NO LINGUISTIC FRAMEWORK

I can’t resist sharing every example that I see giving validity to Visual Superiority. This example comes to us in a New Yorker article on weather. Yes, weather.

The article by Kathryn Schulz talks about how weather has infused our literature and culture over the centuries. And it gives a history of our scientific understanding of weather.

Of course, in the evolution of anything, the events preceded the words. The article states that much earlier in history, those trying to understand the weather “had no linguistic framework to scientifically explain what they saw.”

No linguistic framework. That describes the evolutionary path of all of science. As we have covered before, we observe events, situations and objects visually first. When these events and objects occur with enough frequency, we dutifully apply words.  This is what we call Visual Superiority.

And then the article quotes what is described as a diarist writing in 1703.

“Our Language is exceeding scanty & barren of words to use & express ye various notions I have of Weather &c. I tire myself with Pumping for apt terms & similies to illustrate my Thoughts.”

We were looking for words to describe our visual world in 1703, and we are looking for words today. This is simply another case which adds credence to Visual Superiority.

As I have said before, if it were up to me, our elementary educational method would include a lot of drawing. If it were up to me, students would have to draw objects; pencils, apples, trees. Gone would be the test in which we have to simply know the word for the object pencil, apple, or tree.

And the elementary students would not have to make a representational drawing of a pencil or an apple. They would simply be required to make lines based on what they were seeing. Their drawings might be transparent and they might not be transparent. And this would be in English class, not art class.

Visual is superordinant. Word is secondary. And this case of the scientific evolution of our understanding of weather reinforces that.

Schulz, Kathryn. “Writers in the Storm.” The New Yorker. November 23, 2015. Print P 108