Directing the intention: Kid vs. Mom

This week’s readings seemed to circle around themes of language and its origins as well as the interpretations and categorizations of language. In Chapter Three of his work, Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method, Kenneth Burke offers the expression “terministic screens.” Burke writes that these terministic screens filter ideas about language and experience by directing the attention; therefore, they help humans understand a particular event or happening. Burke has in mind, “the fact that any nomenclature necessarily directs the attention into some channels rather than others” (45).

Burke discusses the terministic screen in relation to photographs. He writes that the photographs were “different photographs of the same object,” that were viewed through different color filters (45). I read this example and thought Burke used it as a way to relate to a concept of understanding. People gather different views from the same thing—be it a photograph, a TV show, a written or verbal message etc.—and much of the time, these different meanings are gathered and based off of how (or where) that object is viewed. To Burke, these color filters might represent the various views of the same event from different people.

Burke expands a “satirically excessive account of directing the intention” that allowed me to recall a similar instance (45). He writes of Pascal’s example of dueling in the Church. It was indeed comical, yet it provided me with an example to write about here. One year around the holidays (I was probably six or seven), I made it my mission to sneak Christmas cookies from the jar in the kitchen during the middle of the night, every night. I played up the whole “fake-sleeping” thing when my parents would check on me, and as soon as they were in their room, I would activate my plan. The first night of my mission, I went downstairs the simplest way possible—I got out of bed and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Got caught. My mom said: “Tell me you will not walk down these stairs tomorrow night and take a cookie.” “I wont,” I said. The next evening: I became creative and slid down the banister of stairs, skipped toward the kitchen, and grabbed a cookie. Got caught. My mom, again: “Katie… I told you not to do this.” I relayed to my mom that I had not disobeyed her wishes because I didn’t walk down the stairs to get the cookie. I explained my method and she sent me off to bed with the following words: “Tell me you will not, in any form or fashion, go down these stairs tomorrow night and take a cookie.” The following night, devising a plan was a bit more trying on my patience and truly tested how badly I wanted that cookie. Luckily, I recalled our side stairs that led from the playroom to the garage, which would let me in the back door of the kitchen. Alas, I would get a cookie once more! After enjoying the cookie, I exited the kitchen and embarked up the main set of stairs; Mom was at the top to greet me. I explained to her, yet again, how I did not go against her demands. The next night, new plan in hand, I went down to the kitchen (rather creatively)… no cookie jar. Mom took the intention out of my hands.

This example is similar to Pascal’s recount of dueling in the Church because I directed the intention elsewhere each time I ventured down to the kitchen. By doing so, I could have my cookie without disobeying my mom’s instructions (technically, she of course saw it otherwise).

Sources:

Burke, Kenneth. “Terministic Screens.” Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method.

Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. 44-62.