So as some form of opener, I'm going to warn everyone who may be reading this (even if that turns out to be no one at all)... I have no idea where this is going. Ever have an idea and decide to go with it? Follow the current? Not care where it is that you end up? Yeah, well, I've done it before, and it's worked, so that's what I'm going with tonight.
Okay. Here goes.
In class, we've been discussing that whole debate over the history books. Everyone has been putting forth some really great, intriguing ideas--because there certainly ARE lots of great, intriguing ideas that need to be gotten out there, regarding the subject. And I'm in agreement with a lot of it. I mean, trying to, practically, rewrite history? Eliminating individuals obviously important to our development as a country, just because they stood up against the law? That's all craziness to me.
Yes, I was in agreement. Yes, I found myself nodding along a heck of a lot. But after awhile, I started questioning why this kept happening: my head kept moving and my lips kept pretty much clamped tight?
It can be a disturbing sort of revelation, discovering (maybe for the first time, maybe not) that you just don't have an opinion. These are hot topics--minority rights? Come on, people all over the place are head-over-heals to get their point of views into the forefront of the debate. It just so happens to be that I don't feel very strongly, either way.
Maybe this isn't necessarily a bad thing. When you look at it--and when it comes to, for example and as I've already pointed out, stuff like rights of minorities--I'm not in much of a place to have lots of opinion. Look at it, then look at me! I'm white--that's a majority. I'm middle-class, not rich but not exactly hurting much for money, either. White middle-class woman, whose point of views stem from her education and up-bringing. In no way do I belong to any majority. I've learned United States history from, as someone brought up in my class, the White Man's point of view, and since I don't know any different this hasn't been a bother to me.
I feel like I'm going over a word count limit, but, like I implied earlier, once I get going I get going. Even if it is about how little I have to say on a subject.
I can be sympathetic, too. Yes--I do believe that minorities have a right to be recognized in our history, for their "contributions" to society (I don't think "contributions" is a word with a small connotation at all). I'm just not ready to kill people over it, like others may be. I want everyone to have their say, I want everyone to be recognized. I want it all to be right, just, but is that ever going to happen in our society? I feel like all I have left anymore are questions.
So then I--and I'm sure, I'm positive that I'm not alone here--retreat a little big. Focus on my interests. Those things that concern me, those things that are important to me, that's what I'll fight for. That's what I'll debate over. I don't like that I'm underopinionated, but that's the way it is, and I think that's where I step down and let the people who truly care take over.
Remember Julia? Orwell's Julia, Winston's Julia. She didn't care much either. "...She only questioned the teachings of the Party when they in some way touched upon her own life" (pg 153). How selfish it sounds, how self-involved! Maybe we all turn our noses up a little bit when we think of people like that. But I know what I am, I know what I'm not. And I'll accept myself.
Doesn't mean I'm entirely pleased with it. No, in my general opinion, the American people as a whole are sliding more into that downward trend of apathy. Yes--apathy--that's what you'd call it. There are more and more Julias as the years go by, and probably simultaneously more and more issues we should care about. Do something about.
What're we going to do? Sit at home and wait till it reaches us there, that's what.
Excuse me for being a little bitter.
You always hate most in others what you see in yourself, you get me?
So what am I asking for? Less apathy? More education in the field of... current events, maybe? Less questions? Definately less questions. Unfortunately it's not easy to find a reliable source to answer them all.
Guess that's what we have to figure out ourselves.
Thank you for reading. I hope this thoroughly confused you and left you with no sense of conclusion--now you know how I feel. Welcome to my mind.
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ReplyDeleteI heartly approve and about Orwell's Julia he wrote in his Essay "Why I Write" that he wrote for a very selfish reason as was the motivation for "...Scientists, soldiers statesmen, in short the top crust of humanity", but in his own words the majority of people were "Not acutely selfish" so don't worry you're sane.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion you make plenty sense, you don't need to over explain. Anyways, in your introd when you talked about not having an opinion and how you felt bad i don't think that’s necessarily that bad to not have one. Almost all people don't have an opinion on something, like Julia, if i doesn’t pertain to them or wasn't brought up in their development or parents, their blinded to it. Sometimes it takes education from all sides of the square to understand something and form a opinion.
ReplyDeleteWhen you said "i want everyone to have their say," i think about the homeless, the drug dealers the Julia's, the elderly, and the foreign. Should everyone really be able to have a say? Do they deserve it and how do they justify it logical? For example it really didn't make much since when Texas let a Reverend have a say, he didn't have a degree in history or study child development. He has no credentials and no reasoning to have a say.
Good job i like how you didn't have that many questions in your work but your ideas.