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11Story
| Posing Questions: Being & image in Europe & Asia |  |
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Show & Tell |
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The Judeo-Christian-Muslim story of Abraham/Ibrahim, and an episode in the Hindu Ramayana epic, suggest that pre-modern Europe and Asia may have agreed with Shakespeare that
There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. (Duncan in Macbeth, written circa 1605)
To prove commitment to his god, Abraham is ready to slaughter his son Isaac. Similarly, Rama prepares to lose an eye to worship the goddess Durga.
Persuaded of the devotee’s evident sincerity, each deity intervenes to stop the sacrifice being carried out. But would Abraham or Rama have needed to go to such extremes if their gods could read their minds or at least their faces?
Perhaps these actions were necessary because for pre-modern gods, as for everyone else, actions speak louder than words and appearances can be deceptive.
Such stories are compelling because gods like these judge people as most people prefer to judge each other - through shared, active engagement.
With the historical expansion of social networks and competition, however, people have to relate to each other without the comfort of knowing them well. One short-cut is to project and capture ‘character’.
But their actions or appearance so often contradict the impressions people give of - or to - themselves that the very idea of stable character is thrown into doubt. That, however, would undermine extensive modernist sociality itself.
So if it is conceded that claiming or fathoming character (or mind, or soul) is hard for human beings to achieve, its full disclosure is reserved to God alone. |
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