This book has got me reflecting on how I view other people, how I treat them, and how that affects interactions. It is very easy to quickly judge others based on their outward appearance. I know that if I saw that family in Geek Love a million different thoughts would start bouncing through my head. Many of them would likely be things that should be kept to myself or not thought of to begin with. It is difficult not to judge and make decisions quickly when we see people for the first time. I would like to see this family in really life just to know how I would respond to them being different from me and everyone I know. Just because someone is disfigured that does not mean that we should avoid them. We most certainly must not treat them any different.
Even if you are not Catholic or religious at all I am sure that you could get behind many of the Pope's actions lately. His most recent is the embrace of a disfigured man. The man had hundreds of tumors all over his face and body and the Pope pulled the man into his chest and kissed his forehead. This is a shining example of how we need to constantly treat those around us (maybe not always in such a literal sense). I would like to think that if I saw someone completely different that I would not tweet about them or make any other side remarks. This is difficult because society influences would say that this is okay to do. I am making a more conscious effort to be more accepting and simply not looking at someone oddly because they may be different than me. I would encourage others to strive for this in your lives as well. If you would like to read an account of the Pope's encounter with this man it can be found at http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/07/world/europe/pope-francis-embrace/ . It is a powerful story and I am sure that it is influence the millions of Catholics, Christians, and other people of the world.
2 comments:
I do believe that as a society, we must change our outlook on people who are simply "different." I believe with the coming generations and progressive nature of our developing society, this universal idea might come to fruition. But if we look at this naturally (or practically) we as a society are not wrong to judge and have "bad" thoughts about those who are different. If we use strict and literal definitions of the word, then we can say that in essence we are "normal." Through our early years of being brainwashed in public schools, we have been trained to understand the difference between what is normal and what isn't, and what is just flat out weird. A movie reference real quick...If you have seen Inception, you can connect this feeling we have towards outsiders to the programs within ones brain and how they react when they realize an outsider is in their dream. In essence, society can only thrive with the healthiest, strongest, and smartest individuals. While this does not take into account the character of those who suffer from such diseases, we as a society look down upon those who are different simply because they have no true value to the survival of our "society." Cruel and blunt...but its practical. Also to address your comments about the Pope...that is a grade A classic power play. Its just simple Propoganda that the Pope is using to mend the broken fragments that is the Catholic Church today.
I don't really think, as the person above me commented, that it isn't wrong of us to judge, and that using the "strict and literal definitions of the word" allows us to see ourselves as normal and others as abnormal. In fact, we are given the definition of normal as: "conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected; not strange, ordinary" (as defined by merriam webster). But really, then, who are we to say what the standard is. Our standard is that which we are around; however, the standard automatically changes when we change the society with which we are surrounded. And I resent the above comment about being brainwashed in public schools because I didn't go to public school. It seems as though the person above is actually basing their comments on their own version of normal (what you learned in public school), whereas my school experience was then probably extremely different, due to the fact that I attended private school AND boarding school, where you have to learn to not only accept, but live with that which you might consider abnormal. Sounds mildly contradictory. But either way, I absolutely do believe and agree with Cardiac Carolina that we cannot continue to judge people based on our conception of normal; if we do, our society will just continue to decline. Using a Darwinian way of looking at normalcy doesn't really work in 2013.
Post a Comment