well as God. I think Dillard is trying to point out how big the world is, and how our minds though we can try can never wrap around the majority of the things in this world.
Zoya Mufti
ReplyDeleteThe section titled "Numbers" in chapter five was what also stood out to me most during this weeks reading. As sad as it is to recognize, large statistics do make us pause in our lives and look at the bigger picture, but at the end of the day the deaths of millions of people mean nothing to us if we have no emotional attachment to the people. Dillards example of the Los Angles airport car park was what struck me most. Measurements such as “one space each for two years’ worth of accidental killings from land mines left over from recent wars” and “and you could not fit America’s homeless there, even at eighteen or nineteen to a car” really blew my mind.
Compared to the first two chapters of For the Time Being, I enjoyed chapters 5 and 6 more. As Dillard talked about civilizations simply building on top of each other, I started wondering how many "people" my family and I are living on. It made me feel somehow more connected to history and humanity. It does, however, make you feel insignificant. It made me realize how little time it would take for Earth to simply dust over all the establishments we have spent centuries constructing.
ReplyDeleteI also found it interesting that Dillard brings up "compassion fatigue". I have often thought about how it is that people can watch the news and hear of utter disasters and be almost unaffected by it but when someone they know falls ill they become distraught. I think this is because the news sensationalizes almost everything it reports, and so we've become accustomed to it. We are able to watch the news but separated ourselves from it; we're detached. I guess this is in some ways a positive thing. Otherwise, people would always be depressed about something.
On a completely different note, I liked the paragraph about the priest in the war who said mass to "divinize the new day". He didn't have the bread, wine, or altar, but he had the altar of the whole earth. I liked that he rose beyond these symbols and offered what he had. Although I appreciate the symbols and practices of religion, sometimes I think people get too caught up in them and lose sight of what they want to get out of religion.
It seems the attractiveness of the Numbers sections in Chapters 5 and 6 have gotten the attention of many fellow readers. However, I read the section quite differently than Alex and Andrea. I actually found Dillard's use of numbers quite comprehensible. She used simple ideas and numbers we very much have names and contexts for to portray ideas we most likely had never thought of. What interested me most, however, was her use of the "we" point of view. It very much took one out of a purely self-interested view and put one in such of the human race as a whole. For example, I am certainly not from China, however, as I member of the human race, I am one-fifth from China. It puts us all together in a way our divisions rarely allow.
ReplyDeleteHowever, in the Numbers section of Chapter 6, Dillard takes a step back form these mind-blowingly large number comparisons and uses simple noun on noun comparisons in reflection. Here, I think Dillard takes all of the various Number sections and puts them together to take us out of our "elitist" membership to the "alive" club. By doing this, she gives us one final exponentially large numerical comparison, in which one, two or even 200,000 lives are nothing. To me, this left me with a negative feeling, as if she was trying to point out that my one little life doesn't really matter.
These two chapters make me think more deeply. The words are still in my mind after I read these two chapters about “evolution”. Honestly, evolution is right at some degree because the environment changed and as a result, animals started to change their shapes to meet the requirement of survive on the earth. However, I think that God made original things, because scientists cannot explain the original of life. There is a question being asked in the article: “why must we suffer losses?” As a religious person, I consider that God let us suffer losses may be for our good. Sometimes, we have to give up something in order to achieve a higher goal. The God can see more broadly than we do. I really love the sentence that: “every success is necessarily paid for by a large percentage of failures.” I also think that evolution sometimes is used to balance the earth as a whole, for example, that cyclical change about sandstone. The article mentions that sandstone returns to soil afterwards, so I think that somehow balance the earth as things are all in round circles. To keep the world average roundness constant is very important. I really love this sentence: “let us fall into the hands of the lord but let us not fall into the hands of man.” God will take care of us and have a broader view than us. Therefore, we should trust God instead of man. It is not wrong for God to punish man because we should understand what is right and what is wrong and the world will have less mercilessness. after read those two chapters, I also found out there are lots of people in the world, however lot of people were killed by the atomic bombs and wars. however, I couldnt quite understand the meaning of this sentence which is :"these are they whom the lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth." I also believe that God love 5.9billion of us, by the way, that is a lot of people. I also like the third paragraph on the page 139 which talks about the exist of evil. after I read this, I really think that there is a good thing behind the bad. we need look at them at different side. I am thinking that why people kill people, because the properity or places. why made them think about the low price of life? I totally do not agree what Mao said the death of ten or twenty milliom people is nothing to be afriad of." even I am Chinese. I believe there is no price for death.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the numbers section of this reading is impressive, I have a hard time interpretting this large of numbers. The statistics don't leave as big of an imprint as the concepts. Personally, my favorite section was Sand in chapter 5. I think the reason it struck me more than the others is the eco-friends, go green campaign that is currently sweeping the nation. Dillard says that "New York City's street level rises every century." Although this doesn't necessarily relate to recycling and turning the water off when you brush your teeth, the idea is still there. We need to learn about our planet and cherish it. Apparently, we are walking on spider legs and latex shreds. We inhale hundreds of miscellaneous particles and then we wonder why we have allergies. Dillard informs us that "we live on dead peoples heads." Ew! This section was humbling to me. It is just more proof that we really do need to learn about our planet and make steps towards perserving it.
