Your last posting (More recent history/What I learned in college) leaves me struggling to collect my thoughts.
Just as you, I don’t fit neatly in any of the current boxes. But what I hate most of all is the fact that we try to put people in boxes. What is the rationale for that? Do we lack a feeling of security if we can’t identify a person or group as either ‘them’ or ‘us?’ We should recognize that the same shoe does not fit everyone. Why not allow people their sense of being as long as it is not hurtful to others. I know there are gray areas (my right to smoke vs your right to breath clean air), but they should be worked out with civility.
The official or correct version of the truth doesn’t always turn out to be right in the end. From the heretical notion that the earth isn’t flat to the view that smoking doesn’t cause cancer, we have witnessed the evolution of understanding. But do I want to ban and censor the unbelievers? Absolutely not!
With social media being the dominant form of communication now, we need to allow freedom of expression without ‘Big Brother’ deciding what is true and not true. It’s a difficult line to decide what truly endangers others lives by being expressed publicly. But when the decisions are being made by those with vested financial or political interests, the truth will suffer, and that’s not what we want in a democracy. We need to let all sides air their views, but recognize what their motivation is.
I know that doesn’t answer the question of what should be taught in public schools. And I don’t know how to answer the question, hence my struggling.
Thanks for your comments, Don. It's so very hard these days!
I wonder... (and I'm wondering so much that I'm not sure how to even express in proper sentences...) regarding our desire to put people in boxes... I wonder if there is any connection to our brains' automatic reaction to trying to "pair things." By that I am referring to the days of a photography class, we learned how if you use an odd number of items in a photo/graphic, your brain automatically tries to pair the items. You're thus "drawn" to the pictures that have an odd number because your brain is trying to find the missing piece.
Do our brains then constantly try to sort? In/out, with/against? But, because we should have higher thinking, we need to recognize those tendencies in ourselves and always question what and why we are doing something.
Hi Crystal,
Your last posting (More recent history/What I learned in college) leaves me struggling to collect my thoughts.
Just as you, I don’t fit neatly in any of the current boxes. But what I hate most of all is the fact that we try to put people in boxes. What is the rationale for that? Do we lack a feeling of security if we can’t identify a person or group as either ‘them’ or ‘us?’ We should recognize that the same shoe does not fit everyone. Why not allow people their sense of being as long as it is not hurtful to others. I know there are gray areas (my right to smoke vs your right to breath clean air), but they should be worked out with civility.
The official or correct version of the truth doesn’t always turn out to be right in the end. From the heretical notion that the earth isn’t flat to the view that smoking doesn’t cause cancer, we have witnessed the evolution of understanding. But do I want to ban and censor the unbelievers? Absolutely not!
With social media being the dominant form of communication now, we need to allow freedom of expression without ‘Big Brother’ deciding what is true and not true. It’s a difficult line to decide what truly endangers others lives by being expressed publicly. But when the decisions are being made by those with vested financial or political interests, the truth will suffer, and that’s not what we want in a democracy. We need to let all sides air their views, but recognize what their motivation is.
I know that doesn’t answer the question of what should be taught in public schools. And I don’t know how to answer the question, hence my struggling.
Thanks for your comments, Don. It's so very hard these days!
I wonder... (and I'm wondering so much that I'm not sure how to even express in proper sentences...) regarding our desire to put people in boxes... I wonder if there is any connection to our brains' automatic reaction to trying to "pair things." By that I am referring to the days of a photography class, we learned how if you use an odd number of items in a photo/graphic, your brain automatically tries to pair the items. You're thus "drawn" to the pictures that have an odd number because your brain is trying to find the missing piece.
Do our brains then constantly try to sort? In/out, with/against? But, because we should have higher thinking, we need to recognize those tendencies in ourselves and always question what and why we are doing something.
I don't know.