Perception vs. Reality
The unnerving component of this weeks exercise is understanding how powerful, initial impressions can be when meeting strangers, and how actions displayed towards one another are determined based on those perceptions. For example, are Palestinians terrorists when they throw stones and bottles at Israeli tanks, or, are they freedom-fighters opposing and occupying force?
Were Native American Indians savages that needed to be obliterated when they resisted the European colonization, or where they defending their home from invading forces?
Several times throughout his book, Strayer, references how different groups of people, or societies, came to influence one another as a result of these impressions.
Were Native American Indians savages that needed to be obliterated when they resisted the European colonization, or where they defending their home from invading forces?
Several times throughout his book, Strayer, references how different groups of people, or societies, came to influence one another as a result of these impressions.
As inhabitants on this planet it’s crucial that humans resist “judging” a book by its cover. Today, in 2011, the so-called “culture war”, that political pundits like to say that exists between Islam and the West, is a very real and tangible example of the dynamic of “perception vs. reality”.
It must have been extremely difficult several hundred years ago to assess how a strangers motives, and way of life, would affect each others opinion or treatment of one-another.
I liked the exercise because it emphasizes how dangerous perception can be when viewed down the barrel of a gun, or, along the blade of a sword. Also, it highlights how easy it is to demonize a culture and people that are different then our own.
Earlier I mentioned the current issue of Islam in the West, as a result of September 11. Both Muslims and non-Muslims have a distorted view of one another.
Radical Jihadist see Americans and Jews as the devil, therefore killing the devil and his women and children are justified, and is a pathway to heaven. Absent their religion, they have families, play with their children and live their lives similar to the West. Conversely, Christians and Jews feel threatened by different customs and traditions that are common in the Islamic religion. For example, many Americans and Europeans feel uncomfortable around Arabs who wear Turbans on their heads; or when Arabic women are dressed in traditional long veiled clothes and head scarf. On both sides, the perception is that all Arabs are terrorists and all Americans, Jews, and European are imperialists.
In the words of that great urban philosopher, Rodney King, ”can’t we all just get along”?
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