For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of listening and understanding the world through sound rather than merely observing it.
Jacques Attali's quote reflects a deep philosophical viewpoint that challenges traditional notions of knowledge and perception. It suggests that Western thought has often been focused on visual observation, ignoring the vital role that sound and listening play in our understanding of the world. By stating that the world is 'not for the beholding, but for hearing,' Attali invites us to consider a more holistic approach to knowledge that encompasses auditory experiences and the complexities they bring.
In practice
In a discussion on the role of different senses in learning, this quote can highlight the significance of auditory experience.
What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power. However, and this is the supreme irony of it all, never before have musicians tried so hard to communicate with their audience, and never before has that communication been so deceiving. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector.
Unless some effective world supergovernment for the purpose of preventing war can be set up ... the prospects for peace and human progress are dark ....If .... it is found possible to build a world organization of irresistible force and inviolable authority for the purpose of securing peace, there are no limits to the blessings which all men enjoy and share.
The most loathsome materialism is not the kind people usually think of, but the sort that attempts to let dead ideas pass for living realities, diverting into sterile myths the stubborn and lucid attention we give to what we have within us that must forever die.
A ship's engine far away on the water expands the summer-night horizon. Both joy and sorrow swell in the dew's magnifying glass. Without really knowing, we divine; our life has a sister ship, following quietly another route. While the sun blazes behind the islands.
What have we been doing all these centuries but trying to call God back to the mountain, or, failing that, raise a peep out of anything that isn't us? What is the difference between a cathedral and a physics lab? Are not they both saying: Hello? We spy on whales and on interstellar radio objects; we starve ourselves and pray till we're blue.
You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.
Let evil wait for the day on which it must fall.
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