When one seeks some degree of mental freedom, and reaches a
state of experiencing some mental freedom compared to the prior state, the
realization that is reached is that among the most stagnating issues was being
limited to certain notions and being indoctrinated some “absolutes” in the
realm of beliefs.
Normally, one then treads from one pole heading to the
other, and each step might be teaching something. Heading towards the camp of “freedom”
especially in personal beliefs, one finds at times matters that do go against
the essential concept of being free. When being shocked by certain limitations
in thought in the new camp, one might deduce that both are trying to establish
a certain perspective of life and reinforce it. That might be true, but is it?
Surely, if one constantly disagrees with the established “maxims” put forward
by the proponents of freedom, one might be belittled, condemned, face some
verbal attacks, but rarely do they try to end your existence. After all they
are human, with biological apparatuses to evaluate matters. They as well, at
many times, evaluate matters from a subjective perspective and assign a
criterion for evaluation, creating a path of categorizing people and notions as
well, and claiming that their path is objective, yet they fail to realize that
the criterion is perforated as it is formed by human subjective inclinations.
It seems to be an unattainable journey for humans to
understand real tolerance or absolute tolerance because everything is open to
interpretation since everything happens to be an interplay between what is out
there and how we perceive it, whether be it a religious person or not. This
makes it hard to understand how a person shall act just by merely knowing what
beliefs they have, for a human act arises not in a direct causal way from
belief to action. It is no wonder that we see religious people who can’t
tolerate people of a similar religion but a differing sect, yet we also have
religious people who are ready to connect at the deepest levels with non-believers
or people of different religions. At the same time, we find non-believers who
hypothetically call for “freedom” yet they form a narrow criterion of
categorizing people who deserve tolerance, based upon their subjective
evaluation, and by that creating animosities and polarizing the society. Some
have established personal beliefs that religious people with certain beliefs
are dangerous, not realizing that they are struck in a belief by believing that.
For example, some find women who wear Hijab to be backwards and devoid of logic
regardless of her social position or what she has to say. Such people have
created a mental map that has associated backwardness to a piece of cloth, and
they fail to realize that they don’t differ much from those who assigned piety
and chastity to a piece of cloth covering the hair. Different associations leading
to not so different superficial judgments.
The presence of differences around us has been emphasized by
the boom of communication and technology, yet the idea hardly sinks in our
psyches. Our biological wirings are hard to rewire. This state shall continue
with us for long since it is our limbic brains that exert their powers upon our
not so well developed prefrontal cortices.
No comments:
Post a Comment