Thursday, February 25, 2010

Disneology #12: Man’s Tool-making=God’s Image?

ASSIGNMENT 13: JOURNEY ON THE “JUNGLE CRUISE” AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM. PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO DEPICTIONS OF THE NATIVES. LIST ANY TOOLS THEY ARE CARRYING, ESPECIALLY TOOLS FOR HUNTING.

Now that we have considered the first two phrase of Kenneth Burke’s definition of human--“symbol-using, symbol-making” and “inventor of (and moralized by) the negative”--I turn to the third phrase.

PHRASE 3: SEPARATED FROM HIS NATURAL CONDITION BY INSTRUMENTS OF HIS OWN MAKING.

God, as the creator of nature, would not have a “natural” condition. He would be “super”-natural (above nature). In the sense of being “separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making,” one could also say that man is “super”-natural. Animals may “adapt” to their natural environment through mutation, but humans can separate themselves from the limitations of their natural environment by symbol-use. Humans, using symbolic logic, are able to “make” instruments that remove the limitations of nature. If humans live in a cold environment, they “make” clothing, insulated homes, fireplaces, central heat, thermal underwear, etc. If humans live in a hot environment, they “make” electric fans, backyard swimming pools, central air conditioning, etc. If humans desire to travel faster than their legs can “naturally” carry them, they make chariots, bicycles, automobiles, motorboats, airplanes, jets, etc. If they, like other animals, are earth-bound as a part of their natural condition, they make rockets and space shuttles.


Chapter 3 of my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy, is entitled “The Human as Super-Natural.” The human is the only animal to have the ability to transcend natural limitations by his rational thought, symbol-use, and inventions.

Consider the human natives you encounter along the Jungle Cruise route. Even uncivilized cultures knew how to be super-natural (to separate themselves from their natural condition by instruments of their own making). It is true that sea otters can “use” tools (that they do not make). They can “find” rocks and use the rocks as tools to break open the shells of shellfish, so they can eat the meat inside. It is true that apes will use sticks they “find” to place in holes and crevices to retrieve insects and other foods. However, the sea otters and apes do not “make” these instruments—they “find” them in their natural environment. Humans, on the other hand, “make” the instruments that separate them from their natural condition.
While sea otters may “use” rocks as tools, humans “make” the rocks into cutting instruments. They chip away edges of the rocks to make sharp knives. Humans did this—even in the Stone Age. Then, humans realized that they could use vines to tie their sharp rocks to sticks and they “made” axes. The humans, next, realized they could put the sharpened rocks on the ends of longer sticks, so they did not have to come into close contact with the animals they hunted. They had invented spears. They noticed they could throw these spears, but if they tied vines to each end of a willow stick and bent the stick, they could use this bow to propel smaller spears (arrows). Every single human culture, it seems, has learned to “make” bows and arrows. But, it did not stop there.

When riding through Spaceship Earth, you noticed all of the tools for saving and sending (via the media) the pieces of symbolic communication the humans had “made”: stone tablets, papyrus, chisels, pens, paint brushes, moveable type, printing presses, newspapers, telegraph, telephone, radio, motion pictures, television, and computers.

When riding through the “Universe of Energy,” you saw the humorous slice-of-life demonstrating that humans learned to control fire (something no other animal has learned) and found that the use of that basic form of energy led to other tools for using energy: steam engines, internal combustible engines, hydroelectric dams, solar energy collectors, oil wells, off-shore drilling platforms, windmills, and nuclear power plants. This human “control of energy” reminds me of a point I had made in an earlier commentary: That God’s Word may have been the “energy source” that may have been converted into mass in any theoretical “Big Bang.”

Yet, with all of this tool-making by humans, no other animal has figured out how to make its own rudimentary stone knife. Humans are the super-natural animal. Hence, you could say that they are the “image” of God.

If you have more time . . .

ASSIGNMENT 14: (OPTIONAL) SINCE YOU HAVE THEOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED THE TOOL-MAKING NATURE OF HUMAN BEINGS, EXPLORE THE CELEBRATION OF SOME OF THOSE INVENTIONS. RIDE “THE WALT DISNEY WORLD RAILROAD” AT THE MAGIC KINGDOM, THEN THE “MONORAIL” TO EPCOT, THEN “TEST TRACK” AT EPCOT (BUT PAY ATTENTION TO ALL OF THE TESTS OF THE AUTOMOBILE YOU SEE IN THE QUEUE) LEADING UP TO THE RIDE. NEXT, RIDE “SOARIN’” AND RIDE “MISSION SPACE,” TO FEEL WHAT IT IS LIKE TO FLY AND SPACE TRAVEL. (CAUTION: UNLESS YOU HAVE A REALLY STRONG STOMACH AND ARE RESISTANT TO DIZZINESS, THE MILDER VERSION OF THE “MISSION SPACE” RIDE IS RECOMMENDED.) SINCE YOU ARE TRAVELING INTO SPACE, YOU MAY WANT TO RIDE “STAR TOURS” IN DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS, AND JOIN R2-D2 IN A (FUTURISTIC) SPACE MISSION.

2 comments:

  1. But what tools did God make? Are we referring to all of creation as one of his tools? Or more specifically the directions he gave to Moses concerning the ark and the tabernacle etc. Or to Noah and his ark? Tools he designed but that man actually built.

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  2. Thanks for the comment. I think the reason Burke used the word "instruments" instead of "tools" is that instruments are not limited to tools. God made a lot of great gadgets: solar systems that work like clockwork, atomic structures that could be combined with similar atoms to make various masses, plants that converted solar energy into carbon-based energy reserves, animals that converted plant products into protein, and humans that could rule and manage the entire system for him. But, the key part of this phrase in Burke's definition is that the instruments man makes "separate him from his natural condition," thus making man above nature (like God), supernatural. In that sense, man is the image of God. That was the direction I was taking this. I'll write more on the connection between "making" and "creating" in my next commentary.

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