From the films, I particularly connected with the "Ecology of Mind" video about the tribes. I have always loved learning about indigenous tribes and their beliefs and ways of life. Modern day society has a lot to learn from these simplistic types of cultures. In many situations, people of developed countries will take everyday needs and items for granted. Tribal cultures thank the earth for what they are given and they can see how all aspects of life are connected.
"Multiple Kinds of Knowledge"
- Cannot have qualitative research if it is boring to the participant.
- People will section their thoughts and beliefs and you will get a distorted outcome.
- Society has come to believe that there is only one kind of knowledge-scientific knowledge.
- We constrain and filter our perceptions of people by our past experiences and learnings.
- Everyone has their own interpretations of events, objects, etc.
"Lessons of 9/11"
- We should consider the "relative nature" of other peoples thoughts and beliefs
- Sept. 11th made Americans feel vulnerable and fragile in their surroundings
- It removed the "rosy filter" Americans saw through-we thought we were untouchable
- As we grow and age, we see things differently than we did before.
- "Everything is different" could be viewed in multiple ways, from ideas to religions to ways of thought.
- Diversity in change is very important-gives us new ways of understanding
When the gardener in the film was talking about how diversity in plants is very important, it could also help with people understanding that diversity in thought and people is important as well. "Lessons of 9/11" also talks about this when Bateson says that diversity in change is important. Both the article and film also show us that sometimes people need to be put back into reality and to lose the "rosy" lenses that we are looking at the world through.
My major is anthropology and I would like to focus in cultural anthropology, so I connected with Bateson's ideas that were presented in the readings. I think the study of epistemology is very interesting. Sometimes, humans set internal limits for themselves that limit their thinking and the expansion of their knowledge. I found a quote the other day and I think it relates well with this section:
"We pass through this world but once. Few tragedies can be more extensive than the stunting of life, few injustices deeper than the denial of an opportunity to strive or even to hope, by a limit imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within."
-Stephen Jay Gould
This quote, to me, says that people should not pass up an opportunity to learn, experience new things and to not let internal limits stop us.