After our class lecture on Default
Responses I left class like a dog with Its tail tucked realizing that
I make judgements all day long! I decided that I would try to
see how long I could go without passing judgement on someone.
Well It didn't last long. While driving on to the Boulevard a
giant jacked up pimped out black truck pulled out quickly in front of
me and forced me to slam on my breaks to avoid hitting him.
Automatically I thinking to myself "everyone that drives big
truck are such egotistical narcissistic jerk wads!?" Its true I
though that. I reflected back to the time some friends and I
were road biking by Veyo and an impatient driver of a very large
truck flipped us off and smoked us out because he had to wait 20
seconds for my friend to move over before she reached the top of a
hill. I fought the urge to have ill feelings towards the rude
actions of this driver and thought, maybe he is in a hurry.
Not 5 minutes later, I was force to stop my car in the middle of the
boulevard because another monster truck decided that he wanted to
attempt to cross the road even though he could only get half way
across, with as a result made everyone driving in the inner lane on
the Boulevard have to stop and wait for the opposite side of traffic
to clear so that he could continue on and move of of our lane.
Again, My auto response was “Another self centered idiot stop the
world!” And so my day continued, I found myself correcting my
thoughts all day long! Its easy to revert to our primary certitude,
our quick judgment in our head, we all do it. And I don't think that
is unnatural. I think moving forward with that though and turning it
into a hidden assumption or ethnocentric assumption, where it is so ingrained that we don't question, is a problem.
My last “On the Media Post” was on
Guantanamo Bay Detention Center (GTMO) where extraordinary dangerous
(mostly terrorists) are interrogated for war crimes. I sided with
the Americans and Leaders in favor of shutting down the camp for two
main reasons. Some of the Prisoners that have been held for 25 years
and not yet convicted criminals. Our country follows a law of
“innocent until proven guilty”, and this is not the practice
there. Secondly I feel that abuse and torture is inhumane and I
would rather risk the chance not extracting information out of a
tortured abused human, and the aftermath that may follow, then to
have our county become like the inhumane monster that we are trying
to stop. This was my conclusion to me post. As soon as I finished
typing a little thought popped into my head, yes, but you have not
directly suffered or lost someone at the hands of a terrorist. Would
my view be different if I or a love one was injured, killed, or
fought in war and had to view all of the death and inhuman acts cause
by these monsters?
Yesterday in class I got a text that
our friends son was one of the victims of the terrorist explosion in
the brussels airpot. I sat in excruciating anxiety for almost an
hour until I heard he would be getting surgery and would recover.
The thoughts that went through my head were much different then when
I previously wrote this paper. My primary certitude was under
question. I don't believe that I ever had a strong enough view on
GTMO that it would be classified as a hidden assumption or
ethnocentric position, I'm just not sure where I stand on this issue.
Despite that agonizing hour that I did not know the outcome of our
friends son in the Brussels attack, I again feel peace knowing now
that he is Ok. There are thousands of people out there that have
suffered a different outcome from terrorist and their destruction, I
have not been where these people have been psychologically,
emotionally and psychically. I have not suffered and lost what they
have lost. I guess my point is that I will continue to have to
remind myself to be slow to make judgements, and try to understand
walking in others shoes before criticizing and grouping and making
blanket statements on groups of people.
So Yah, I had that same reaction, having my tail tucked between my legs after I had filed for divorce. I always used to think that gossiping was OK, if you knew what you were saying was true. And here, people were brazenly gossiping about me, and while there were parts of truth to it, I was surprised how hurtful it was. And it happened to my face, more then once. I had to look at how I was judging other people, and now, well lets just say Karma's a bitch. That was 8 years ago. I decided then and there I would never gossip again. And I can honestly say I haven't. So, through some pretty painful experience, my attitudinal thought changed, which is where I see you are at. None of us think we can be THAT person, until our friends son is on the balance beam with life and death. And then it's kind of like, "Torture that SOB until you get some answers!" It's easy to judge and harder to look at ourselves and our reaction in the same situation. We are all here to learn.......Appreciated your honesty in your post. :)
ReplyDeleteRachelle,
ReplyDeleteI definitely have road rage from time to time, but I also believe St. George's infrastructure is terrible. There is definitely room for improve, because sometimes I feel like when you see even a glimpse of a chance to get out on the road you have to take it or else you will be waiting for a very long time.
One more comment to your post, although we may think that it never happens to us, when it does sometimes we have to remember it might be a marginalized experience.It is something difficult to overcome, because we have along been through our hardships, but our hardships are unique to us.