December 2nd 2015
This Week's discussion was inspired by Ideas from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted Talk, The danger of a single story. However, our discussion centered mostly around Authority and how it can influence our beliefs.
We Discussed How teachers can influence the beliefs or mindsets of their students:
Many teachers make an effort to keep their own opinions to themselves so not to influence the beliefs of their students, Students will often phrase their Ideas similarly to the way they hear their teachers do. Additionally, sometimes when students look up to their teachers they'll adopt those beliefs without really filtering it for themselves.
Consider this quote from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself":
“You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the specters in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”
And this one by Albert Einstein:
“Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth”
This melted into a discussion on how our parents can influence our beliefs growing up, specifically about body image. Ideas that we grow up with can be very hard to shake, even when we no longer agree with them.
Consider this picture:
We then watched this video on Westernization and how America has influenced beauty standards around the world: (The Illusionists Opening )
Although there's no doubt men also have Ideals thrown at them, it's debatable whether media puts as much pressure on men to adhere to beauty standards. There's this trope in TV shows where families will often have mothers whose bodies conform to society’s ideals while their husband's bodies don't. Here are a few examples:
We briefly discussed the fact that there societies where toplessnes among women and men alike is a norm:
"The lack of clothing above the waist for both females and males was the norm in traditional cultures of North America, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands until the arrival of Christian missionaries,[3] and it continues to be the norm and acceptable in many indigenous cultures today."
Contrary to this, There is a society called "Inis Beag" which was (in the 1950's) considered by anthropologists to be "the most sexually repressed culture in the world"
We also talked a bit about how people with unpopular beliefs can rise to power (when those beliefs are actually secretly popular); Many people have racist or sexist (etc) beliefs that they are reluctant to voice until someone who is popular and powerful voices it for them. This may have contributed to Trump’s popularity.
We briefly discussed perspective with this comic: (click for a better view)
I hope you all enjoyed your weekend! Feel free to continue the discussion in the comments
(I apologize for any glitches in how the pictures or videos are functioning, especially on the website, the posting function is glitching!! This is why I made this viewable in google drive, don’t hesitate to report malfunctions!)
