Page 65 - Critical and Cultural Theory

LANGUAGE AND INTERPRETATION
different, other, alternative. However, since we cannot dodge the
fact that we always perceive and represent the world through our
bodies and other people's bodies, we cannot, as a result, deny that
our perceptions and representations inevitably entail an element of
distortion. This should not, however, be a cause for panic, since
intense and unexpected kinds of pleasure can be gleaned from the
experience of distortion. Just consider the pleasure yielded by the
utterly imaginary and impermanent, yet tantalizing, forms one can
perceive in clouds, in the pattern of a carpet or in the flickering of
candle-flame. Furthermore, the media through which we perceive
reality tend to misrepresent the objects of our perception. Looking
through the water of a pool at the tiles at its bottom, we do not
perceive the tiles as they really are but rather as distorted by
ripples of sunlight, reflections and refractions. Likewise, a land-
scape observed through a stained-glass window will inevitably be
modified by the colours and shapes of the window's pattern.
Distortion and misrepresentation are not secondary or accidental
aspects of human experience. We do not perceive the world as it is
but rather as mediated by various filters and channels: forms of
language and forms of interpretation that do not mirror the world
but actually construct it, thereby perpetuating or challenging its
ideologies.

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