Is there such a thing as a “perfect” community, a perfect chair, a perfect house, a perfect wife or husband? Kenneth Burke concluded his definition of human with what he called a “wry codicil.” The fifth phrase is presented by Burke as a "final codicil [which] was still needed, thus making in all":
[The hu]Man is
the symbol-using . . . animal
inventor of the negative . . .
separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making
goaded by the spirit of hierarchy . . .
and rotten with perfection. (LSA 16)
PHRASE 5: “ROTTEN WITH PERFECTION.”
Is there such a thing as “perfect” anything? Plato thought so. In Plato’s philosophy, there was a heavenly family of perfect forms that pre-existed all less-than-perfect forms on earth. The very reason Plato presents his teacher Socrates asking “Socratic” questions is that he believed each human soul originally existed in a perfect world PRIOR to being born into human bodies. In their pre-existing state, these souls knew all perfect forms. When these souls were born, they went through a process of “forgetting” everything they originally knew. Therefore, the best way to find knowledge, for Plato and Socrates, is through a process of un-forgetting what we originally knew. Hence, Socrates asks questions. He expects his students to unforget/remember those things they knew before birth.
Aristotle disagreed with Plato, his teacher. He did not teach that a world of perfect forms existed in a heavenly realm; instead, his form of perfectionism related to a term he coined: entelechy. He taught, for example, that all living organisms have a perfect form toward which they grow. A kernel of corn begins very small, but grows to be a stalk eight feet tall, with tassels, leaves, and ears growing within the protection of the leaves. The ears have husks, silks, cobs, and new kernels of corn growing on the cobs. The production of these new kernels represents perfection. Then, the new kernels are planted and the entelechy process starts all over again.
Kenneth Burke liked Aristotle’s term entelechy, but he used it in a way different from the way Aristotle used it. Burke used the term entelechy to demonstrate that humans are always trying to chase perfection. Thus, Burke's definition of the human ends with the human's rotten obsession for chasing perfection. Perhaps the irony of ending his definition with a clause indicating the rottenness of the human preoccupation with perfection prompted Burke to call this a "wry codicil" (LSA 16). With the addition of this “perfection” codicil, Burke believes that he has perfected a definition of mankind.
For my part, my doctoral dissertation at Purdue University and my book, Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy, detail my research into this perfectionist tendency in humans.
Walt Disney’s perfectionist impulse is found in his desire to build an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). This dream/concept of a perfect community is found in the “Tomorrowland Transit Authority” in the Magic Kingdom, in the model view of the perfect community, as you pass through Space Mountain. It was his original idea for EPCOT, but the later developers of EPCOT took that theme park in a different direction. Yet, Disney’s “perfect community” was actually built in a newly developed town on the southern perimeter of Walt Disney World property--Celebration, Florida.
Disney’s perfectionist impulse is also found in his stories. You will not be disappointed when you reach the end of a Walt Disney movie. He solves all of the problems raised in the movie, with a perfect solution.
ASSIGNMENT 17: WALK THROUGH CINDERELLA’S CASTLE IN THE MAGIC KINGDOM. NOTE THE SERIES OF FIVE SCENES MADE OF MOSAIC TILES ON THE LEFT AS YOU ENTER FROM MAIN STREET. THE FIRST SCENE DEPICTS A PROBLEM--CINDERELLA WORKING AMONG THE CINDERS. NOTE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE THREE MIDDLE SCENES. IN THE FINAL SCENE, CINDERELLA IS CARRIED AWAY BY HER PRINCE ON HIS WHITE HORSE. PERFECTION!
