I'm currently taking a Political Science class about political ideologies. The reason I'm taking this class is that I'm interested in learning about other people's perspectives (or at least learning one perspective of other people's perspectives). I want to learn about other people, including why they think what they think, and grow in empathy.
One thing I've learned in my few thirty-some years of life is that people aren't actually all that different. We're all human. We all have many traits in common with most other human people. Yet, we also all have differences. Each person, and each group of people, is unique. I want to learn about other people so I can grow in my understanding of our common ground and gain a greater appreciation for our differences. Basically, I'm starting to study political ideologies because I want to learn more about the people who subscribe to them.
I think that empathy is a very important virtue. We need to be able to connect with each other, so we as individuals and as a society can become better, more wise, more caring, and more kind. I don't want to belittle those whose beliefs differ from mine. I want to understand them so I can appreciate that which is good about their perspective and also share my perspective with them in a way that'll make sense to them.
I, personally, am fairly comfortable in my beliefs, political and otherwise. I'm not shopping around. What I am doing is trying to understand why others hold beliefs that I disagree with, nit just so I can understand their ideas, but so I can understand them. I want to gain more empathy, and I trust that I can do that by learning more about others and their ideologies.
No comments:
Post a Comment