August 19, 2002
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With Apologies to Dr. Westerman . . .
How Do I Know Thee? Let me count the ways.
I know thee to the depth and breadth and height
My eye can reach through the monitor at my side
For the reasons of Entertainment and ideal Grace
I know thee at the level of everyday’s
Most quiet blog, by flourescent or halogen light.
I know thee freely, as I could read another site;
I know thee purely, as I cannot touch you to Abase.
I know thee with the passion put to use
In my old daydreams, and my evil genius ways
As revealed in the online quiz – moniet did choose
To test me for my perfectly villianous face.
I know thee with comment, eprop, of all my links to use,
I shall but know thee better beyond cyberspace.
Isn’t it odd that we can read the words and see the designs posted on a Xanga site and think that we really KNOW the person on the other side of the monitor? The postmodern criticism of modern naturalism is that we fail to distinguish between the word and the thing. To say ”today is hot” – is really to mean “this days seems hot to me.” We say “is hot” as though we have expressed something true, yet we know that not every person experiences temperature the same way. My cousin (who lives in Alaska) might say “this day is hot” when I’m wearing a coat and heavy sweatshirt. It’s not hot to me. Does that mean he’s wrong to say it? Or am I wrong to disagree? Right and wrong only apply if we somehow think that the sentence “today is hot” means something absolute.
I know that a lot of us have had a great deal of fun at the expense of postmodern thought, and I’m not writing here to defend the postmodern worldview. But at the same time that I reject the level of the absurd that they seem to wallow in, I must admit that they have a point when they critique our ability to speak meaningfully about what we know. In some ways, the person Quiltnmomi that you experience is just as real as the person Terri Verrette experienced by my family. But the two are not synonymous. Terri Verrette is three dimensional (and hoping to make it though life without gaining enough weight to qualify as the first fourth dimensional person in history). Quiltnmomi is almost ephemeral in her lightness and transparency. Oh, she’s real, make no mistake. Quiltnmomi has her own desires, needs, preferences and for the most part – these correspond one to one with the desires, needs and preferences of Terri. But there is more to Terri than Quiltnmomi. If Quiltnmomi is the Word – Terri is the thing.
Does that make the experience of Quiltnmomi less valid? Less true? Only if you are reading Quiltnmomi in order to know Terri.
(Dr. Westerman first introduced me to linguistic and semantic criticism some 20 years ago. At the time I thought he was an odd duck, but looking back, I wish I had been able to see that he was more than what he appeared – I wish I’d known him better.)
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Thank you all for the rain wishes. It rained heavily here for a short while, so most of it ran off, but I didn’t have to water my flowers last night. Instead, I was able to curl up in a chair with a book, a cup of tea, lit candles, a classical CD – and wonder how it is that we ever know anything, and what if anything we really can know.
Comments (24)
Hey its raining here now
Dang I love your posts!!! I often - seriously, the same thing.. about Christy and Fairestc.
The dichothmy between how we write ourselves and how we live has often crossed my mind but never quite as elequently as you put it. Good stuff.
What I’ve done that’s kind of odd is that when I started getting involved in message boards and email lists a couple of years ago I signed my posts as “Becca” even though nobody calls me that in real life: so I set up an intermediate level of identity between the total anonymity of an epicene screen name and the intimacy of the real name my face-to-face friends know me by.
But I don’t feel like three people, I’m happy to say.
Now this was a great read. Thank you.
*Dread bows*
Sail on… sail on!!!!
Well said. I’m happy just to read Quiltinmomi. I don’t ever expect to really know the people behind their sites. People only reveal what they want us to see. We get so many all important clues meeting in real life, being in someone’s home, knowing their family, sharing real experiences together, interacting, talking on the phone. I’m very unopen to the idea of communicating with Xangans outside the forum of Xanga. I’m happy to just read what people write and have them read what I write. I feel no need to know people beyond what they are revealing and I don’t feel that I know them totally. That’s probably why I don’t have a desire to know them any more–I might not like what I learn
God Bless – Dale
Sheesh, I just reread what I wrote above and I hope you don’t misunderstand. I was speaking in general terms, not about you personally! Is there an embarrassed smiley face?
LOL – SisterCRT – don’t worry. I didn’t take it that way at all.
“If Quiltnmomi is the Word – Terri is the thing.”–and by extension, if Quiltnmomi is many many words then Terri is many many things. While no single word can be said to express Terri as a whole, that doesn’t mean that a very good picture of Terri isn’t possible if one has a large enough sampling of Quiltnmomi’s words. Plenty of room for interpretational error, certainly, but also, we are all of us revealing much more about ourselves than just the surface meanings of the lines we write.
eprops to you!!
Light candles? Oh now your talking my language! I’m glad you got some rain.. even if it was only a small amont, it helps.
And I see you have redecorated since I’ve been here too *wink* Very nice fall colors!
I look at it as using what I have available to form an image. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a duckbill platypus, certainly I am not familiar with it’s life cycle in the environment where it resides. I might see one in a zoo one day, but that would still have an element of the artificial. Much as I might like, I can’t ‘know’ all things in the manner of true knowing – so I have to use the knowledge that is provided. I like the image I see here, though I don’t kid myself that there is much more to you.
One thing that occurs to me – in spending time with the people who have made up my online community (or family, for it feels like cousins and sisters and nephews and such), I’ve found that the flesh and blood contains the person who I ‘knew’, but more so. It strikes me as a good thing.
I didn’t have to water my flowers
I think you are right. But then, how can I really know if it’s true. How can I know what I believe? I think I can believe to know what I know I believe to be true but does that really mean the cat must wear knickers? Now I’m confused. At least I think I am.
Boy could we use some rain here.
Take care!!
Christy
I know nothing.
Lost me…. I’m with Toester…. ‘I know nothing.’
Great thoughts here. (((HUGS)))
I agree with your post and I am willing to take one step further ….. the words I commit to my Xanga site and the manner in which I choose to represent myself has been filtered through my own eyes many times before it reaches the eyes of anyone else. The words are certainly my words and do indeed reflect bits and pieces of me but only the bits I choose to let be known.
For someone to read my Xanga site and then try to make a comparison to the person I am in real life would be like reading one or two pages from the middle of an epic novel and assuming you know the whole story.
Am I saying that the persona I present on Xanga is a “fake” ???? No – I am simply pointing out that it is one very small slice of the pie that makes up who I am in my totality (and it is a “cleaned” slice)
does this make sense??? I may need that nap now.
Hmmm
I happen to REALLY *KNOW* Terri…
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