Best of Week: Consilience

This week, we concluded the first half of the "Consilience" essay by Sir. E.O. Wilson. To be honest, I had no idea where this essay was going, due to the wording, terms, and his various outside sources. As I read this essay, I had a tendency to think too hard and digress from what I was thinking. I had no idea what "Consilience," interpretation, or what the title of his essay meant.

Reading it a second time with a dictionary in hand, it seemed a bit easier to comprehend his vast word choice. It made sense that how we as humans have evolved in such a way. When we discussed the essay in class, it made more sense, for what he was trying to say was that art and genetics come together. Wilson sees postmodernism as a "deconstructive philosophy," while stating art comes from human nature for there is a point where it all connects together, referring to the connecting the dots idea from class. His ideas carry out to be a thorough explanation of his interpretation of how humans and art come together. This made me think, doesn't art come from humans? Didn't we interpret this idea? As we went more in-depth - into the essay, his explanation of the Picasso effect and claiming creativity made some logical sense, seeing ourselves all around us. I began to think of how brilliant this essay was, as he over-exaggerates interpretation.

So I got the big picture, great, but did I really understand every detail of his essay? Not really. I don't think I can unless I study it day and night. But the thing is that, I understand what he's saying. I was able to connect the dots and decipher his idea, raveled up in his mischievous vocabulary. He says that "the arts are eternally discursive," and I can relate to that because it's always changing. If there's modernism and post-modernism, there'll hopefully be a neo-modernism or something like that, exerting another idea of the arts, a different perspective. Although I sort of disliked "Consilience" at first, I can really connect to what he says, as if I can have a conversation with Wilson over a cup of coffee. This is why Wilson's essay is my Best of Week.

Wilson, Edward O. "Chapter 10 - The Arts and Their Interpretation." Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998. 230-59. Print.