ReplyDeleteThe portion of the readings regarding the statistics of death was indicative of the fact that we as individuals are, for a lack of better term, just “dust in the wind.” It is uncommon that sympathy is felt for those whose pass away and the world rarely takes notice except for those who die except for personal relations. However, I think that it does not matter if many do not notice, but rather it is more important that those who care do. We as humans have the ability to come into other individual’s lives and make an impact and it is few personal connections and relationships that shape us. This is not to say that we are unaffected by the death of others, but simply we are subject to our reality and it strikes much closer to home when the one who passes is someone you know.
ReplyDeleteChasen Bender
I too was very interested in the numbers sections of these two chapters. I noted that, compared to the first two chapters, these sections were much longer and contained significantly greater amount of actual statistics. In providing that many statistics with so many mind-boggling numbers, Dillard did exactly what she suggested numbers do- she made the reader numb to the facts. Dillard emphasizes that we are insignificant in this world, as individuals and even as entire families and groups of friends. In terms of numbers, she's right; In a world this large, who would notice the deaths of a couple hundred people if you didn't personally know them or live near them? People are dying every second, its a fact of life. When I think about this, I think how peculiar is the extent to which we mourn death. Death is a natural occurrence. Yet we take death so seriously. We send people cards and flowers after the death of a loved one. The loss of a child or a child's parent is an unexpected death, and it is understandable that such deaths are mourned for a longer period of time. But when a grandparent has lived a long and healthy life, why do we take their death so dramatically? Death is supposed to happen. We all die, no matter how hard we try to deny the fact. I really appreciated the section in the book (this isn't from chapter 5 or 6) when the rabbi said that mourning beyond three days was wrong. I think that, as sad as death is, that the dead are dead, life goes on, and so must we. As Dillard said, "if you stay still, earth buries you, ready or not."
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chasen, in that it is not really a negative thing that people are not as saddened when they hear of great numbers of people somewhere far away dying than they are if someone close to them passes. However, I thought it pretty scary when Dillard later questioned, how, then, God could possibly "know and love each 5.9 billion of us." Putting it that way, it does seem kind of hard to believe..
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed these two chapters of Dillard’s novel more than the first two in that I appreciated her use of numbers. I agree with Celia in that the section was comprehensible but I also felt that it left the reader open for different interpretations. Comparing the amount of homeless people, or amount of people who committed suicide, or the number of children who died of diarrhea, to the parking lot of LAX was very interesting to me and really put them into perspective. In addition, when she compares the number of people each individual person has close to them to a sampling error was very intriguing to me. That as a single person we seem insignificant, and that millions of people die around the world but “do we blink?” Do we really care or even realize?
ReplyDeleteIn the second chapter’s section on numbers, Dillard makes more interesting points. For example, “we are living on mined land” and “nature itself is a laid trap”. These quotations and the paragraph that follows are about how no one lives forever and what do our lives really mean? When we die, creatures dispose of us as if we were never there, and other creatures dispose of them and so on. Humanity believes it is superior to life forms before it, but we are not. We are the same.
As Megan mentioned earlier, chapters five and six made me think of Karen Armstrong’s “The Case for God” and how both authors focus on the confusion of religion. The connection that stood out to me the most was how they both stress the different interpretations and views of religion. Armstrong does this one way by describing how people nowadays apply logic and science to religion even though religious doctrines were written to describe “something that had in one sense happened once but that also happens all the time.” Basically, these myths were used for people to explain normal human occurrences and foster deeper spiritual connections. Similarly, on page 146, Dillard notes how Father Teilhard stresses that “…faith…is not assenting intellectually to a series of doctrinal propositions; it is living in conscious and rededicated relationship to God.” This and other views Dillard offers, such as how Hasids dance to bring joy and transform evil forces, introduce alternatives how religion can be interpreted.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I found chapters five and six to be very similar to the first two chapters. For me, all of the chapters contain insight and knowledge into our connection with religion, the earth, and the whole cycle of life.
