learning journal 5: rosemary's plight

Our activity in class was interesting, and I wondered what conclusions and insights I could draw from it until this morning, when I watched an interview with essayist Scott Russell Sanders. Sanders, talking about essaying, mentioned that an essayist's job is not to impose meaning, but discover it. As I was listening, I questioned the difference between discovering and imposing--because sharing meaning in an essay or story could seem like discovering and imposing depending on the audience.

And then I thought of Rosemary. In our small group discussion, Rosemary was slammed because she traded her virtue for a boat ride across the river (granted, the boat ride was necessary to her meeting Hernando, but I'm still convinced there must have been different options). In our culture, it could be seen as a lesser sacrifice, because we are discouraged from sacrificing our morals as a means to an end. BUT, as I thought of Sanders' interview, I realized that I was imposing my cultural and moral values onto Rosemary's story, which was unfair because we weren't presented with more details about the culture she was raised in. And beyond that, Hernando himself could have had a different set of values, which is why he so harshly rejected her in a moment when she could have used a little mercy.

The point is this: we often make snap judgments based on our cultural norms and religious values, when in reality others may not (and probably do not) share our beliefs and customs. Going into a different culture makes this more apparent, and more than likely it brings out either the best or worst in our own characters. If we are willing to take a step back from judgment, and not impose our cultural meaning onto another people, we are more likely to learn from them. For example, if we go into a culture that doesn't value marriage and chastity as highly as us with our LDS beliefs, we may be inclined to pass judgment when they are more promiscuous than we are. In this case, we are imposing our values on them because they haven't had the same upbringing as we have. If we were missionaries, we would have a chance to share the gospel with them and hope that they would learn to respect their virtue; if not, we could be examples without having the attitude that we are better because we have the gospel. Indeed, the more we judge, the less likely they will be to allow us to study their culture. Anyway. Imposing meaning versus discovering meaning may mean different things depending on our particular projects, but the point is that we have to realize that our imposing our cultural meaning on other people is a harmful attitude when trying to understand another culture.

Putting oneself on a pedestal is not the way to go.