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 ..."Looking At" vs. "Looking Along"

C. S, Lewis wrote many things in an attempt to explain Christianity as he knew it. One such writing was an essay called. "Mediation in a Toolshed" for which an excellent video has been made. It highlights an imbalance in our thinking that has only gotten worse over time.

The essay begins by noticing that while in a dark toolshed, a sunbeam had through a crack at the top of the door. He was able to see the beam, with dust floating in it, and it seemed to be the only thing there. But when he stepped into it, all that vanished and he saw outside the leaves, the sky, and the sun that had produced the beam. 

The first observation was him looking at the beam, while the second observation was him looking along the beam. One gives an outside account, while the other gives the inside participatory account. Other examples he gave are the person falling in love vs. a scientist measuring the physical reactions of the lover, or people performing a fertility ritual vs. the anthropologist watching the ritual. The same distinctions of experience: looking at vs. looking along, apply all over the place.

The imbalance I mentioned is that, in far too many cases, we have treated looking along the event as being inferior to looking at that event. In some cases, that is justified: The lover will be blind to the faults of the beloved, whereas an outsider looking at the relation may see them immediately. An anthropologist may see through data that the ritual has no bearing on the fertility of the crops or the people involved. But the opposite may be true: A scientist whose studies have shown the "diminished capacity for reason" found among those in love might consider himself too smart to fall into that trap, and miss a fulfilling and meaningful relationship waiting to happen. A participant in the fertility ritual may not actually improve the fertility of the tribe, but may take from the ritual an enjoyment or confidence that improves personal performance. 

There are examples of other situations not mentioned in the essay where we do recognize the value of looking along as opposed to looking at. A young child refuses to eat that awful green thing on his plate because he doesn't like what he's looking at. The parents may encourage him to try the awful green thing to see if it really is as bad as he thinks. Here, they are encouraging looking along the experience and eating one of the awful green things instead of dismissing it based solely on looking at it. 

Another reason the author didn't want to prioritize looking at vs. looking along an event is that every instance of looking at something is really looking along a different event. The anthropologist who dismisses the fertility ritual may in turn be studied in his studies. If that scientist concludes that the only thing going on in the anthropologist's head is the firing of neurons, has he not just undermined the claim about the ineffectiveness of the fertilty ritual in the same way? And what of someone who studies the studier? The end result is that all thought gets undermined, and becomes a proof of the inadmissibility of proofs. And once that is accepted, the very idea of science is dead on arrival.

I will close this with the final words of "Meditation in a Toolshed": 

 We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether both are equally wrong. We just have to find out. But the period of brow-beating has got to end.

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