From Friday's session on a discussion of the quote that included a statement of the learning organ- (Lee not the learnig orga....). I would like to share with you what Jousse says about the brain.... Any comments????
What, basically, is the brain? In no way is it the organ of action.Action does not depend on the brain; it is not performed by it. There was a time when the brain was said to secrete thought as the liver secretes bile.That is childish. A brain separated from a living being is incapable of thought or of action. The brain is one of the elements of the extremely complex circuit that we call action; when the brain is separated from the muscle, there is no longer action. Action is dependent on both brain and muscle. In reality, man thinks with his whole body; he thinks with his hands, his feet, his ears, as well as with his brain. It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that his thought depends on a part of himself: it is tantamount to saying that our manual ability depends on our fingernails. Psychological activity is an activity of the whole - it is not a localized activity.The brain is quite simply a conglomerate of switches ...It is not the brain that determines psychological activity;it only regulates it.(Jousse 2000: 73)
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Indeed! Indeed! Indeed!
ReplyDeleteI so enjoy Jousse’s clarity of thought! And even though I know him well, I still marvel at the succinctness of his argument and the aptness of his examples! The point simply cannot be missed.
Thank you for reminding me of this statement from "The Anthropology of Geste and Rhythm"!
Joan
I definitely agree, (oh this brings back so many fond memories). There can be no separation. If one part falters it definitely has an effect on every other part. If we take this further one can look at it in terms of how we function within our environment. We as whole beings cannot function in isolation, everything around us affects us, in turn we affect everything (Jousse's cosmological energy and vibration - sorry cannot remember the exact quote)
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