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We can't all see exactly the same thing at the same time. No matter how close I press toward someone else, the perspective of my eyes is never identical to the perspective of another person. We cannot see through another's eyes. Sight is an individualizing mode of knowledge.
Hearing is communal. We can all (potentially if not actually) hear the same thing at the same time. Voice is also communal. I sing while someone sings beside me and our voices (potentially if not actually) blend into a single complex sound. I sing with someone singing loudly behind me, and I feel as if their voice is coming out of my mouth, as if the vibrations of the sounds they sing are combined with the vibrations of my own singing. I suspect that there's even something physical to this. The perfect community, Jonathan Edwards imagined, was a choir singing sweetly together, its one-bodiness manifested in its uni-vocity.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 at 04:09 PM
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