One thing that is becoming abundantly and concerning clear is that there was a lack of understanding and skill set in ways of seeing. This is something that I was taught as as part of my art history curriculum. This entails the ways of seeing things on a broad spectrum that no one thing has one standard definition or interpretation especially when you’re looking at things that are art media film, writing poetry, history, etc.
Somethings can have different contextual meanings to different people, but there’s this weird anomaly that I’m seeing where it’s people espouse narratives based on only one thing could be true about the topic and that this may be only one thing could be true about it like XYZ thing. I see so many examples of XYZ thing is 'white supremacy' coded -- I mean sure that might be true, but you’re also overwriting a number of other facts, theories and and interpretations, Sadly, this often brushes up against cultural erasure, historical erasure, spiritual erasure, etc. I don’t fully understand what people are trying to accomplish with this mentality in that only one thing can be true about a given topic.
Things are more nuanced than that, and we really need to get away from these narratives that only one thing could be true because I see it every day on social media and it’s mind boggling sometimes because I don’t even understand where they’re coming from and end up banging my head against the wall in frustration.
How do we learn how to see things? that’s a good question!
'Ways of Seeing' by John Berger is a book I studied in college and I had to refresh myself on the plot points because its so naturally ingrained upon me that I am processing all of these things when I SEE something at least in terms of broad spectrum art and, however, similar techniques can be applied to the ways we see the world, ourselves, others, and complex data constructs ie. history, philosophy, theory, etc. 'Ways of Seeing' is where we get the concept of the 'male gaze' and 'nakedness vs nudity' in art theory and criticism. These skills can be applied to anything. We just need to accept that more than one thing can be true and sometimes there will be conflicting truths -- all of which are perfectly valid.
I look at any given thing from every possible way because that’s how I was what I was taught to do in my art history degree and it stuck with me and also I’m autistic so I tend to be that way by nature. Unless there is a very specific contextual plot point, I look at everything with under various lenses whether it’s what the Western world lens of this what is Non-Western world lens of this what is this to this particular culture? What is this spiritual symbolism? Does this mean something negative depending on the context and why? Does it mean something positive? Do the colors that are used have a significance? and so on and so forth. That’s how you critically think, analyze, and you learn.
We process so much visual data on a daily basis and are becoming contextually myopic for reasons unbeknownst to me. I don’t know if people have a narrative agenda in some circumstances because I see that play out all the time in very heavy handed ways. Sometimes, it’s an obvious lack of critical thinking skills and the uptick in AI slop, social media rage bait, bot farm content, and TikTok nonsense. I don’t know, but it’s it’s actually quite frightening to me as to how myopic people have become and that’s a human issue one that needs to be addressed on all sides.
Were you taught how to think? or were you taught how to do?