Humans, says Burke, are rotten with perfection. We believe there is a perfect way of speaking a language, so we “correct” each other when our speech displays “imperfections.” We believe there really is a perfect wife, a perfect husband, a perfect child, a perfect church, a perfect mother, and (theologically) a perfect father: God. It is with this perfect father/God in mind that Kenneth Burke introduces his term Logology. Burke, being an agnostic, is not ready to embrace full-fledged Theology, but he certainly recognizes that implicit in the human discussion of Theology is the ability to conceive of and talk about perfection. Logology is the study of words. This study of words includes words for the perfect, the supernatural, the theological. What is the term omniscient, as applied to God, if not a conception of someone who has perfect knowledge? The term omnipotent, if not a conception of someone who has perfect power? The term omnipresent, if not a conception of someone who has perfect capacity to be present (everywhere)? The term eternal, if not a conception of someone who has perfect longevity? The term immortal, if not a conception of someone who has perfect living-capacity?
How is it that, among animals, only humans show signs of conceiving of this perfection? Humans can not only conceive of a perfectly “good” being, but also of a perfectly “evil” being. What other animal shows signs of believing in a perfect devil? Other animals may be aware of their own predators and fear them, but do they ever perfect this notion into a concept of ultimate, perfect evil?
ASSIGNMENT 18: VIEW FANTASMIC IN THE EVENING AT DISNEY’S HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS. YOU WILL EXPERIENCE MICKEY MOUSE’S DREAM OF “LIGHT VS. DARKNESS.” MAKE A LIST OF DISNEY’S VILLAINS PORTRAYED IN THIS PRESENTATION. DO THEY COME CLOSE TO THE CONCEPT OF PERFECT EVIL?
Genesis 3:5 observes this nature in man—his ability to know both good and evil—and suggests that this ability makes man like God. The serpent says to Eve: “God knows that whenever you eat of [the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil], your eyes will be opened and you will, like gods, be knowing good and evil.” This Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was, according to Genesis 2:9, in the center of the Garden of Eden, alongside the Tree of Life. (Disney’s Animal Kingdom has a Tree of Life, but no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.) True. It would be in character for the serpent of Genesis to distort the truth, but there certainly is evidence (even in the name of the Tree) that the ability to conceive of good and evil is godlike. The ability to conceive of a perfect being is one more argument that man is in God’s image.
At what point, then, did could we say that man began to exist “in God’s image”? If you accept the view of the serpent in Genesis, it may not have ultimately occurred until Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Incidentally, according to Genesis, it was not until after this event that humans made clothing from fig leaves.) If you want to trace the origin of man to human symbol-use (as in Burke’s first phrase), you would do well to look at the earliest cave drawings. If you want to trace the fossil record to the date at which humans began to make tools (as in Burke’s third phrase), it is called the Stone Age.
It may strike the reader as strange that Burke's philosophy has no need of a definitive position on human origins. Burke answers such a question this way: “Certain . . . decisions might be immaterial to a given philosophy. For instance, though specialists might quarrel as to just exactly where human culture began and exactly how it spread, many such decisions would be quite irrelevant to a philosophy of language which takes as its starting point a definition of [hu]man as [s/]he is, everywhere all over the world, regardless of how [s/]he came to be that way” ("Poetics and Communication," in Perspectives in Education, Religion, and the Arts).
I leave it up to you to develop your own views of exactly when humans began to exist in God’s image, but it seems clear to me that the fossil remains of pre-humans from millions of years ago that exhibited no signs of symbol-use, morality, tool-making, symbolic hierarchies, or concepts of perfection were NOT in the image of God. The oldest known written languages date back some 6000 to 10,000 years. This whole matter of not knowing must be frustrating to a being who is “rotten with perfection”—a being who desires perfect information concerning his own origins; a being who is not God, but who is in the image of God. If we were not perfectionists, why would we be frustrated about this?
Can you define "wry codicil"?
ReplyDeleteCertainly. I should have explained this in the post. A codicil is a "small addition." It is typically used with legal documents such as Wills. If an individual already has a will, but wants to make a small addition to it, such as "adding a new piece of property and directing to whom it should go," s/he need not redo the whole will; just add a codicil. Wry means "Dryly humorous, often with a touch of irony." Burke was hinting that there was something ironically humorous in his addition of the words "rotten with perfection" to his definition of human. I think Burke thought it both ironic and dryly humorous that "with the addition of this 'perfection' codicil, Burke believes that he has 'perfected' a definition of mankind."
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