Exploring Jeremiah’s command to LOOK.

Are we visual creatures?

In his book, In Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us, author Ed Yong describes how different animals rely on different senses to navigate the world, senses not limited to our narrowly-defined sight, sound, smell, taste, touch. Humans are visual creatures, he explains–so much so that it limits our ability to understand how other creatures experience the world, and it even dominates how we use language:

In thinking about other animals, we are biased by our own senses and by vision in particular. Our species and our culture are so driven by sight that even people who are blind from birth will describe the world using visual words and metaphors. You agree with people if you see their point, or share their view. You are oblivious to things in your blind spots. Hopeful futures are bright and gleaming; dystopias are dark and shadowy. Even when scientists describe senses that humans lack altogether, like the ability to detect electric fields, they talk about images and shadows.

Here, I confess a personal wrestling with ableism. My family is neurodiverse, and so eye contact is an occasional point of conversation. There is dialogue among autistic adults these days about the over-emphasis on eye contact; it can be evidence of both ableism and of a centering of White, Western culture over others. My family experiences attest to the fact that just because an Autistic person is not looking at your eyes (or anywhere in your general direction) does not mean they are not listening, processing, or engaging with you. And, of course, what of our neighbors with vision impairments or other visible disabilities? They may rely on visual metaphors and language in speech and communication, but is it fair to define all humans as “visual” creatures?

Holding that tension with curiosity allows me to get at the heart of what Jeremiah means when he shares God’s command to look… Continue reading via Cultivating Communities on Substack