Walker Percy ponders why sightseers prefer to be alone
“How does one see the thing better when others are absent? Is looking like sucking: the more lookers, the less there is to see?”
–Walker Percy, “The Loss of the Creature” (1954)
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“How does one see the thing better when others are absent? Is looking like sucking: the more lookers, the less there is to see?”
–Walker Percy, “The Loss of the Creature” (1954)
June 1st, 2003 at 9:58 pm
Take Christians. I am surrounded by Christians. They are generally speaking a pleasant and agreeable lot, not noticeably different from other people – even though they, the Chrisitans of the South, the U.S.A., the Western world have killed off more people in recent centuries than all other people put together. Yet I cannot be sure they don’t have the truth. But if they have the truth, why is it the case that they are repellent precisely to the degree that they embrace and advertise that truth? One might even become a Christian if there were few if any Christians around. Have you ever lived in the midst of fifteen million Southern Baptists? (of course you have, you’re from Alabama.) No doubt the same might be said of Irish Catholics and Miami Jews. The main virtue of Episcopalians is their gift for reticence. Seldom can an Episcopalian (or an Anglican) be taken for a Christian. Perhpas that is what I like about them. A mystery: If the good news is true, why is one not pleased to hear it? And if the good news is true, why are its public proclaimers such assholes and the proclamation itself such a weary used up thing?
– Walker Percy, “The Second Coming” 1980
I think I accidentally got to your site from some travel advice note, but I was sufficiently inspired by the reference to Percy to look around – and I had to retort with a favorite of mine. I am sorry that I missed your last stop here in PDX.
In honest answer to the question posed above, I think that divided attention is only a part of it. Few things are more frustrating to me than site-seeing with somebody or watching a film with somebody. I suppose a body sitting next to me isn’t really the issue, its the imposition of that person’s opinion and ideas before mine have formulated. Maybe its the “translation” that other wayfarers and viewers immediately impose upon a person before one has fully had time to react and process the history, the tale, the spirit, the depth, the wonder of the place.
I’d prefer to absorb and process and bounce it off of somebody who experienced it separately from me, than be too influenced by another’s simultaneous experience. One exception to this “rule”…I’ve noticed my wife and I can usually experience things together and it feels richer, not poorer – but that is certainly an exception for me.
Take care
June 2nd, 2003 at 5:39 am
Thanks for your comments, Matthew. I think a big reason why people prefer solitude in tourist situations is that this better allows for a sense of fantasy. Without that sense of fantasy, it’s hard to imagine the past (especially when, as Tony Horwitz has said, “the present is so urgently tugging at your sleeve”). Percy extends this idea in the rest of his “The Loss of the Creature” essay, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety.
September 30th, 2003 at 5:20 pm
I think the comments above have completely miss out on the overall message that Walker Percy was trying to convey to us. I’m sure that Percy would have argued that people do prefer solitude for whatever selfish humanly reasons. But its the fact that his optimism, that human beings have the capability to experience beyond the surface and our surroundings, that amazes me. Chrisitianity in our society does represent the stripping of our sovereignty, but Percy has made me realize that we are more than what society has shaped for us. We must accept our roles that we play in our lives, an example being a tourist, for acceptance is the first step in coming out of this confining box and realizing that our own decisions and opinions can be made.
November 12th, 2003 at 3:20 pm
Sorry, and I’m not a Christian myself, but that bit about the Christians killing the most people over the last hundred years is just historically uninformed and lazy. Written by a pot-smoking 17 year old. The carnage in the 20th century came out of two countries that tried to eradicate an indigenous Christian heritage from their culture with the establishment of a secular state. Germany– 6 million Jews, Gays, Gypsies and yes, Christians. And Russia– 10 million dissidents.
November 12th, 2003 at 10:24 pm
In response to looker,
Yes, Germany was a Christian country, and it was that setting which allowed the anti-semetic and anti-others sentiment. A secular state was established, sort of, and a secular state has never killed anyone. However, The German soldiers, born and raised Christians, killed over 6 million people. The state, especially when it is so forced on the people as in the two examples you gave, is not a good indication of the people within it.