Paul Bubash

January 7, 2008

TH 300-3

What I Really Learned

 

            Of the many things I learned in Junior Theology, probably one of the biggest is the idea that tough questions do not often have simple answers. Questions like the problem of evil, “Am I a good person?”, and “What makes us Good or Evil?” cannot be answered in a few simple sentences. These are complex ideas and deserve complex answers. People have written thousand page books on these subjects only to have another write something completely contradictory. These questions are everywhere. Over Christmas break, I read Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange just for the fun of it. When I was finished the book, I began wondering why were so many of the characters appeared as pure evil even though their lives, motives, and actions were different and contradictory. They all seemed evil and I could not figure out why or what makes a person evil. I considered social surroundings and it just being their nature. In the end, I came to the conclusion that I don’t really know. This lead to me questioning if I was truly good and I still didn’t know though I hope I am. Its like quote from Bob Overkamp, “I fully realize that I have not succeeded in answering all of your questions…Indeed, I feel I have not answered any of them completely. The answers I have found only lead to new questions, which lead to more problems, sum of which we weren’t even aware were problems. To sum it up…In some ways I feel we as confused as ever, but I believe we are confused on a higher level, and about more important things.”

            Another thing that I felt I truly learned was of my own ignorance. To tell the truth, at first I didn’t really believe in that we are all in the cave and never really noticing how we live our lives. But after going through the Right Speech Experiment I began to realize that this idea was actually true. I was shocked to learn how much I lie. Most of it was never serious, just saying I didn’t have any change when I did and stupid sort of things like that, but it was almost scary to learn about those things I do without even really thinking about it. I try to do this experiment every so often just keep this idea personal. I do not always know. I thought at the beginning of the year that I wasn’t going to like this class. Over the summer, I always imagined it be a lot of written work, with a lot of the same sort of the impersonal topics that I would learn and soon forget. To me this was when I started to realize that things I learned in this class are applicable. It was sort of eye opening experience that, yes, in some areas I am ignorant, but I can change.

            The third thing I learned in this class is that biases are everywhere. When we take in information we quickly categorize things based on previous experiences and prejudices. These are all biases. They are inescapable. It seems almost impossible to be completely open to even the smallest bit of information because part of the process of knowing which we do subconsciously is to categorize. I learned that I judge every new person I see before I even meet them. I look at someone and decide if I like them or not based on things sometimes as trivial as the shirt they wear. Going along with this idea is the idea of media bias. Large corporations see you as a customer, not a person, and they are the ones who control much of the media. They try to sell you products with false notions that they will make you happy. In response to this, I actually began to listen to things like community radio. I happened to be pleasantly surprised by what I found. Much of the music that I like that really isn’t mainstream appeared on it. Different sort of blues bands that are hard to find other places would get radio airtime. It seemed to be music with more substance. I know my response really seems like a trivial point we talked about maybe only a couple times in class, but it was one of the things that I acted upon and I feel that real learning is something that requires action.