Dis/Continuity

The relation between the paradigms of continuity and discontinuity provides us with a way to speculate "What is human." I was re/reading Burke's article on terministic screens in hopes that my understanding of his theory would start to solidify. I am fascinated by the idea of man as a symbol using animal because it does something very important, it supports both the secular hypothesis idea of continuity between human beings all life forms, while also allowing the theological approach of a discontinuity between animals and human apes. This discontinuity emerges from the fact that we use symbols and other animals do not. While Darwin's theory of evolution emphasizes the continuity essential to evolution, his terministic screen leaves him blind to the idea that humans do have a significant attribute that is absent in every other species, symbol use.  


The principles of continuity and discontinuity show up again in section V. Burke writes of the discontinuity  of the human animal by saying " It is the unwritten cosmic constitution that lies behind all man-made Constitutions, it is decreed by the nature of things that each man is "necessarily free" to be his own tyrant, inexorably imposing upon himself the peculiar combination of experiences. At the other extreme, each of us shares with all other members of our kind (the often-inhuman human species) the fatal fact that, however the situation came to be, all members of our species conceive of reality somewhat roundabout, through various media of symbolism. Any such medium will be, as you prefer, a way of "dividing" us from the "immediate" (thereby setting up a kind of "alienation" at the very start of our emergence from infancy into that state of articulacy somewhat misleadingly called the "age of reason"); or it can be viewed as a paradoxical way of "uniting" us with things on "a higher level of consciousness," or some such" (52). Again, we can recognize the concepts of continuity and discontinuity. As we begin to articulate and associate words to things, we begin to develop our "terministic screen" of reality. We can find continuity among society by developing screens that are based on similar "mediums" of symbolism as other individuals. This can be a unifying thing for humans, and can also divide us based on our different mediums.