I think therefore I act…

If our social reality and education are the factors outside of us that shape our view of reality, what factors inside us contribute to the decisions we make? Education definitely influences our decisions and ignorance can contribute to prejudice. However, if information and exposure were enough to correct prejudice, then men would never have been prejudiced against women and all colonizers would soon see that the natives were just like them.

In order to benefit from information about, and exposure to, other cultures and traditions, we need conceptual frameworks in which diversity is seen as a good thing and everybody is seen as equal and valuable. Otherwise the differences can simply be seen as proof of inequality or inferiority or well, proof of pretty much anything we want to prove.   Because one of the first ‘facts’ that we really do need to carry with us as we learn to think for ourselves is that as human beings, we don’t believe what we see but on the contrary we actually see what we already believe.

TomorrowTalking to your Hat