EF_Susan
Jan 30, 2010
Writing Feedback / About A New Education Essay [8]
When you write, "I do not imply that it is wrong to believe in the power of math, but that, had we another system of explaining natural phenomenon which revealed more of nature, then why would we not want to learn more about that," it helped me to overcome a misconception about your essay. I think you are talking about something that is like the sudden enlightenment that can come from overcoming rational thought.
The enlightenment traditions are based on this. Zen practitioners meditate on a nonsense riddle (koan) in order to get beyond rational thought.
Eco-feminism is also related to this. Some feminists point out that rationality is part of what leads to aggression, destruction, the depletion of resources, and so forth. Men have been rational in their ambition -- because ambition is rational -- but as you implied there is more to life than rationality. There is something to be said for sensitivity in a world being destroyed by ambitious, rational people.
So rather than being trapped in that enclosure you write about, we consider the idea that there is more to life than what is within the scope of mathematics (what is rational).
You write about profound subject matter. I think the way to improve your writing might be to lower your standards for the reader. Use the first sentence of each paragraph to express an idea very simply, and use the whole paragraph for that single idea. This is how you can get the reader to actually receive the meaning you intend when you write about complex subject matter.
Yu start a paragraph talking about memories:
We have memories of places...
And it ends with:
This was the greater force for our lives turning out as they did and where we found ourselves, and also what we took up in our minds to accomplish.
I can understand it now after spending some time and seeing this whole thread, but this material is still difficult reading material to understand.
There is nothing wrong with that, unless you want to really persuade people of something. In order to persuade people, you have to make things easy to follow. It helps if you write each paragraph with the same method used in advertising: say it, explain it, say it again.
When you write, "I do not imply that it is wrong to believe in the power of math, but that, had we another system of explaining natural phenomenon which revealed more of nature, then why would we not want to learn more about that," it helped me to overcome a misconception about your essay. I think you are talking about something that is like the sudden enlightenment that can come from overcoming rational thought.
The enlightenment traditions are based on this. Zen practitioners meditate on a nonsense riddle (koan) in order to get beyond rational thought.
Eco-feminism is also related to this. Some feminists point out that rationality is part of what leads to aggression, destruction, the depletion of resources, and so forth. Men have been rational in their ambition -- because ambition is rational -- but as you implied there is more to life than rationality. There is something to be said for sensitivity in a world being destroyed by ambitious, rational people.
So rather than being trapped in that enclosure you write about, we consider the idea that there is more to life than what is within the scope of mathematics (what is rational).
You write about profound subject matter. I think the way to improve your writing might be to lower your standards for the reader. Use the first sentence of each paragraph to express an idea very simply, and use the whole paragraph for that single idea. This is how you can get the reader to actually receive the meaning you intend when you write about complex subject matter.
Yu start a paragraph talking about memories:
We have memories of places...
And it ends with:
This was the greater force for our lives turning out as they did and where we found ourselves, and also what we took up in our minds to accomplish.
I can understand it now after spending some time and seeing this whole thread, but this material is still difficult reading material to understand.
There is nothing wrong with that, unless you want to really persuade people of something. In order to persuade people, you have to make things easy to follow. It helps if you write each paragraph with the same method used in advertising: say it, explain it, say it again.