Rubber Soul, 4/19

Derrida uses the term logocentrism to describe the idea that humans are ultimately locked into words thus naming things is the ultimate power. "In the beginning" God made Adam and Eve and placed them in a garden and gave them only two instructions: do not eat the forbidden fruit and give everything around you names. It's amazing to think of how much power a word can hold. One of my text books from visual rhetoric introduced the idea that once you know the name of something, you possess a sense of power over it. The example the author gave was that he was looking through a book about local plants and animal species and came across a photo of a very peculiar looking but beautiful tree. It was called a Joshua Tree, and it had thorns and spikes that exploded from it's branches. The author thought to himself that he had never seen a tree like that around him before. Turns out when he was leaving for work the next day, he noticed his neighbor had Joshua trees in their front lawn and he began to notice them all around on his drive to work. Once he knew the name of the object he could then identify it's presence around him. Names/words allow for a state of awareness. He had never noticed the beauty of Joshua trees until he knew the name of what it was that he was looking at. Sometimes the words we use cannot capture the essence of what we are trying to describe. Dr. Casey gave the example of the word NOW. It's not possible to ask someone to do something NOW when the moment after you say NOW the time has passed and that particular NOW is over. Thus, words can empower and words can confine.