Juliana Spahrs Response
Juliana Spahr's Response is an assessment of knowledge and the intricacies of truth. While truth and knowledge are simple in concept, Spahr proves the difficulty of really obtaining them. The main problem with truth is how interpretive it has become, so the "truth" is really just a reflection on an individual or group mentality. She refers to the "The claims of truth in the age of cover-up and misinformation"(pg 53). Spahr follows these "claims of truth" from their point of origin in an attempt to display the elusiveness of the real truth. Truth starts with the witness of something, to the responding to that something, and finally to testifying about that something. It is through this chain of truth that Spahr proves how knowledge is really just deciphering what you experience and she conveys the greatness of the responsibility that comes with those interpretations. The first event in a series of truth would be the way people tell you information. The first line of the book is, "How to tell without violating?"(pg 9). This emphasizes the importance of the violation of truth that can occur from hearing things from other people. Human existence is too short to experience everything firsthand, so if one desired to have kno
Ultimately Spahr says that we have find truth on our own and that obtaining knowledge is not a passive process. "They close our eyes/ our voices are made silent/ our ears are made def/ we will never be the same again,"(pg 63). Society will be of no assistance in our identification of truth, and in reality society will hamper each person's search for knowledge. We won't be the same again because society corrupts us and we can't eliminate societies corruption because we don't identify the corruption till later in our lives. All we can do is listen to what others have to say, decide what we think of their truth, and then relay the truth that we find. In the process "we try to look with eyes better than what we've had before,"(pg 69). The capacity for knowledge could be greatly increased if everyone would set aside his/her biases and attempt to give the most honest depiction of what the truth is. Until that time we can only take what we personally experience as our unquest! ting our situation. Being out of control will just make one seem crazy to others if the people around him don't understand what the problem is. With truths of an important nature we have the responsibility of presenting that truth in a believable nature. "We know [name of a major historical figure] calls, authentically, for a more total, more radical war than we can even dream in the language of the avant-garde. We know a commercial promises to reduce plaque more effectively in the same tone,"(pg 14) Spahr uses a political example to display that the information we are told by others can have intentions as honest as a toothpaste advertising campaign. A politicians words, while possibly inspiring, are truly intended to get him into office and likewise, an advertisement, while claiming the truth about a product, is really just trying to sell more of that product.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Spahr's Response, Ultimately Spahr, accept truth, people tell, people don't understand, accepted truths, individual social, testimony terrible, don't understand, chain truth, real truth, people don't, claims truth,
Approximate Word count = 1252
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
|
