Restate Walker Percy's argumentative thesis in the selection "Loss of the Creature." What evidence does he use to support his argument? Is it valid--why or why not?

He argues that having a prepackaged idea about something can create a symbolic complex in one's mind and cause them to lose the true meaning/appreciation behind it. One piece of evidence he uses to support his argument is the Grand Canyon and how only the man who discovered it sees it for what it is. He points out that the Grand Canyon was set up as a national park so everyone could see it as beautiful. Since the canyon has now been exposed commercially, when the sightseer views the Canyon it isn't "the sovereign discovery of the thing before him; it is rather the measuring up of the thing to the criterion of the preformed symbolic complex" (Percy, 469). He then includes an example of a tourist finally gets his chance to visit the Canyon, but sees it only how he imagined it through images and media. Hence, when one gets to the canyon, they have a preconceived image which can lead to the false appreciation. 

Another example he uses to support his argument is that of a pair of tourists who, disgusted with the proliferation of other tourists in the popular areas of Mexico, stumble into a tiny village where a festival is taking place. They love it and tell themselves, "Now we are really living,". However, after returning home, they have to prove that their trip was authentic by using an ethnologist to certify their experience and gain his approval. This makes the experience inauthentic because, as says Percy: "They wanted him, not to share their experience, but to certify their experience as genuine" (53)

A final example he uses involves education. Percy explains how beginner/amateur surrenders his ownership to the specialist, who is believed to have authority over him in his field. This creates a caste system of sorts between amateurs and experts, and the worst thing about this is that the amateur does not even realize what he has lost. To further explain, Percy uses a metaphor of a literature student who cannot read a Shakespearean sonnet. The literature student is blocked from the sonnet by the educational system which Percy calls its "package." Hence, education does not communicate the subject of education, and the student does not view the subject as openly, nor does he view himself as sovereign.

All of the above examples, and others used, make his argument valid by proving real instances where a creation's value was lost or unappreciated because of preconceptions and pre-established societal structures.