Fighting Monism
in Geographical and Other Legacies

Journal entry, October, 1998

In the past two years I have found myself fascinated by the history and philosophy of science, science in its theories and its technological applications. At times I feel guilty for my inclination to orient myself toward the Big Picture rather than the intradisciplinary details. This self-doubt has largely to do with generally pragmatist social pressure. If I were to decide and announce to my friends and family that all I want to do with my time is to write and lead the life of a poet, many would tsk-tsk, even if only under their breath, feeling deep down that such a monkish, reflective mode entails a nearly parasitical existence, entails preying on the socially-significant labor of hard-working people everywhere.

"You're a poet, huh? Well, what do you do?"
"Do? I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk, drinking Chinese tea and reflecting while looking out over the meadows."
"Reflecting? No, I mean what do you do?"
"I contemplate. I digest. I try to understand what's been happening."
"Happening where?"
"In my life. In our lives. In the slippery and confusing human condition. In religious tradition and economic activity and social order."
"I get it now...you're a bum! Get a job, would ya?"

So the unspoken conversation goes. At issue is whether or not reflection and broad, interpretive understanding can coexist with direct interaction. In fact, the scientific method itself is based on the assumption that it is possible for an observer to be objective; that is, in order for truth to be discerned, it is necessary for an observer to stand outside the observed phenomena, to be uninvolved, disinterested. In my own questioning--of whether or not I must be uninvolved, disinterested, in order to get at the truth of my own life through reflection--I have come down on the side of Kant and his intellectual descendants. There is no objective truth about my identity and my purpose on this planet because that "truth" changes right along with my search for it; the world is created through my fallible perception and personal imagination of it. The fact that being involved, being subjective, being, God forbid, biased, might in the end "alter" the findings of a given inquiry (be it personal or scientific) goes without saying; the fact that such an alteration is unavoidable and healthy (as it were) is somewhat more debatable.

This is all by way of drawing the following conclusions: The best reflection, rather than being precluded by interest, necessitates direct involvement all through the inquiry at hand; the best involvement and methodological examination, in turn, necessitate reflection on the Bigger Picture, reflection equally balanced, in time and concern, with fact-finding. The poet's life, the philosopher's life, is vitally and inherently related to the scientist's and bread-laborer's, to pedantic analysis and the pursuit of life necessaries.

I have come to believe more strongly than ever in E.O. Wilson's "unity of knowledge." My enlightenment entails the widespread recognition of patterns, patterns not necessarily universal, but multiply adaptive, full of "polyvalent symbolism" (as Daniel Maguire would put it). The patterns within me are reflected without me.The patterns of language and music are in the end the same patterns of math and experimentation, observation and innovation. In their anthropological and philosophical contexts, the penumbras created by the proximity of art and science as higher-order human endeavors are legion. Theirs is not a divisible relationship. I mean this on the one hand in a more simplistic sense: the creation of violins and cameras, for example, engenders the practical manifestation of science in art. On the other hand, I also mean this in the more complex senses: logic is logic whether used in language learning and in the artful reproduction of language or in math. In addition, historical cause-effect relationships between the ideas of artists and those of scientists are discernible only in shades of grey.