Schecner Reading Response

Schecner’s reading dealt with performance. Schecner identified eight kinds of performance (everyday life, the arts, sports/entertainment, business, technology, sex, ritual, play.) I completely understand the concept that every person on earth performs at all times. With just the issue of talking, I perform differently around different people. I use a softer, more formal vocabulary when talking with my grandparents. I use a more energetic, looser vocabulary when I am hanging out with a group of friends. When I go back to Pittsburgh on breaks, my vocabulary reverts back to my Pittsburghese language and I hear myself saying words I would never say in Columbus. This is all performing, even though I do not always realize I am doing it.

Schecner also went into quite a bit of detail on the concept of “restored behavior” or “twice-behaved” behavior. Schecner compared the Heraclitus idea of life ever changing with the theory of restored behavior, or that all physical or verbal actions have been performed before.

The example about the mother feeding the baby helped explain the restored behavior theory. It explains that you don’t do any action unless you have already seen it being performed or have imagined you performing it. This theory negates all concepts of original thought. If I have done no original actions throughout my entire life, then I am just a copycat of all people who have lived before me. All actions which are said to be original, are really just an original combination of already done actions or one original action performed in a different context.

I heard my mom complain the other day about how Hollywood can’t come up with original movies anymore. The plots are taken from existing books, TV shows, or are strikingly similar to previous plots of movies. According to Schecner, there has never been an original movie. All the situations that take place in “groundbreaking” movies have already happened in some combination. Even when there appears to be “twists” in movies, those twists are just actions put in a different context so the viewer doesn’t expect them.

Thinking about all of life as “twice-behaved” is sad. The thought that I have not ever had an original thought or action makes my self identity of being a “creative person” not true at all. I like to think of myself as creative. Although I do understand the restored behavior theory, my pride does not allow me to want to fully accept it. I want to someday become a fresh, hip, contemporary landscape architect. Now I realize that I can only be as fresh and hip as those before me.