All this talk of numbers and one human life versus billions of lives makes me recall the quote that, "To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world." I agree with Celia that putting into perspective how the world is comprised ethnically makes me feel much less significant. I would have to disagree with her through that Dillard's use of numbers was powerful. For the most part her usage of numbers didn't stir much within, as Alex was saying or alluding to. Our society has become desensitized to massive loss of human life. It is sad when something happens, like an earthquake or tsunami and everyone grieves when they hear about it but quickly, almost too fast in fact, people move on. Additionally commoners, like the people in this class, offer prayers or grievances but not concrete help. Like what Dillard was talking about on page 146, when she was saying that we shouldn't view God as this all commanding force behind every natural disaster and epidemic, humans shouldn't be praying for help. What I think Dillard is saying is that God really wants people to help each other and that he only acts as an overseer.
ReplyDeleteWhat surprises me is how our Western society is so desensitized to human suffering elsewhere around the world. It seems that the farther away people are, the less we care about them. I think that people react to the incomprehensible numbers they hear by blocking out what they cannot see, and focusing on what is in front of them. Aid groups have noticed this as well and they have responded by putting a personal face on impersonal tragedies. Some good examples of this are the television ads that feature suffering children rather than numbing statistics.
ReplyDeleteTo continue discussing the theme of death, Dillard quotes Ernest Beckers book The Denial of Death in his statement that “a full apprehension of mans condition would drive him insane”. If it were fathomable to have compassion for the 2 million Cambodians killed by Pol Pot, or the seven million Ukrainians starved by Stalin, I think any man or woman would not be able to remain sane. I remember the day the tsunami struck Sri Lanka and killed 230,000 people the day after Christmas in 2004, when I was only eleven. Initial estimates were over 100,000 dead and I can remember seeing my mom distressed and I felt as though I should feel sad but I simply wasn’t, much like the girl who sees the tragedy as “lots and lots of dots, in blue water” I had no ability to feel any emotion over the tragedy.
ReplyDeleteDillard mentions the term “compassion fatigue”, I wonder to what extent video games, Hollywood, and media numbed societies ability to feel compassion. Even today I have difficulty grieving for tragic events on such large scale. But why is this? Am I not exactly like the millions of people who died? Shouldn’t I be able to relate to my fellow human beings? It’s frustrating, but if we were able to grasp the immensity of the situation we would surely be overwhelmed. So I suppose that the finite comprehension of the human mind is both a blessing and a curse.
It was interesting to hear Dillard speak of how children rarely care about people they don't know. I have to admit that I think this is true. When speaking of numbers, Dillard shows how we lose our ability to think clearly when presented with a large number of deaths. It is much more saddening for someone to lose one loved one than for them to hear about 100,000 people dying in a foreign country. Dillard successfully made me feel insignificant. I also enjoyed her Sand portion in chapter 5. I had no idea how fast sand and dust and other small particles accumulated onto this earth. She said that we are not only dusting to clean, but we are dusting to keep ourselves from being buried. This made me think of the power struggle between humans and the earth.
ReplyDeleteI personally found the most interesting part of chapters five and six to be about the 'layers of civilization'. "Excavating the Combe Grenal cave in France, paleontologists found sixty different layers of human occupation" I find this incredible. It is kind of disturbing to think that certain geographical areas are gradually sinking in place. Although I found this section interesting, I did not really see any connection to religion.
ReplyDeleteI really liked these last two chapters. I thought she posed a lot of good questions. Which is something I liked about the book in general. She set the reader up witha lot of different angles from which to inspect topics. Sure there will be a bias to the decisions about what information was included and the point of reference given to those pieces of information. But for the most part she provided the reader with observations within a context sort of like a friend commenting on a movie you are both watching together.
ReplyDeleteWho is god? What is god? Why does god do something or why not? Do you care? These questions and how a person answers them, or even apporaches them says a lot about who they are. I think that she tried to point out that those who have been perhaps most spiritually enlightened are those who rather than following a set of rules and customs because they are told to instead explored those questions. Neither are the two mutually exclusive. One can keep kosher, but it shoudl be because that person personally believes in keeping kohser not because they have been told to all their lives.
Just as important to me as the questions I do have answers for are those I don't. Why do terrible things happen? Why do good things happen? I think that the best answer to those questions is "I don't know. And it really doesn't matter, good and bad happen and there is no way to stop either." And I find that comforting. Because although evil will never be eradicated fromt he earth and humankind, good can never be scourged from the earth and human kind either.