Once I learned this truth, I began to see examples of it everywhere. A picture hung on the wall of our parlor. In it, a woman was taking a shirt from a clothesline. She had clothespins in her teeth and it was windy and a boy was tugging at her dress. The woman looked like she was in a hurry and the whole scene gave me the idea that, just outside the frame, full, dark clouds were gathering. But that was not what it was. It was paint. So I decided right then and there to see the picture as it really was. I stared at the thing long and hard, trying to only see the paint. But it was no use. All my eyes would allow me to see was the lie. In fact, the longer I gazed at the paint, the more false detail I began to imagine. The boy was crying, as if afraid, and the woman was weaker than I had first believed. I finally gave up. I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.”— Norm MacDonald
As my mentor once said, Norm is a deceptively deep well. I found this passage early on in the comedian's shaggy-dog-story of a book.
I thought it was so rich in its content (unlike the entire rest of the book in the funniest of ways), it would make a great starting point for a short article. Which is a rather silly thing to think. After all, what sort of comedian wants to be taken seriously? Thankfully that is not my problem. So here, I won't be discussing the comedian, but rather will be talking about the great philosopher Norm MacDonald, along side some other thinkers, like Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.
Returning to Norm's passage. The first point of curiosity is Norm's awareness that perception is a kind of construction. He seems to intuit a disjunction between the reality as it is, and the “lies” his mind imposes on it. This idea of perception as a "lie" maps cleanly onto one of the oldest critiques of representation in Western thought: Plato’s theory of mimēsis. In Republic X, Plato describes a hierarchy of truth. At the top is an ideal world of Forms (e.g., the ideal bed) that exists beyond the physical world. Physical objects like the carpenter’s bed, are imperfect copies of those Forms. And Art—a painting of a bed—is a copy of a copy, even further removed from the truth. For Plato, these layers of imitation (mimēsis) were deceptive, emotionally seductive, and morally corrosive. He distrusted art precisely because it appeals to illusions rather than reason. This suspicion still circulates today in secular aesthetic form. Many contemporary artists and critics assert that art has “moved beyond” mimēsis, and representational work is indeed naïve or regressive. In contrast, abstraction or conceptualism are often seen as more honest, dealing more directly with the medium (paint as paint, canvas as surface, artwork as object), and exposing the act of perception, or creation for what it is. To reframe Plato’s theory in modern scientific terms, we might say that Plato’s Forms are akin to a perfect theoretical model of the world, whereas mimētic art is a poetic rendering based on our faulty perceptions. A painting of the leaves rustling in the wind might stir emotion, but a physicist analysing the same gust might uncover the mechanisms of turbulence or plant evolution.
The second insight woven into Norm's little passage is the brief but riddling confession: "I finally gave up." Despite the skepticism towards the image Norm's character still fails to break free of the illusion. Before we delve into the details of this curious twist, let us take some inspiration from another old philosopher from the ancient times. Because Plato’s own student, Aristotle, took a radically different view from his mentor. Rather than seeing mimēsis as deception he saw it as fundamental to human cognition and learning. In Metaphysics I. 1 he writes:
“Human’s differ from other animals in that they are the most mimētic and learn their first lessons through mimēsis.”
For Aristotle, mimēsis had several critical functions: it was a tool for learning, a vehicle for emotional persuasion in rhetoric, and a central mechanism in ethical development and moral formation. In tragedy it allowed for catharsis—the purging or purification of pity and fear—by enabling viewers to process intense emotions at a safe aesthetic distance. He recognised a basic human pleasure in recognition—we are drawn to representations, even of unpleasant things, because we delight in the act of deciphering and mentally reconstructing reality through form. Whether in literature, theatre, music or visual art, mimēsis was not just a deception, but a cognitive and emotional gateway integral to how humans understand themselves and the world.
There is a significant overlap with Aristotle's mimēsis and the modern concept of empathy. When we watch a tragedy or engage with a story, we imaginatively imitate the emotional and ethical situations of the characters. We don't just observe; we simulate the feelings, dilemmas, and suffering internally. These mimetic experiences can be a critical tool for the formation of character. The inability to see a painting for what it is physically (paint on a surface)—and the inability to resist emotions or narrative is—in and of itself—indicative of a basic human reality. This may explain the way that Norm was unable to break free of the illusion, even while being caught in a state of cognitive dissonance, knowing that he was experiencing a lie. The psychological weight of the characters in a painting remained real to him and all the more important after recognising that representation carried elements of manipulation and falsehood.
So where do these contrasting views leave us? Arguably one could suggest that "imitation" as a way of mental processing could still lead to important theoretical, structural understanding too. However this cannot negate the risks of misinterpretation or wishful thinking. At what point can we say our perception becomes projection, representation leads to deception, and our empathy may be misguided or manipulated.
Perhaps we can turn to Plato’s elusive mentor: Socrates. Unlike Plato’s metaphysical certainties, or Aristotle’s empirical curiosity, Socrates gave us the method of questioning—the dialectical approach (elenchus), which sought not to establish truth but to refute error. A person would offer a definition (say, of justice), and Socrates would test it through questions. If contradictions appeared, the definition was discarded. The goal was not to arrive at truth, but to clear away falsehood.
In this, Socrates anticipated modern scientific thinking—especially Karl Popper’s falsifiability principle. Fact becomes something that survives confrontation, not something we assert with confidence, and it always remains provisional. Perhaps there is some use for this line of thinking in aesthetics too.
As illustrated by Norm’s dilemma, art is something that straddles the line of both the physical world and a world of imagination, values, and symbols. It can be at once, earnest but also deceptive. In Norm’s dilemma, his character recognises that there is a physical dimension to the painting he sees. One that is unchanged by his own moral or emotional biases. So he attempts to correct his perception, and refute his initial reading of the picture. Theoretically, this would result in being able to perceive art as mere object, a matter-of-fact record of process. However, in practice he arrives at the conclusion that he is still unable to divorce a narrative from his interpretation. In fact, much to his surprise, the illusions only became more compelling the harder he tried to see passed them. Finally he surrenders to the fiction.
It is a curious conclusion to his Socratic questioning, as if he was seemingly unable to shed falsehood. Yet, it can also be said that he did not necessarily surrender to the same fiction he started with. The dialectic questioning arrives at a provisional truth, and he is left with a contradiction. He recognises something curious: the very idea that you cannot just see reality for what it is, even when it is sitting right before your eyes.
"I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is."
This reverses a common assumption that the human imagination is something to dream away the constraints of the real world. Imagination is typically seen as a force of invention and fantasy. But perhaps this sort of invention and fantasy is the norm. And it is our imagination that is the precise counterforce—an effort of humility, discipline or necessary restraint to be well grounded in our context. We are, more often than not, trapped in our own fiction, in a world coloured by prejudice, even in an effort to find a better balance. I too, frequently realise over and over, that life is a constant learning experience, and that I never know as much as I feel I do. Not that I feel I know much, but I always find out that I know even less. Perhaps it takes something beyond logical understanding, or intelligent problem solving to actually see with more clarity. Whatever such clarity may entail.
For now, I will accept the provisional answer. The answer that remains riddled with contradictions. As a painter, I have learned to see paint as paint to some degree. But it's not always that easy. It's much easier to assume I know what I am looking at. But really, I don't. Both objects and the interpretations of objects are interesting to me. But I haven't figured out whether what is real is something inside of me, or all around me.
