Default Responses

What do I default to?

After reading over my blog posts, it seems that my default response to conflicting views is to pay attention to both sides of the story. I spent a fair amount of research time to determine the true intent of each argument or discussion, you know, all spirit-of-the-law kind of stuff. I truly sought to understand the issue (at least within the time I allotted to each post), not only from the author's point of view, but from anyone's point of view who might have an investment in the issue. I believe this mostly stems from a class I took from Becky a couple years ago. It was Intercultural Communications. I learned very deeply that other cultures simply have different thought processes, and when I say cultures, I mean even down to the culture of one's immediate family versus someone else's family. We all simply learn different values depending on the culture in which we are immersed.  I think this is why it is crucial to one's social, mental and emotional development to surround yourself with those you admire and wish to emulate because eventually you will find yourself emulating them.

Anywho, I learned in this class to work to understand the values and rules of other cultures, to put yourself in their culture with their beliefs.  This is the only way to live peaceably.

Prior to this experience, I was very biased to my own upbringing and often found myself baffled by the behavior of others, like, "Why would anyone blow themselves up for a religious cause? That's retarded"

Now I work harder to understand the viewpoints of all involved in a particular issue, and then develop my opinions. For this reason I think whenever I see something that sounds kind of extreme, I hold off on a position until I can research the issue thoroughly enough to feel confident in my understanding of all sides. This is one of the reasons why I feel most of what Donald Trump says publicly is simply his saying what he thinks his voters want to hear, because it's all so extreme, and not just extreme, but often flip-flopped. I know there is more to him than meets the eye (how much more, I don't know), as he cannot have reached the point of success where he is now without some form of character (though I'm still not voting for him).

I have greatly valued the points of critical thinking we've learned in this class.  I feel much more empowered in my ability to understand arguments and dissect them to a point of comprehension.