Jacob Fowler
Period 5
Sketching our Thoughts
The human brain is such an amazingly intricate organ, producing such
beautifully unique and complex ideas that it is impossible for our species to
fully understand even something so mundane as our own thought process. David
Foster Wallace was right when he said that our descriptions can "barely
sketch outline the outlines" of our mind, but the real question is will we
ever fill in the lines? Are we getting closer to understanding ourselves? The
answer is yes, it is yes because as we compare these two works we can see the
evolution of human thought within the words that these two authors put onto
paper. Michel de Montaigne, who was born over 500 years ago needed dozens upon
dozens of essays to manage to get his ideas onto paper while just two centuries
later Jane Austen only needed 300 pages to metaphorically present her ideas on
class, social status, and several other ideas. Montaigne's ideas directly
contradict Foster's statement while his technique proves him right, however
Austen's novel coincides with the excerpt from "Good Old Neon".
Montaigne spent a good part of his time on Earth contemplating life,
forming ideas, making hypotheses and writing them down on paper. During all of
this Montaigne became confident in his ability to diagnose the human brain and
its capacities, and although he wrote on several different occasions that it is
wrong to judge, his overall tone comes across as somewhat judgmental, as though
he wrote his essays from an ivory pedestal. This being said, his confidence
misled him, here in the twenty-first century we can look back and agree with
some of his ideas but overall know that he has much less knowledge than even
the most average man does today. His ideas are complex and hard to verbalize,
it took a lot of effort from Montaigne to get this ideas on paper and to most
readers his verbiage is hard to understand, which causes the piece to lose its
significance, therefore proving David Wallace correct that even someone as
voluble as Montaigne can't even grasp the complexity of human nature.
This being said, Jane Austen was able to make a stand against society's
views on women and marriage and articulate thoughts on social class, all while
presenting an entertaining story that has been beloved by hundreds of people
over dozens of generations. Austen's ideas were complex and controversial (a
woman having worth before marriage, shocking!) but she presented them in a way
that was easy to understand and comprehend. Her literature was also
groundbreaking, she shifted the focus of fiction from wild adventures in the jungle
to parties and dinner conversations, she took everyday events and used them to
make a bold statement. Austen definitely didn't have all the answers, she could
not look in the eyes of some one and understand their thoughts, however she did
set up a foundation to discuss women's rights and issues on class. Her novel
barely sketched human thought but she got us on a path, a path the human race
is on right now and bravely venturing farther on, with one goal in mind,
understand our mind.
Perhaps centuries from now, historians and scholars will look back on
Foster's ideas and view it the same as we do Austen's, insightful for the time
and a classic maybe they'll read "Good Old Neon" and find it too
wordy but still study it because it will give them insight to the primitive
thoughts of the twenty-first century. Montaigne's technique didn't back up his
ideas and that's why some of his principles have to be disregarded, however for
his time, he was a genius and should be regarded as one. Austen's ideas are
well presented, and while her ideas are still present in today's society, her
literature is regarded as classic and not current events, for good reason too.
So Foster is right, our mind is far too complex to even put in words, however
we are closer to finding the answer and maybe one day our posterity will find
the solution to our age old questions, but one thing is for certain: the human
brain is amazing.
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