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Rafael Herrera

Mauricio Lozano

English C1.1

04 April 2016

Comments on All That.

Magic could be defined as something that happens but cannot be explained.

According to this definition, it is impossible to analyze a magical phenomenon.

David Foster Wallaces short story All That reflects on this topic: magic and its

undefinable nature. However, magic is not mysterious at all. It is possible to dissect

it. Humans understand magic; they use it and they create it. By writing down what

magic is, Foster Wallace destroys its supposed mysterious character.

The story tells us the origin of the protagonists religious thought. His early

experiences with magic influenced his way of looking at life. For him, magic is

something that cannot be perceived through the senses. Human beings cannot

comprehend it. In Foster Wallaces words: The magic was the way it [the mixer]

knew to stop the instant I tried to see it. The magic was how it [the mixer truck]

could not, not ever, be trapped or outsmarted (Foster Wallace 2009). Another

feature that characterizes a magical experience is the feeling of ecstatic

reverence it produces: This was the year, at five or six, that I learned the meaning

of reverence, which, as I understand it, is the natural attitude to take toward

magical, unverifiable phenomena (Foster Wallace 2009). It is interesting to note

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that the narrator equates magic with religion (The toy cement mixer is the origin of

the religious feeling that has informed most of my adult life (Foster Wallace 2009)).

However this comparison is not obvious at all and can be called into question.

Wallace defines atheism as a kind of anti-religious religion, which

worships reason, skepticism, intellect, empirical proof, human autonomy, and self-

determination (Foster Wallace 2009). Reason is the humans ability to find

different kinds of relationships between things, words or thoughts. The possible

associations between different phenomena depend on the type of reasoning under

consideration. Therefore reason is not necessarily atheist; it is something humans

use all the time: when they read the Bible, when they watch a film, etc. Reason

does not always require empirical proof. Certain types of reasoning, such as the

one used in science, need to be checked against reality in order to be valid.

The storys protagonist believes that there are certain things in life that are

impossible to prove: The fact that the most powerful and significant connections in

our lives are (at the time) invisible to us seems to me a compelling argument for

religious reverence rather than skeptical empiricism as a response to lifes

meaning (Foster Wallace 2009). Certainly some experiences cannot be proved

(or we still cannot prove them), but they can be explained through reason. Actually

the protagonist explains what magic is. Saying that magic is impossible to see and

that it produces a feeling of reverence is equivalent to explaining and defining

magic. By describing something we are outsmarting it, we reveal its mystery.

Faith, magic, religion, and spirituality are words humans use to talk about

the things they cannot perceive. This does not mean that they cannot conceive

them. Thus, it is possible to explain them. Things that can neither be seen nor
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imagined cannot be explained; they do not even exist. Nothing can escape to

human comprehension. Invisible connections are products of human cognition.

Bibliography.

Foster Wallace, David. "All That." The New Yorker. Cond Nast Publications, 14
Dec. 2009. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/14/all-that-2>.