How strongly do you hold your beliefs? What is the line that you will not cross? Is there one? If you set such a limit, are you actually being true to your beliefs, or admitting that they can be compromised? If someone does NOT set such limits, are they therefore more barbaric? More cruel? Or just more firm in their own convictions. And who is the “better” person?
In my journeys of late, I have been fortunate enough to explore the wonders of rural America. I have been invited into homes. I have enjoyed great food and wonderful music. I have witnessed loving families, joy and laughter. I have hobnobbed with those whose life experiences are more exotic than fiction, primarily because they were not my own. I have also witnessed pettiness, greed, anger, aggression and bigotry. I have seen the extremes and everything in between.
Simply put, I have experienced people being people.
Just because someone’s upbringing and life path has been different from mine does not mean that I am in any way superior to them. Just because they may make choices that I would not make; decisions I consider flawed; even judgements that I find objectionable … does not make me a better person. Nor does it make them somehow morally corrupt.
EVERY preconception; EVERY stereotype is based on real perceptions. Face it, humanity thrives on negative press. We seem to find it easier to accept that wich pushes THEM into the negative light then to accept the fact that maybe THEY are just like you and me … in other words we all have our flaws and our beauties.
“I hate closed-minded people!”
“Those poor, uneducated people are so backwards in their beliefs. Dumb as rocks. The are all just ignorant haters!”
“We should kill all the terrorists. They are all evil psychopaths!”
This question is for the open-minded. It is for the highly educated; the ones who KNOW that all people are worthy in their own right. If you think such thoughts as listed above … how are you ANY less bigoted then those you are judging? Just because someone has been fed information that may be incorrect; just because someone may have been raised with some unhealthy and even wrong-headed ideas (at least by our OWN thinking), does not make them any less of a good person than we think we are. “They” love their families as “we” do. “They” do what they need to get by in a crazy, mixed up world … just like “we” do.
Do you fully agree with EVERYTHING those close to you think and do?
And how far would YOU go if you thought they were threatened in any way?
It sure is easy to condemn another’s mistakes from the comfort of our own armchair isn’t it? Educational and moral superiority is bigotry too. At least those who do what we call atrocious acts are actually trying their best to IMPROVE the world around them, even if “we” don’t like their ” improvements”.
Can you say the same?
