Saturday, April 21, 2012
The Western Bias
It has become more and more evident that growing up in American schools have made us bias against other cultures and the way they do things. In history class we learn mostly about American history or how everything in history has led up to the development of America. This sheltered education as well as media have turned us against other parts of the world and at the same time have made us dangerously competent and proud. One example of this is the prejudice towards Islamic culture and the life of Muhammad. Reading about Muhammad has opened my eyes to a religion and culture that I really had no prior knowledge of. If we ever want to attain the peace in which Muhammad preached we have to take away prejudice and seek the truth. We also have to stop sheltering our youth and open their eyes to the world early and this could be done with some serious reform in the educational system. What do you say?
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I say you are right on. While reading Muhammad, there is a section at the very beginning where Muhammad is talked about in a negative manner, even though "his life was a tireless campaign against greed, injustice, and arrogance" (7). Even I had my doubts about Muslims after the September 11th attacks. However, people cannot assume that ALL Muslims are terrorists.... I think that if our education in the United States was strengthened with a greater understanding of world religions, we would be in a better state of mind. This is a reason why I decided to take this World Religions class anyways!
ReplyDeleteI agree that the American educational system strongly encourages students to remain ignorant about and prejudiced against other cultures and religions. However, I do not think that curriculum makers do this to shelter the youth of the United States; instead, I think that they do it to ensure that adult Americans will possess a strong, and probably unjustified, sense of patriotism which enables them to ignore the atrocities that America may commit against other nations, often in order to procure resources to boost the economy. As an example: if most Americans believe that all Muslims, and all people in the Middle East (if they are ignorant enough, they may assume that the two are synonymous) are evil fanatics who want to bomb America until no one there is alive, they will not object when the government sends troops over to the Middle East. They will assume that the troops are there to fight the evil, American-hating, backwards, and ultimately fictional people who live there, rather than realising that the war may instead be primarily for economic reasons. Furthermore, if in the process of 'winning the war' in the Middle East, America acquires access to large amounts of fossil fuels, they will simply claim that these are just spoils of war, and that America has every right to them.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I also posted this on my blog if you'd rather read it there.
Wow...I never thought of it like that. It is one thing to be sheltered from the truth, but something worse to be led astray from real intentions. Many of the guys from my high school joined the military for reasons similar to ideas that everyone in the Middle East are, "evil fanatics who want to bomb America until no one there is alive."
DeleteDo you think that keeping America's youth ignorant helps the economy? (may be true, but it's not right at all.)