Evolution of an American Housewife

Professor J,

We want people to change their thinking, or to even think at all which we can't always be sure they've actually done for themselves. Your description of what takes place instead was so accurate.  You did an excellent job in your last post of outlining how the trap slowly closes on our political and religious thinking (can we call it thinking?). By the time I got to the end of the paragraph I could hear a loud SNAP! Yet everyone still believes that they have thought deeply about things and come to their conclusions on their own. Allow me a moment of transparency while I describe what reaching a tipping point and rethinking everything mid life can feel like:

I woke up out of a dead sleep and the iceberg of my mind had turned over. Capsized in the night, deep thoughts, and questions I didn’t know that I already had the answers to emerged dark and somewhat unformed on the surface.  The certainty of all I had been taught and believed rolled over into the shadowy depths and silence without a sound as they slipped under into the darkness.  It was only then that I realized how small the surface thinking, not even thinking really but following, had been and how massive, dense, and powerful those deeper ideas were.  They broke through and rose high above the surface as the old thoughts got pushed deeper under the weight of them. The universe was preparing me for truth. Toughening me up, knowing that the truth is often shockingly ugly.

Massive rusty hinges in my mind had been slowly opening for a decade or so. I became less comfortable with what everyone around me thought and more at ease with questioning.  Everything. All the time. Suddenly inquiring of friends and family members why they think the way they do, when they assume that you agree with them, can be unnerving for them. It’s no walk in the park for you either and won’t make you popular. People see honest hard questions as antagonistic. Such are the little enclaves of thinking we’ve insulated ourselves with, people who think and believe like us. People who won’t ask us anything we can’t answer.  The unspoken pact between us is that we’ll afford them the same courtesy.

So what finally caused the iceberg to invert? Three things made this shift in my thought process possible: Travel, art, discussion. 

Travel: Travel is an absolute necessity for realizing that people, apart from politics and power are startlingly similar. I recently watched the  documentary, A Matter of Trust, about Billy Joel's concert tour of the Soviet Union in 1987. I highly recommend it. Having recently traveled to Russia I can attest to having the exact same feelings as many of the band members--these are the people we were taught to fear? Sitting on a subway in St. Petersburg I had an overwhelming feeling of having been duped. Which leads to the question--by whom and to what end? In Mexico while having discussions about immigration the same thing was true. Much of what I believed was simply wrong. In Scandinavia "European Socialism" hardly looked sinister. People want to work, raise their children in safety, and have basic human rights. But as you point out over and over again--who benefits from keeping our fellow citizens, who are seeing the world second hand, from knowing that?

Art: Who can imagine the 60s without Dylan? Or Warhol? Or Harper Lee, Rachel Carson, or Betty Friedan? There's a reason that we see over and over again books burned, music banned, and art destroyed in totalitarian regimes or theocracies.  Because it's powerful and thought provoking. It also takes time away from busyness and gives the mind room to breathe and explore. Everyone knows deep down that ideas are more powerful than weapons and far harder to contain and control. It's what makes it terrifying to those who worship the status quo.

Discussion: In the past coffee houses, taverns, and universities have been ground zero for radical change. I don't know if the internet will be as effective, but perhaps. I will say that having to actually spell out what I believe and why (week after week!) is enlightening. Sharing, discussing, arguing, defending, questioning, puzzling it together, teasing it apart, learning something knew and having to decide how it fits, honestly assessing one's own ideas, and being willing to see the other point of view--how can we get where we need to go if people aren't doing that? With Americans having fewer close friends than in previous decades it may be difficult for people to find those willing to delve deep as well as make time for such endeavors. But what could be more important?

I'm noticing that things that I think have brought about shifts in my own opinions, are things that feed the soul and could also fall under personal experience.

So what do you say, Dr. J? What kind of things do you think most influence a change in people's thinking? What's on your list?