In class today, we were discussing how even though Winthrop was saying how Puritans should treat everyone like brethren, slaves were not treated equally. The same goes for the Declaration of Independence. This came to mind while I was at pit rehearsal today. In Beauty and the Beast, the village people look down on Belle because 'odd' and spends all her time reading. At the same time, though, Belle is looking down at 'such a small, provincial town,' especially 'that boorish' Gaston. This started to irritate me a bit. Is there no end to people's pride and arrogance? Is there a reason why there always has to be someone that is looked down upon by someone else? It is impossible to truly know a person. Therefore, how can someone just assume that they're 'better'? (and I'm being completely hypocritical here)
We talk about the hypocrisies present in Puritanism all the time, and yet here is one hypocrisy that seems to be part of human nature. We seem to be looking down at Puritanism and using hypocrisy as a derogatory term. Should we? We are taught that it's okay to make mistakes. Isn't hypocrisy just another error? Also, is it possible that we are rejecting that the presence of hypocrisies present in Puritanism are present in our society because we look down on them? Is it possible that our pride is blinding us to our own flaws to the point that we won't even recognize them?
Mary Quien
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6 comments:
People love to have an opinion. Apparently some magazine of some sort created a survey asking for opinions on a nonexistent law and actually came up with results. It's impossible to be entirely reserve judgment because that's just what we do. I'd like to think that this tendency has to do with the discriminatory nature of our treatment of others. (No, not the negative way) We want to be discriminate in the ways we treat others to preserve a sense of hierarchy. As archaic as it may seem, a pyramid structure seems to naturally emerge in all environments from corporate to educational.
In some ways, hypocrisy is inevitable. After all, just as we mentioned in class, humans are not flawless. By extolling any sort of perfect ideal, we set ourselves up for failure. Unless you plan on adding in a boatload of qualifiers to everything you "preach", it's impossible to never run afoul of your own words.
We were actually taking about this in Economics the other day...(don't ask) We as humans obviously make judgements and decisions on a daily basis. Our existence and its value are relative to the world around us and we use judgements to assign a degree of tangibleness to our worth. In this case, we look down upon people even though we shouldn't not because we are fundamentally misguided but because we have to.
In "Predictably Irrational" the tag line of the first chapter is "Why Everything is Relative--Even When It Shouldn't Be." Humans are just wired to compare and assign (usually completely arbitrary) values to everyone and everything.
Hypocrisy reminds me of bias. I'm sure "bias" has a negative connotation to many people, but, yet, we can remove bias from nothing we say. It's the same with hypocrisy. If we tell someone that s/he is a hypocrite, we are being hypocritical, because everyone is a hypocrite to a certain extent. It goes in a circle. At some point, though, we have to get past hypocrisy and acknowledge that every society is hypocritical, hypocrisy is not new. Because humans are imperfect by nature and because we enjoy, at the same time, to criticize others, hypocrisy is inevitable.
Emily T.
Hmm...Are you saying that we are being hypocritical in pointing out the numerous hypocrisies in Puritan doctrine while we are prey to hypocrisies ourselves? A bit of circular logic, but...
It's human nature to categorize and order, especially in assigning random categories to people (such as race, gender, class). We enjoy classifying even more, to keep up with the Joneses. We inevitably look up to those above up with a mixture of envy and admiration, but also look down with condescension when we consider ourselves superior. Especially because many doctrines of Puritan faith have not survived to today, it's unavoidable that we look back on them and point out the numerous flaws and hypocrisies in their thinking. History is written by the winners...
(Eric Wei)
Well, everything we say or claim is a perception. Therefore, it's safe to say that everything that we verbalize is somewhat of an opinion. Even if we were to state a widely accepted "fact", the way in which we would say it (intonation) would express our opinion regarding said fact.
The villagers are bound to have an opinion of Belle, and she will reciprocate. The connotations of those opinions are left to chance, however. Belle could possibly admire the villagers even though they see her as "odd". Does that make sense?
I am almost convinced that if we had studied Puritanism on our own, we would have been more reluctant to label it with hypocracy. Our teachers have undoubtedly influenced our views on the subject and because of their authoritative positions, we agree for the most part. They put things in a different light, and we are made curious. If we did not have the input of others, we might even admire the ideals set down by Winthrop and imagine a life where they were more than just text on paper.
(Sam Maliha)
Well Sam, I think the hypocrisy is evident without the influence of outside criticism, but one man's duplicity is another man's inspirational sermon.
Anyway, arrogance is a necessity in the fight for survival. It's no coincidence that the best athletes, the most successful businessmen, the most influential scientists, are cocksure. To admit the hypocrisy in believing your better than someone puts you at an immediate disadvantage. If one is certain that they are the most skilled, that their idea is the best, he/she has a much greater chance at succeeding.
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