Is my belief actually better than yours?

Cultural Relativism seems at first, one of the simplest things to ever be accomplished. All we would have to do is accept everyone and their belief. However, this isn't realistic. We are all human and our thoughts and opinions influence us too much to have this perfected plan. In the article, I was very interested in the comparing and contrasting of cultural tradition and values. I thought it was interesting that many times we judge a custom or value without looking at the reasoning behind it. For example, the Eskimos. The Eskimos may kill their babies but it is due to the fact that they might not be able to provide for them. So in order to save them from malnutrition or even a unhealthy life, they believe it is easier for them to be saved from a poor life by killing them. This shows how someone (including me!) would first be like "What the heck! They kill babies! That is soooooo wrong!" But then when we learn of the meaning instead of assuming, there is understanding where they are coming from. Whether or not I agree with them, I understand why they chose to do what they do. I think despite the fact if there is a reason behind it or not, many people though neglect the reasoning and believe that their opinion is superior. The easiest book to compare to this is Things Fall Apart. People in Onkowko’s village accept that women are property and they are allowed to treat their property in any way they choose. This could include abuse. Due to the fact that our society’s values don’t agree with this, Onkowko’s does and makes us critical. However, if we lived in their society, we probably wouldn’t see much problem with it because of the reasoning that women are raised as property. We see this in our world today. The Middle East raises their people in a society where women are a lower status than men and can be treated differently. This is their belief and values which makes it hard to be critical of. I wish our world was able to all accept differences with each other. Unfortunately, I know that it is impossible. There is no way this could ever happen because many people feel superior to others and feel they have a right to judge. It’s human nature to do this. There are times I have done it myself. As humans, we can’t avoid wanting  to disagree with people because their values are very drastic from ours. However, even though it is our first instinct to judge, it shows more character if we took the time to understand the difference and find similarities and meaning. 

In response to the Beowulf article...

One of the statements I found to stand out from the article was that we never see any sort of human characteristics such as feelings and thoughts from Beowulf. In the article it says "No interior monologues or authorial descriptions of the hero's states of mind open up Beowulf's consciousness for our direct observation." I honestly hated Beowulf and I had no idea. After reading this statement though, I feel like this clears up a lot of my feelings. I didn't feel that he was human. Beowulf through the whole story showed no sort of expression. It was frustrating to try and figure out how he felt and why. By not having the audience in touch with his inner thoughts, we lose a sense of connection to him and can't relate. Another statement was "In Beowulf, fame and the pursuit of fame become an ethical and moral ideal..." I couldn't agree with this statement more. The more I think about it, the more frustrating I get with Beowulf. The idea of fame in Beowulf made it seem like it was ruining the characteristics and definition of a hero. It seemed as if that in order to make a difference, you must be famous. Which is so messed up. This can be shown in many scenes of the poem. The ancestors are only known for their fame in battles. Beowulf is pursuing fame by defeating Grendel, his mother and the dragon. There is a continuous drive for fame in Beowulf. Fame is the main focus of the actions carried out by many characters who pursue to be "heroes."

Two sides to every story

Something that we started to discuss but never got to finish was the discussion on how as readers we perceive villains to just be born bad and not actually seeing their point of view. As readers, we almost just accept it because it has become so common in works of literature. In Grendel, we saw a whole new view on Beowulf. Instead of hearing from the "hero," we were able to hear from the "villain." Grendel was able to provide us with information on why Grendel acting the way he did. Grendel wasn't evil. He was dealing with the emotions of alienation and the fact that society rejected him. Grendel wanted to be accepted. However, he started to see the humans as hypocrites and wasteful. When he felt that he needed to intrude on the humans because he disliked their ways, he was pronounced a villainous and evil. His approach to the situation may have not been the best but his approach to changing the wrong among humans is just a human nature characteristic. There are other books that show the point of view of the considered "villain" of a story. Wicked is similar to Grendel as in that the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz never meant any harm but was considered evil because she looked different and she stood up for what she believed in. We can also see it in Wuthering Heights (from what I read so far!). Heathcliff seems bitter and somewhat evil because of his behavior. When you learn however what happened in his past, you can somewhat understand why his behavior is expected. He is acting on emotions which is part of human nature. It starts to become the question on how you see it, who is really the villain and who is the hero? We see this every day in our own lives. Everyday we turn on the news about terrorists and we see them as the bad guys, the villains. However, in other areas of the world, they turn on the news and see these "terrorists" as people fighting for a good cause. This is an example of how society picks the villain and hero because its the view point you see it from. Another example is the media. The media has so much influence over who we see as the evil person and the good person. It happens all the time, especially during election times with politicians. Commercials are shown every commercial break with slandering comments about the other politician. Depending on what commercial you see, you may see one side as the bad side while the other side is good. I think that we don't feel we aren't willing to see two sides to a situation. We tend to want to be right and sometimes that makes us ignore the facts or opinions given from another view. I know its cliche to say "There are two sides to every story" but its very true. Sometimes seeing both sides help influence one's decision or even strengthens one's opinion.

Monthly Blog-Due September 30th

One thing I saw during the Socratic Seminar for The Fountainhead was the discussion on Ayn Rand's philosophy and her characters. A discussion question was would Roark (and Rand) find to be the destroyer of the world and I feel that it would be being a collectivists and secondhanders. By not being an individual, they are not thinking for themselves and then making themselves fail. Roark would be angry at people for not thinking for themselves and I think he felt that those kind of people were the ones to ruin the world. In the novel, Roark even spoke of how secondhanders are bad and how they effect themselves and others. Also how there are different types of secondhanders. In society today, I can see how Rand's belief is right because at the moment, we have collectivists on wall street. They are following other people and believe that unethical business techniques are the way to business when they really stealing from the American people. For example, Bernie Madoff. He stole many American people's money and he is not the only one. I think in a way, not being an individual does hurt the world we live in. In another way though, it helps keep somethings in line. If we weren't in someway a collectivist, this world would be insane. There would be a lot of commotion and no order. So a balance of both doesn't destroy the world. However, more power to either an individualist or a collectivist can cause trouble for many.