Tuesday, August 19, 2014

The Ear and Vulnerability

Getting about as deep as I get into the dynamic of hearing leads me to the "still small voice" heard by the prophet Elijah.

Knowing what we know by hearing it is entirely different from knowing what we know by seeing it.

Whence comes the affirmation that what we know is for real?

I can make no apology for that archaic word "whence" since it is all about knowledge in a Biblical sense, as was so beautifully pointed out by Hannah Arendt in a 1975 essay in The New Yorker.  The affirmation comes from inside the hearer.

Yes, I really did hear that.  The affirmation comes in my having been moved by what I heard.

Ergo music.