[QUOTE="theone86"]It was very rebellious and reactionary at first, I sorta thought that any values that were ingrained in society were completely arbitrary and in need of constant question. The ironic part was that a lot of the values I assumed to be universal were really just socially ingrained in me. Then when i got to college I started to study different perspectives, mostly in sociology and philosophy, and my approach became a bit more methodical and objective.
LongZhiZi
I would say that college is the WORST place to learn different perspectives. Unless your school somehow dodged the PC police for the past 40 years or so, I would argue it's less conducive to discussion and debate than society in general. A couple of guys + a few beers= best place to hash out serious debate. I don't know if you're still in college, but if you are (or anyone else that is that thinks colleges are an open place to freely discuss ideas), in your next class where's it's appropriate, say you believe that it's better if women were solely housewives after marriage and shouldn't be in the workplace. Be prepared for some rather colorful language headed your way. (And I'm in no way responsible if you are forced to go to some gender sensitivity course as a result). Now, is that statement truly that bad? No, not even close. You didn't advocate for anyone's death or enslavement. You didn't advocate the abuse of anyone or outright torture. You just merely stated it would be better (which also suggests that women working isn't even bad...just that it's BETTER if they didn't). If university campuses were full of people truly open to fair debate, what was said a legitimate position. But I'm pretty sure you won't be getting honest debate in return. I think the only way to get an honest perspective on things is to either a) live for many years with an open mind and obtain wisdom, or b) go to a country that's very different than your own. Once there (and I'm doing this now) and you've lived there for a while, you begin to see what makes their society work well/poorly and it really puts into perspective your own country. (PS) I singled out your post since you mentioned college, but also because you didn't state any specific belief/view. I didn't want to come across as attacking your ideas since I don't even know what they are.You'll forgive me if I don't see your point of view as particularly open-minded or objective. Simply by meeting different people, getting a general sense of strengths and weaknesses, and seeing what they can do best I can tell you that there is nothing out there that says women are better suited to stay in the kitchen, besides a hegemonic view of the world which college has, in part, taught me to be wary of and to argue effectively against, thank you Foucault. If I had to generalize the abilities of one sex, in fact, based solely on my experiences I'd say men are better suited to take care of duties at home than women are better suited for professional vocation. Mind you, I don't think that's due to anything inherent in either sex, just a casual observation. At any rate, the point is not to learn perspectives, the point is to understand perspectives, and just because a perspective is understood does not mean it must be advocated as legitimate, on the contrary it could very well be deomonized. We demonize Hitler we demonize Gacy, we demonize Nixon (we'll say just for the whole Watergate thing for now to avoid political debate).They all had perspectives, we can seek to understand their perspectives, but that doesn't mean we ahve to stop demonizing those perspectives. That process is part of something called production of truth, truth is neither completely solid and knowable nor ungraspable, it is a commodity that is produced and controlled by different systems within our society, pedagogy being one of them, thank you Foucault again. In my experience college is completely open for debate, you can say anything you want to in a class short of slurring other students, but you can't expect to have your opinion universally accepted or even respected no matter what the content, and I think you'll find this holds true for the real world as well.
At any rate, I found college and continue to find it a most enlightening experience. Agree or disagree with hegemony, philosophy and sociology can teach you to understand it, same with different religions. That's much of the point of college, is to see different perspectives and learn to look at them outside of your own perception, that's not losing objectivity, that helps in gaining it.
Also, if the discourse supports a certain point of view that doesn't mean it's not objective, it simply means that in the experince of those leading the discourse the most objective conclusion is the one they are vocalizing. This could mean that discourse is objectively right, it could mean nothing, it could mean that the truth is intangible and that the discourse is simply an attempt to grasp or define it, it could simply mean that the production of truth is simply supporting this line of reasoning currently, but whatever the truth is college only helps to further your understanding of it.
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