It's interesting to note how touchy we are as a society. By 'touchy' I mean our tendency to be take personally every critical remark, comment or opinion. When did we get this averse to a little healthy contradiction? By 'we" I generally speak within and of the North American context primarily because I have experienced a greater degree of willingness to be criticized elsewhere (Caveat: does not hold true for the Middle East, where maddening levels of self righteousness exist. That however, is the blog-trouble of another day). Never before has being 'politically correct' been so important. In pursuing this correctness, you will notice (or not!), many a good argument is thwarted. What a shame.
I'm not sure if this is a failure of the education system or a product thereof. What I'm alluding to is the fact that a 'proper' education is supposed to teach you how to think critically. So naturally, if you've concluded your academic career without the rudimentary skill of critical thinking, then somethings amiss. Unless of course the system itself failed you in the first place.
I'm reminded of an incident that took place in my first year at university with a christian friend. Of Pakistani heritage, she grew up around Muslims as did I. One Sunday afternoon, over lunch we got into a conversation about Salman Rushdie because she noticed I was reading his 'The Satanic Verses'. The name of the book itself was the subject of hot debate and I offered to tell her why it was called so, because she assumed I was literally reading a book authored by Satan himself. As i hopelessly tried to clear the confusion* she clamped her hands on her ears and refused to listen because i was blaspheming. She said I had offended her and God in general and that there was to be no more discussion on the topic. I was, as you can imagine, hot under the collar. For some reason, she strongly believed that even listening to what I had to say would bring some sort of impurity into her otherwise pious life. Needless to say, we did not spend a lot of time together after that incident. I find it hard to be around people who are that stoic in their beliefs that they refuse to even entertain a divergent thought. That to me is waste of life, brain, education, thought and rationale.
The above incident is one of many such reactions I received when talking about things people are uncomfortable about. I think its high time people put their emotions aside and said what needs to be said. Discomfort is a very small price to pay for rationalism.
Galatians 4:16
Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_Verses
1 comments:
Yeah, I'm a big fan of stepping outside our little boxes of ignorance, but at the same time I realize that some people aren't used to doing that. But, if people like you Messa, continue to try to bring them out of their box, you just might be successful!
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