The Forced Perspective

When I was younger, I loved to swing; when I needed to think about something, I’d head to the swing set in the yard, grab a seat, and pump my legs, gaining momentum, reaching ever higher—soaring. Or at least, pretending to soar. I remember trying to imagine myself doing the same things as characters from books I’ve just read: traveling through time on a bike, hitching a ride on the back of a goose, escaping the bonds of an enemy tribe, or solving crimes with my photographic memory. Sometimes I would face away from the house and look down the hill, across my dad’s fields, to the tiny ribbon of highway seemingly hugging the base of the valley foothills and the sporadic stream of dots driving along that ribbon—and I’d wonder about the “story” behind each of those cars, the reason why and the place where someone would drive at 4:30 pm on a summer afternoon. From my college-student, analytical mindset, I could say that during those times on the swing set, I was running through different perspectives, considering life through the lens of various glasses with all sorts of different prescriptions.

How do peoples’ perspectives change? Well, typically not through swinging. A quick perusal through online sources (not scholarly, mind you) revealed several ideas: asking questions of others who don’t think like you; turning yourself physically upside-down; changing up your daily routine. All these people offered ideas about how to change perspective, but they didn’t offer insight into the actual transition from one perspective to another. For example, ask yourself if any of the readings this week changed your perspective, if even temporarily. How did they do so—or maybe the better question, what did it take to do so? What “clicked” in order to make that transition?

Basically, I’m wondering if the actual, initial transition between perspectives is one of “force” or of “choice.” Take a look at the photographs below.

Every one of these included “forced perspective” in its caption. Did you first see the intended illusion or the actual “reality”? At least for me, I first saw the illusion and then their set-up almost immediately afterwards. But the illusion—the changed perspective—came first, without my choosing it so. Therefore, apply this same concept to the readings: were they “forced” perspectives? (And I’m not saying that the different perspective is an illusion, like in the photos). If they were “forced,” I’m curious to know why. Peter Atkins (Creation Revisited) used definitions and “logical leading” to make his point about change as the result of controlled chaos; J.B.S. Haldane (“On Being the Right Size”) and Martin Rees (Just Six Numbers) used “what-if” scenarios and comparisons to emphasize to emphasize that every organism and the universe (respectively) is exactly the “right size.” (Of course, they all used other rhetorical devices as well, but are patterns I noticed from a broad overview). People may choose to believe and keep a particular, changed perspective, but I’m not so sure if they much choice in the matter of that first glimpse of changed perspective. And I think perhaps this “forced perspective” is the hardest part of the battle for science writers; knowing the how and why behind forced perspective could be the key difference between a compelling, paradigm-shifting article and one that flops.