a way of seeing

Iris Murdoch, good neo-Platonist that she was, argued for the primacy of a certain type of vision:

"I can only choose within a world I can see, in the moral sense of 'see' which implies that clear vision is a result of moral imagination and moral effort." (The Sovereignty of Good, 37)

John Berger, not exactly a neo-Platonist, puts it this way:

"It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled." (Ways of Seeing, 7)

Both of which nicely set up this nice quote from an old article in the Village Voice:

"At its deepest, riding in the city becomes a way of seeing, a form of self-expression, a consciousness. Usually it starts as a simple case of convenience. . . . At times in New York, which puts a price on everything, the freedom and mobility of a bicycle can make you feel . . . rich. Gliding by the limos of fat cats mewed up in traffic, you know that life is just and fortune has many guises."

So true.

OTT: Nadine, So That I Don't Miss You