BERGER: WORDS DON’T COUNT
Two pages ago, faithful reader Robert seems to suggest that my John Berger quote (STONES IN YOUR POCKET), is taken out of context.
So I went back to the section that Berger’s stones in your pocket quote was taken from, and I don’t think that the quote is out of context. Rather, the quote is a beautiful and elegant summary of his thesis; words are ineffective, words are diaphanous, words, indeed, don’t count.
Berger is a philosopher, writer, painter and poet. Words are what he uses. And he elegantly highlights the limitations of his own actions. He includes a passage from Arundhati Roy:
“‘We write’, she once confessed, ‘on yawning gaps in the walls that once had windows. And people who still have windows sometimes cannot understand.'” p77.
Berger then goes on to describe the action and function of a writer. He describes the writer who is working to right the wrongs of humanity. He states that writers go into the field and write and report on the injustice of man. He states that writers describe the unjust fate of millions of people. Writers travel the world so as to ” bear witness to the evident desperation.”
“Yet what one is warning and protesting against continues unchecked and remorselessly. Continues irresistibly. Continues as if in a permissive, unbroken silence. Continues as if nobody has written a single word.” p79
And then right after the above passage is the stones in your pocket passage. So Berger is unequivocally saying that words don’t count. If they did, we would not have the national disconnect that continues to evolve on our national stage. If they did, we would not have the continuing and mounting injustice.
And then speaking of the national stage, Berger in the next paragraph goes on to say that we need to protest. He states that political protest “..is an appeal to a justice that is absent…”
“One protests because not to protest would be too humiliating, too diminishing, too deadly.” p79
The only question that I have for Berger at this point is whether the word used in vocal protest is worth more than the written word.
- Berger, John. Bento’s Sketchbook. Random House. New York. 2011.
A maniacal pursuit of of a single narrow vision seems unhelpful in any practical sense. Rather one should have a repetoire of tools at one’s disposal. In certain contexts, transparent drawing (& thinking) is liberating & useful. I’d hate to present, however, a transparent drawing to my contractor. If words are so evil, how come there’s so much writing on this site. Just use images & forget words. If words are so evil why do even your transparent drawings contain titles. Why do architectural drawings contain explanations, scales, measurements! Abolish them & hand a drawing to a carpenter or bricklayer. On your next project I challenge you to try! Design is not either (transparent drawing) or nothing else. Balance man! Get a grip. Let’s add what’s valuable in transparent drawing to the many tools available in design. If Berger eschewed words exclusively as you propose, why do I have a dozen or more of Berger’s books on my shelves, full of words, word, words. More drawing fewer words, go for it!