I want to understand people. I want to understand why people—all
people—are who they are, why they think the way they think, why they believe
what they believe, why they say what they say, and why they do what they do.
What would such understanding require?
It would require that I be Muslim.
It would require that I be an immigrant.
It would require that I be a woman.
It would require that I be poor.
It would require that I be black.
It would require that I be Russian.
It would require that I be Jewish.
It would require that I be unemployed.
It would require that I be a high school dropout.
It would require that I be a factory worker.
It would require that I be an inner city resident.
I’m not any of those things. I’m a Christian, native-born, male,
middle-class, white, American, educated, employed, white-collar worker who
lives in the rural South. And I’m happy to be what I am. I don’t want to give
those things up.
But if I am really to understand all people, it would require that I be
everything I’m not, in addition to what I am.
And if I really want to understand everybody, I guess it would even
require that I be a bigoted, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, jingoistic
science-denier—you know, things I really, really, really don’t want to be.
I really do want to understand people. I want to understand them fully,
completely, and totally. I want to understand them comprehensively.
When I started thinking about this, I thought about saying it would be
helpful to be a Muslim for a day, an immigrant for a day, and so forth. But that
wouldn’t go far enough. You know the old saying, “Walk a mile in my shoes”? A
mile-long walk isn’t an adequate experience. I’d have to live someone’s entire
life, have their entire background, and their entire experience if I’m really
going to understand them.
And I couldn’t do it by groups or by categories. I’d have to do it
person-by-person. I’d have to share the experience of every individual in the
world. After all, every person’s experience is different. For example, there
are different branches of Islam, one could be born a Muslim in a large number
of differing contexts, and it matters what family you’re part of. And there are
all sorts of genetic, developmental, cultural, and social factors that could
influence you. Each Muslim, like each Christian or Buddhist or atheist, is
different from each other one.
Everybody’s unique. So to truly understand humanity in its totality,
I’d have to have the life experiences of every person in the world. Since there
are about 7.4 billion people in the world, it would be hard to do. And since
there are around 250 births per minute world-wide (or about 360,000 per day),
it would also be pretty hard to keep up.
See, here’s the thing: experience produces perspectives and assumptions.
Because of who I am, what I’ve done, where I’ve been, what I’ve studied, and who
has influenced me, I have certain ways of looking at and thinking about things.
Because of who I am, I tend to respond in particular ways to situations,
issues, and people.
I wish I could have everybody else’s experiences, perspectives, and
assumptions. But I can’t, so I will go through life being very limited in my
ability to really understand other people. So what can I do?
I can do the next best things: I can learn all I can about what makes
other people who they are. I can refuse to dismiss other people’s experience. I
can study history. I can read literature from other cultures. I can view films
made from other points of view. And I can get to know people other than those
who share most of my defining characteristics.
If I can’t have everybody else’s experiences and see things from their
point of view, at least I can try to move beyond my default setting that prompts
me to value my experiences and perspectives above all others.
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