Prejudices and Mediation of Life - Research Paper Example

?Question:  "So, what do you make of all this? Is he on to something? Is your mind possibly full of things that cover your life (like "alluvion" -- river muck!) and make it habitual, conditioned, and reactive? Do you feel in any way separated from others, nature, God? Do you see any benefit to at least trying to let prejudices fall away for a while and allow the wholeness of life to emerge? Putting it differently, can we really afford not in some sense to make a "retreat," i.e., make the time to let our minds and lives slow down so we can see what is really going on? (This doesn't only apply to Americans, of course, but we are looking at the "log" in our own eye here.  I believe I can drop the prejudices, all of them, but only for a little while. I have to have my own standing, my perspective. Being biased doesn’t make me a bad person, it is a part of being human, but there is a positive prejudice and there is a hostile prejudice (Pettigrew 2). I am not on any spiritual journey at this point of my life, which is probably why I can’t answer if I am separate from nature or god, but I do feel a part of everything I see and everything I believe exists. I see animals, birds and the sky, I feel the air, I listen to sounds I hear every morning and I feel like a part of them. I do feel that we are somehow all connected to each other. This is the real ‘slow down’ that awe all need to see. When we are moving on with our lives, we barely see the world from someone else’s perspective. But let the goals of life melt away, the rat race for money simply vanish and there is no country, boundary, culture or civilization to feel proud of. There are no family names or geographical superiorities to make us see the others with contempt and hate. Question:  Think of a book that has been important to you (it may be the Bible, or young adult works; it need not be a "classic." Or, if there are no books, think of a movie or TV show). Can you see how you are in a way a "transcript" of these media, how their way of looking at things becomes "inscribed" in you? It can be intoxicating, just as Mir Camar said.  People ask me about my favorite movie, as pop culture is the most obvious topic of discussion among friends. Without a moment of hesitation, I blurt out ‘The Matrix’ , and they make an ugly face upon hearing this name. To them The Matrix trilogy is nothing but bullet dodging action, but for me it is a compete philosophy. I watched the first sequel back in 1999, when I had no idea what philosophy is or what the movie is really about. But the dialogues of the movie kept resonating in my head. I couldn’t help but dwell on things like ‘Free Your Mind’, a phrase that Morpheus says to Neo when he is teaching him to jump. To me this felt like magic. I used to play football and I would try to tell myself, Morpheus style, to free my mind and dribble the ball all across the field and put it in the net. To me this was freeing my mind of all doubts and fears. After imagining Morpheus telling me this, I would believe that everything is possible and I would put I the extra energy enthusiasm in my play and it worked more times than it failed. To me it worked. Later I watched the documentary about the movie and came to know that the movie is based on so many philosophies that it gets hard to keep track of all of them. The theme of the movie is reality, our perception is reality. For instance the moment I’m writing this paper, I suddenly ask myself, how can I be sure what I am seeing is ‘real’, the institute I study, my professor and my friends are not a dream. Only satisfaction is that the five senses my brain has, interprets all of this so that my mind qualifies everything as real but what if I’m wrong? What if the signals my brain is getting is nothing but an illusion? After all we believe in a mirage which is nothing but our mind playing tricks on us. What is what we believe to be real is only a belief and because it’s a belief, our mind makes it real? Question:  So how's your "winged life"?  Thoreau says: "There is an incessant flux of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness" (571). This novelty is the novelty of the present moment, of God and creation. Thoreau is thinking here of reality as it is, without any modern technology, cell phones, etc. "Reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life … would be like a fairy tale" (348).  Do you set aside any time for contemplation and reflection? Normally human beings are simply embedded in their cultures -- Americans, Chinese, Germans, Iraqis -- and the wings can't develop if they are unwilling to step back from the usual immersion in their culture's sense of reality.  It is true, human beings are creatures of habit, and we like the habit of living in our own shells, cultural shells, ethnic shells, shells of race and so on. Do I take time out to reflect, yes I do. I would like to do it more often, every day in fact but it gets hard to take time out. I like to observe my own mind when I’m alone, usually at night under the sky full of stars that I’m staring at. Then I like to backtrack my actions for that day, and then I get lost in random thoughts. But then this moment of truth pops up, where I realize even my thoughts are driven, driven by habit, TV, culture and the usual nonsense I hear and see every day that doesn’t really mean anything. All that the people are doing is having catharsis; they get frustrated so they talk it out. They curse this and that, bicker and whine and it feels good. They let out the emotional buildup that had been haunting them and they vomit out the poison and it feels good. Or is Thoreau really simply an impractical dreamer? After all, think of the "opportunity cost" of meditation and reflection: time "taken away" from entertainment, work, family, etc  It is really a matter of personal choice to consider meditation/reflection time as time wasted. After all we can watch our favorite sit com, when it is available all the time on the internet, we don’t even have to keep piles of DVDs. But the important question is, what after the sitcom? What then? And after that? So reflection becomes really important because we can’t let life defined by TV and other indulgences we have created out of the fear of boredom. Reflection or meditation is a key skill to escape this artificial life; during meditation our awareness becomes occupied and we totally forget about the body and other feelings (Sadhu 79). Thoreau is a realist thinker and the time taken for mediation doesn’t really have an opportunity cost. It is an investment, to set our life goals straight and to be able to have the confidence of dying. Meditation isn’t even religion, it is about cultivating the peace of mind and having an open attitude towards one’s life (Moore 8). How many of us would be willing to die, with a smile on their face when the time comes? The famous Seneca was probably the first who made the world attentive to the tick tock of the clock. It is not music, it is an alarm, that every second is being taken away from you. So even if you pile up millions of dollars, would that make you happy when you die? To answer this question one needs to reflect, needs to meditate to see if he/she is going in the right direction. Thoreau is thinking that reality as truly seen is forever new and always more than words can say.  