I Want To Break Free...

So to continue on...

I have been thinking about this cultural baggage that we have and how we bring it with us where ever we go, and how in one culture our habits might not be right and my friend asked me then, "What is right?" I paused and thought for a second and responded, "Nothing is right, and nothing is wrong." I think that Hobbes was right. Going into social contract theory we see that Hobbes claimed that in nature that right and wrong do not exist. It is however through selfish compromise and agreements, or in other words social contracts, that we create what is right and what is wrong. The easiest way to show this is through an example.

For instance, a man is walking through a forest and comes across another man. Both men have the capability of doing whatever one wants to the other with out it being right or wrong, this even includes possibly killing the other. Therefore one man approaches the other, and out of his own selfish interest he is willing to give up his ability to kill the other man for the same compromise in return. This compromise gives birth to right and wrong because if one of them does not honor the contract made and kills the other, he is therefore in the wrong. If he would have never made that agreement he would not have been in the wrong for killing him looking at this from a Hobbsian view.

I thought therefore that if there is no such thing as right or wrong that I, as a foreigner to this country and culture, cannot pass judgement or view things, like language, customs, or actions, as being right or wrong. Their culture is their own, and it is how they live their lives. It might not be how I live my life because i was brought up in another culture and because of that, i am not capable of making a judgment call on whether another culture is right or wrong in what they do culturally. Its important to be accepting and understanding of other cultures and try to see the things from the way they do. Its important to understand why another culture does something and for me and learning Spanish i felt like i had to change my perspective a little. Instead of thinking that "this is how you say it in Spanish," i changed my perspective to "this is how it is said." This helped me understand better why it was said that way and it took away a barrier in my learning.

Looking at the world i see conflict, and it's conflict occurs when someone is the victim and someone else is the perpetrator . I feel like if we were to stop and think for just a second about the other person could possibly be different in their understanding of the world, or in their own "personal culture", and try to make an agreement that transcends the two understandings there could possibly be a change. If we were to have an understanding that other people are different and they have their own way about living life, be it on the personal or cultural level, and that that is OK, I feel like a lot of conflict could be avoided.

Obviously its not a perfect world and no one can possibly see things exactly as another person, but we should at least try to understand how someone else lives and know that even if we can understand why they live a certain way, they understand why.

My train of thought has gone now and im late for lunch so i gotta run.