I met a man
the other day. A man I really didn’t like. Somewhere in downtown Saint
Petersburg we sat over pints of Guinness
and tried to make some sort of St. Patrick’s Day celebration. A friend of a
friend, I was fairly sure I’d met him during my previous life as a student in
St. Petersburg, and was fairly sure I hadn’t liked him then either. He was abrasive
and pushy and not very clever - a combination that usually doesn’t go well with
my particular personality. For some reason, days later, as infuriating as our
conversation was, I can’t stop thinking about it.
Somehow, we
got to talking about open-mindedness and freedom of speech. For most Americans, these two concepts are
things we live and die for. With this mess in Ukraine, I’ve been thinking a lot
about propaganda. A lot about it. Trying to sort out what I know and what I intrinsically assume because of the propaganda the
American education system instilled in me at a young age. I know I’m getting
into the territory of sounding like a mad conspiracy theorist, but having spent
the last few months bombarded by American, Russian and Independent media about
the Ukraine Crisis, there are so many conflicting facts and stories and ideas
that I feel incapable of identifying what is truth and what is propaganda.
What I’ve decided is that it is all propaganda,
divided only by what brand of propaganda you were raised with, and therefore
assume is truth. Before I get too far
down this tangent, I’ll just say I’m still wrestling with these ideas.
So back to
this man. After minutes of meeting one another, he threw out the statement “there
is no such thing as being open-minded” like it was an absolute truth. Strike
One – there is no such thing as absolute truth and don’t call me close minded! A
long conversation ensued about what it means to be open minded, most of us
supporting the idea that it certainly does exist and that most of us consider
ourselves open minded. A friend made a great point, being open minded isn’t
about adopting someone else’s point of view, but by interacting with people who
live and think differently than you, you are being open minded. I don’t have to
necessarily agree with you in order see that your thoughts, while opposite to
mine, have their own validity and worth. That is my brand of open-mindedness.
It seemed
like some sort of resolution to this argument had been reached. We moved on, I
ordered some Borsht. More friends showed up. Conversation flowed. As some loose
connection to this concept of “open-mindedness”, the idea of free speech arose.
Once again, as the keeper of absolute truth on everything (note: sarcasm), our
newfound friend said, “freedom of speech doesn’t exist”. Okay. Please expand.
As a
half-Brit (half-wit?), this man provided the example of immigration in the UK.
With a growing Muslim population in the UK, there has been a rise in conflict
over ethnic and religious issues. While I’m not an expert in UK politics and
social issues, as a member of the American melting pot, I understand the
challenges faced by an ever-shifting population, that, while in theory accepts
people of all races, religions and creeds, usually says, this is a “normal American”, and points
to a white Protestant male with a white-collar job. We should all strive to be
like the “normal American”, right? Well as a woman I guess I’ll never be “normal”,
and what does normal mean anyways? When did the melting pot become a bleaching
process?
Clearly
this guy is in favor of the bleaching process, and went on his speech about freedom
of speech, saying that true freedom of speech should mean that he can say
racial and religious slurs as loudly and openly as he wants. In fact, he should
be able to stand on Nevsky Prospekt and shout about it to the masses! In this
moment, if I’m being fully honest, I stopped being open-minded. I shut that
door and sealed it air tight.
All I could
think was why do you want to shout racial
and religious slurs on the street? People have all kinds of thoughts that
they don’t voice, it is certainly true, but under this man’s impression, we are
all bubbling with offensive thoughts and only keeping them inside because
freedom of speech doesn’t truly exist. Whether freedom of speech should allow
this kind of public proclamation is, in my mind, irrelevant. The real issue
here is the root of such ideas. If
you feel so badly that you need to attack someone over their religion or their
race, then there is a great failing in this world. And certainly there is,
because these people are everywhere.
As many
things in the world are cyclical, so too was this conversation. I couldn’t help
but come back to being open-minded. This guy’s racism wasn’t about freedom of
speech as he’d stated, but really it was about a refusal to coexist with people
different than himself. I sat through an entire afternoon with this guy, which
makes me feel just about as open-minded as I’ve ever felt. But truly, there
needs to be a lot less yelling in this world, and a lot more listening,
observing, learning and understanding. Before I go stand on the street and
shout something to the masses, I need to really understand why I’m shouting.
People make
truth claims way too often in this world. I’m sure I do. And that guy certainly
did. We are so confident that what we believe is fact, that any observation we
make on top of that fact must also be true. What we fail to do, is dissect the
facts before building upon them. How can I further an idea, in a really truly
progressive way, if the foundational concept is already flawed. How can I tell
the world what is right and wrong about the Ukraine Crisis if I don’t fully
understand what is really happening
there.
If I’m
about to follow my own doctrine, then I’m about to be paralyzed. I’m not sure
there even is a way to say something is absolutely true, that a certain logic
is completely flawless. Because of that, I’ll never have a solid foundation on
which to build. But I don’t want to build just to build. I want to have a
knowledge and a worldview not simply of depth, some teetering tower barely able
to stand straight, but a knowledge and a perspective of breadth. Something so
expansive that no new idea strikes fear in my heart and leads to
discrimination, as fear so often does. Something that has open arms and means
it.
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