4 ms·

Many concepts cannot be described visually. You can't visualize how freshly cut grass smells, so there isn't much of a way to utilize that mental process as a m

Many concepts cannot be described visually. You can't visualize how freshly cut grass smells, so there isn't much of a way to utilize that mental process as a manner of connecting you to something in your past to base a feeling off of. And you can't twist and break those feelings either - where you can easily, in words, take something like fresh cut grass and make it a painful experience by associating it with something like past trauma. Say, a description where an accident with a lawnmower led to a character losing an arm. Now that character is traumatized by the smell and in some manner so are you. There is less depth to the internalization a visual presentation of those events creates, as the book is more likely to force you into imagining those events and empathizing with the character. You may even end up traumatized yourself as the reader of such a powerfully connected piece.

aantix 8y ago
>You can't visualize how freshly cut grass smells Why can't I? Even to someone illiterate, this is an experience we've all had? And visually, seeing the blades of up close on a freshly cut lawn, with dew dripping down, might conjure up memories of summers past and the associated smells. You're taking for granted that words are abstractions and aren't learned for most until they're 5 or 6. Meanwhile, visual recognition is something more innate and starts to appear in babies in as little as 2 or 3 months (smiling, recognizing parents, etc). 25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video wins.
- dorchadas 8y ago
  > 25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video wins. I don't think it's as clear cut as that. Literature doesn't have to be written; oral literature exists, and has been around for centuries, and was still fairly common even in living memory of people in the West. You can have literature without writing, basically... and that's always preceded video, and, I'd say, is probably the first form that humans encountered literature (and likely occurred when we first learned to speak, before Homo Sapiens Sapiens was even a thing)

aantix 8y ago

>You can't visualize how freshly cut grass smells Why can't I? Even to someone illiterate, this is an experience we've all had? And visually, seeing the blades of up close on a freshly cut lawn, with dew dripping down, might conjure up memories of summers past and the associated smells. You're taking for granted that words are abstractions and aren't learned for most until they're 5 or 6. Meanwhile, visual recognition is something more innate and starts to appear in babies in as little as 2 or 3 months (smiling, recognizing parents, etc). 25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video wins.

dorchadas 8y ago
> 25% of the world's population is illiterate. By accessibility alone, video wins. I don't think it's as clear cut as that. Literature doesn't have to be written; oral literature exists, and has been around for centuries, and was still fairly common even in living memory of people in the West. You can have literature without writing, basically... and that's always preceded video, and, I'd say, is probably the first form that humans encountered literature (and likely occurred when we first learned to speak, before Homo Sapiens Sapiens was even a thing)