I have a good friend at work who is one of the smartest people and best teachers I've ever known. He happens to teach a subject that runs concurrent with the content in my class: he teaches American history, and I American literature. We have views that often are symmetrical, but many that are in opposition to each other, and on the rare occasions that we get to talk at any length, our conversations run to those differences pretty quickly. I can't even pretend to persuade him to agree with me, no matter how passionately I believe whatever it is we're discussing, mostly because his knowledge of politics, economics, and their effects on history completely eclipses anything I can begin to grasp. I'm not too proud to say that whenever we have one of these conversations, I usually leave with a list of eight or ten names of theories, groups, or people that I need or want to look into. Sometimes the new info just immediately gets my back up more; sometimes I have to consider it for a few days to let it sink in. Often, I read and then let go, because I can't make it all meld in my mind, not with the things that I have to keep focused on at the time---lesson plans, essays, the minutia of life. But I'm always grateful that I have learned something new from our passing debates.
There is one that has been niggling at my brain since before school started. I don't remember the way the discussion started, but I know when it went off on a new tangent: with my reference to the common statement that "perception is reality," applying it to some aspect of law. I think Tim was somewhat appalled that I would assert such a thing. Later the same day, he sent me an email with an attachment about how the Constitution is a fact, not perception, that the rights granted therein are universal and absolute and not to be based on opinion, and that because we are a republic, majority rule cannot determine rights; they ARE rights, no matter how many people agree or disagree with them. Generally, I have to agree...except for one little issue: mankind is annoyingly human and incapable of such purely black-and-white reasoning. Yes, I know this makes the reasoning no less valid, but it renders the whole argument an exercise in futility for most people.
C. S. Lewis wrote, "What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are." Or as that great late-20th century bard Everlast so distinctly put it, "You know, where it is, yo, it usually depends on where you start." Both men surely must have been considering the way that our own frame of reference affects everything---EVERYthing---that we experience, whether through thought or physical action.
There are, of course, always cases where perception is reality; the arts are rife with examples of whatever-floats-your-boat kind of junk. I think Salvador Dali was a nut. Some love him, some hate him, and some don't know a thing about him and will never care, all based on our perceptions. We could say the same thing about a billion other artistic endeavors: velvet paintings of dogs playing poker, Megadeth, Swan Lake, heroin-chic 90's supermodels, Beanie Babies, Adele, Cadillac convertibles, and the mullet. My world has been solidly centered on the arts since I drew breath, so I understand this way of thinking; it's where I live. One of the most dramatic lessons I remember learning in my degree program is that you can take the same student essay, give it to four different teachers to grade, and come out with four different letter grades, all justified by the teacher to some degree. We learn to narrow that focus as professionals, but rarely do any of us think to truly consider the repercussions of passing judgement in day-to-day life.
So it is in the political, legal, and moral landscapes: we pass the scenery with little thought beyond "I love this, but I hate that," even though every pronouncement comes from our own frame of reference. Gun rights is always a hot-button issue. The author from the link Tim sent me referenced this; he asserted that the right to bear arms was fact, not opinion, which I agree with. (I'm a Democrat, not an idiot.) However, everyone's frame of reference is going to shape the depth of that fact. For example, I grew up with a healthy respect for guns, mostly because I didn't see them a lot, though I knew we had them. Do we have the right to keep and bear arms? Absolutely. Do we need to build our own personal arsenals for some doomsday scenario or, as is often cited, to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government? I don't think there's enough firepower to carry off either of those things, so it seems foolish to me to allow everyone to collect as much artillery and weaponry as they can manage. Plus, "yo, it usually depends on where you start"; I see a difference between a family who hunts (like some of mine do) and a gang or cult group stockpiling automatic weapons designed solely for killing humans. I have friends, though, who are unfamiliar with weapons and have a terror of them, and while I don't carry my fear that far, like them, I hate the thought of open carry laws because there are so many crazy people out there who will think they are going to stop something with their sidearm and will try to be a cowboy, with tragic results. All that to say this: our perception of the truth of our "rights" has to be colored by our experiences, which then renders them our own reality, our opinion.
The other side has to see this, too, in the great humbug of conservative policy: same-sex marriage. If discrimination is wrong, then it's wrong to hold back rights enjoyed by those who are married "traditionally" from those who are not. Yes, conservative beliefs may color the lens through which they view the issue, but it doesn't allow them to rescind those rights from those with whom they disagree.
If we all could agree to see things in such a way, wouldn't it make it easier to smooth everyone's feathers in all policy decisions? Wouldn't we get more done and less undone in such a way?
I've got a lot more work to do before I can present this argument to my friend, but I feel like I've got my head around something that makes sense to me. At least, I did when I started. Now it's another late Saturday evening, and I've written myself into exhaustion with this one draft. I'm so glad I don't have to present policy every day at school, that I can kick back with easy good humor while unraveling the Salem Witch Trials, Senator McCarthy, and The Crucible simultaneously for eager teenagers. Now THERE'S "perception is reality" at work!
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