Looking Up

When George Lakoff and Mark Johnson came out with Philosophy in the Flesh, it shifted the foundation of how I thought about concepts. The idea that so much of our conceptual language was made of metaphors for physical experience underscored the way our bodies participate in our thinking. One of the first developmental concepts is ‘more’. The feeding infant develops the early understanding of quantity which branches into areas from mathematics to our sense of injustice, that someone is getting more than another. Physical experience is entwined with perception, an ongoing dance of seeking and adjusting. What we feel as emotion is the adaptation of the body in anticipation of what might be required in relation to our world. We experience meaning before we put words on it.

Understanding facial expression and body language is a resonance with another’s actions, a direct knowing of how it feels inside to be in those behaviors. It’s a two-way influence. As facial expression expert Paul Ekman said, “Make the face, feel the emotion.” We don’t just smile when we feel good, we feel good when we smile. Body position works the same way. Changing a body position can change a feeling and attitude.

When something is above us we have to look up to see it. Eyes raised and even the chin lifted, these are behaviors we see in religious painting in states of wonder and awe. A gothic cathedral evokes those feelings by lifting our eyes upward. Looking up the hill we’re about to climb is a versatile metaphor for self-improving goals. On the other end of the metaphor if someone’s is standing over us after knocking us down looking up is being dominated. Whether we have agency, can do something about it, is the pivot.

Recently, when I was talking with a very conservative friend about statues being torn down I said that some of these people weren’t to be looked up to, and she said she wasn’t necessarily looking up to them, it was just history. So, I resorted to a different use of the same physical metaphor. Putting someone on a pedestal means they are idealized, to be esteemed, revered, considered above us. The higher the pedestal the more you look up. To what degree might that body position communicate a sense of eminence that is not deserved. The installation itself creates dominance. The message infiltrates the body unconsciously. When one man sits on a horse and the other standing on the ground it’s a clear implication of status. Without any need of inscription, statues on pedestals communicate stature. Where there is clear worth must be examined.