"We see something beautiful, untouched and pure and have the overwhelming desire to taint it."
Reading this blog post, I was enticed to consider something about us. Are we destructive?
You may be aware that most places in the UK presently look somewhat like this:
Fresh snow seems to trigger something inside all our heads. Seemingly regardless of age, the urge to put your footprints through it is universal*. What does this say about us? That when we see something untouched and serene, we instinctively try to spoil it by introducing defects? Maybe.
Another way to look at this situation is from an artist's point of view. The snow is a canvas - a blank substrate, and we feel the need to put ourselves in it. Snow angels, snowmen, messages in the snow...even the imprint of our footwear is somehow personal and profound to us.
We're all artists deep down, and the world is our canvas.
I don't think it is symbolically destructive to put your feet in virgin snow. I think that it is just an unconventional kind of self-expression. Not only a way to put your thoughts and emotions in the world, but to leave marks that say I was here. That at a specified time, at a denoted place, a given person once existed.
*Or at least close to universal. Research would be needed to isolate out cultural variations, and try getting university funding for the study of that urge people get when they see fresh snow. A part of it is undoubtedly just inattention - many people walk through snow without a thought for the marks they leave behind. Nonetheless, this urge obviously exists in some form.
If this were true and we all had a compulsion to destroy what is fundamentally "perfect" in the sense that it is unmarked by anything; anyone, then we would go around punching babies, leaving the bruised mark of our knuckles on their pure little face. The first of anyone, anything, to to destroy their untouched perfection. You are justifying spontaneous child abuse by saying it is an artistic compulsion.
ReplyDeleteOh, hello anonymous.
ReplyDeleteWell, allow me to assure you first of all that I am in no way condoning child abuse, and shame on you for suggesting so.
I think you have misunderstood the point I'm trying to make in quite a not insignificant way.
I am NOT saying that all destruction equals self-expression. I am saying that in some circumstances, what can be mistaken for destruction is in fact better seen as self-expression.
The desire for self-actualisation does not exist alone. There are other forces within the human psyche, such as conscience, which override it when it is appropriate.
Besides, is a bruise on a child's face really the kind of symbol anyone (barring psychopaths and sadists) wants to represent themselves?
And finally, we do use our children as a canvas for our own self-expression. This is what parenthood, and the entire practice of raising a child, is. We want out children to go forth in the future carrying the best parts of ourselves.
I hope I've corrected any misunderstanding.