So what do you think? Do we need contemplation or something like it in order to better understand who we are? Or should be just be satisfied with Zweckrationalitaet (Weber, above) and go about setting and achieving measurable objectives in a calculable world?"  It is obvious that we need to reflect, contemplate otherwise we will earn money to pay bills, save, invest, eat when hungry and have sex when there is an urge, we will purely be driven by needs, just like animals, they kill when they are hungry, and they mate when it’s the season. Having advocated for Thoreau, I’m not rejecting Zweckrationalitaet completely. Achieving measured calculated goals in a world that the people have constructed in such a way that money is the primary driver, it is very hard to live a life of a saint or a distant philosopher, striking a chord between the two ideologies would be the best way forward. "Comment as you wish in your journal, but include a response to the following question.  What do you make of Miller's notion that religious inspiration can create a culture-saving alternative community? Not that Benedict himself originally intended this effect, of course; Leibowitz, however, clearly intended it. One might think that our Dark Ages are past us now and we can go on to better things, but Miller is suggesting otherwise. Is this an unrealistic idea? Notice the positive and close link he's making between religion and culture. Scientists work for politicians and military who destroy civilization, while ordinary people revolt in the "Simplification," rejecting learning (63)." Who's in control?  Dom Paulo and Thon Taddeo debate concerning science, religion, and responsibility (the Poet had already mentioned responsibility [205]). The thon accuses the abbot of believing it is necessary to wait until people are holy, pure, and wise before they can have science. The abbot had asked: "Who will govern the use of power to control natural forces. Who will use it? To what end? How will you hold him in check?" (224).  What may we hope for and what do we need to do to bring it about? (see Module Readings for context).  To greatly oversimplify, they were all saying that peace comes through love.  So, how do we love? How do we get to those conditions where we don't draw the separate distinctions that lead to homicide?  Women may have noticed that women and love don't figure much in Miller's account. This may indicate a major weakness in his story--if we are to think with our Puritan ancestors that love is to be embodied primarily in ordinary human relationships.  In your response (Is it a weakness?), you may if you wish also make the grim case that there is no hope. There is no "proof" either way, of course, as in all things that are really important. Oversimplification is never the answer. Peace through love sounds nice but it is nothing but poetic phrasal advertisement, reality is far from it. If that were the simplest solution, the world would have been free of war and terrorism. If people can’t understand this love philosophy, then they won’t understand anything. Human beings are complicated creatures, in fact we have turned ourselves into the most complex creatures on earth. We have built so much around us that we can’t see through it now. Considering religion as an alternate (from Miller’s account), where religious inspiration would save the world really rests on the belief. If people believe in religion then and only then this alternative can be created. But the more important question is, whose religion are we talking about? Isn’t that the real issue regarding all the hate that is driving people mad because of religious conflicts? I would repeat, overs simplification do not help solve problems, they only sell good poems and songs because it is something that appeals to humans something romantic, out of the norms and an unprecedented simplification. The human brain doesn’t want to get into the complexities of religion and love. To cater this, brain looks for the most obvious solutions, even romantic ones, that are never realized but history shows humans and poets chasing them endlessly and still are. Religions in all scriptures preach about upholding morality, respect and harmony, no religion preaches anarchy, hate or terrorism. Miller’s argument weaken here as the majority of population believes in some form of religion, atheists are not huge in numbers. So if religion is the answer then why it is that world peace is nothing but a joke? More people die today than on any other day in history. I agree with Miller in theory but not in practice. Religions if followed in their essence don’t hurt anyone, it is when people start interpreting their own versions and develop religious cults and groups, that’s where the problem starts. Moreover Miller’s account does miss out on love and women, where I disagree with him. No matter how cliched it sounds but love is the essence, the soul of the earth. All the other feelings like happiness, empathy, excitement, delightedness etc. are derived from one source, love, and that represents life. Without incorporating love in theory, no solution for world peace can be found. As far as the subject of women is concerned, they are the other half of human, both the sexes make the world spin, the life goes on when these two exist in harmony. Nevertheless I agree with Miller in theory, and probably he didn’t include love as it is the soul of all regions, the love of God. Sources Moore, A. Meditation. The Rosen Publishing Group., 2008. Print. Pettigrew, Thomas F. Prejudice. Cambridge, Mass. U.A.: Belknap Pr. of Harvard Univ. Pr., 1982. Print. Sadhu, M. Meditation: An Outline for Practical Study. Karnac Books. 2006. Print. Read More