I am a huge advocate for LGBT human rights, even being raised Roman Catholic and reading the ever-elusive Bible. That doesn’t mean to say that I have renounced the scriptures of religion, or even denounced my faith, but it definitely doesn’t mean I agree with the theological beliefs surrounding homosexuality. Everywhere we look, the world is changing and fast. It wasn’t long ago that our black and ethnic brethren were also cast out and shunned due to American ignorance, yet people still perceive homosexuality to be a sin, a choice, and most importantly, evil.
Ethics class was something I expected to be centered around debate, especially about our beliefs on society and life in general. What I didn’t expect was one person who literally spoke from no factual evidence or belief, just pure unadulterated ignorance. From day one, it seemed as though this person, who I’ll leave to remain anonymous, would just say and make the most outlandish comments, mostly centered on homosexuality, but not entirely. Some days they would make a comment, responding during the teacher’s lecture, and it became obvious fairly quick that this person was a strict Kantian; I doubt they even knew it beforehand. Rule based thinking will only get you so far, so long as the rules are never challenged and shone in a light that can be perceived as wrong. Such an example was this.
The class in an entirety doesn’t enjoy the comments made by this certain person, but to be honest not all comments are offensive. I’m pretty sure the whole point of Ethics class is learning to be ethical in a real-world scenario, so like the rest of us, anonymous therefore should have the right to learn. As the year winds down however, it’s becoming more and more obvious that, at least to me, little is being retained by this person.
Here’s a tidbit of a conversation had towards the beginning of the year: Our teacher asked us to form groups and pick someone we found morally upstanding, righteous even. Someone like Ghandi, or Mother Theresa, and depending on your understanding of the person basically anyone could be viewed that way, so long as they lived with compassion and decency. It matters little who everyone picked for their topic, with exception to Anon’s group. Once it came time to discuss as a group who, in each group, we believed to be “truly ethical,” the group with anonymous came to butt heads in front of the class. What came next still baffles me and burns my ass to no end. The teacher, perplexed on how in the first days of class and on such a simple in-class assignment people could already be coming to blows, asked the group what the issue was.
“Did your group settle on a person?” The teacher asked.
“Um…well we did but one of us doesn’t agree,” Responded a team member, and looked towards the dissenter.
Before the teacher could even speak, Anonymous’ mouth flew open, “Well wait a second here, it’s not that I don’t agree - it’s that I don’t understand who this person is they’ve chosen? Like, I don’t know who Paul Newman is, so I can’t judge whether or not he’s ethical. What if he’s an axe murderer, a rapist, or a homosexual?”
I lost my cool. I had tried giving this person the benefit of the doubt for so many off-color comments, but this was the last straw.
“How do a homicidal maniac, a sex offender and someone of a different sexual orientation than that of your own fall into the same category?! How did you get from point A to point out of this world? Times are changing, and the homosexual community is not all a bunch sinners or pedophiles, they’re people too.”
The class fell silent, and no one responded. I think everyone was waiting for the teacher to take hold of the situation, but where it was the first few days and an ethics based class, he had to be, what else, but ethical! I nearly bit my tongue off keeping quiet, and so did many other students’ offended by his blatantly mindless comment. The only reason I could understand and come to terms with his foolishness was because he was from a different era than us; the majority of the class was in their 20’s to 30’s whereas he was definitely pushing 50 and a full-blooded Main-ah. I’m not saying all born and raised Mainers hate the gay community, but just like to this day in the Deep South, you will find people around the ages of 50, 60 and 70 who still are as racist as they were during the Civil Rights movement, hell even people who are my age because they were raised by these people: but that’s life.
To this day, I still regret not saying anything more. I had so much discontent for that comment, it made me see red, but it was an Ethics class and to go balls to the wall crazy on this guy would not only have made me appear to be the ignorant one, but also unruly and most certainly not ethical. I know he probably didn’t mean any harm, but for those fighting for their rights daily and dying for their cause, it’s an unrealistic comment that should’ve never been made.
The reason I don’t believe anonymous is learning Ethics? Recently I missed one class discussion, and apparently it was on the topic of the Westboro Baptist Church protesting military funerals for the repeal of DADT. Anonymous’ stance: It’s freedom of speech and should be allowed. Despite the fact that I agree to an extent, there are better platforms and places for protests - the funerals for the deaths of our infantrymen and women isn’t one of them.
Here's week 10, week 11 by the end of today. Things have not been going well for me and I appreciate that you're being very lenient. As for my cat, yes I had written about him before, but not much as he was only three years old. I have a few but he was the youngest. It was very tragic and I only wish I could've done something. I feel wholly responsible since I brought in the stray.
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ReplyDeleteI'm going to take my time with this and sort out my thoughts on the writing, separate from the content--that will take a bit of time.
ReplyDeleteMy first reaction is that you have chosen one of those big topics I ordinarily hate, but you have approached it from a very individual and personal point of view--your experience in Ethics class. That was a very wise move and by doing it this way, you keep the material in hand, keep it fresh, make it yours.
There are so many things that interest me in this. I'm going to give my reaction to some of them.
ReplyDeleteYou see the class, naturally, from the student POV--I see it equally naturally from the teacher's. I've had any number of Anonymouses in classes stretching back 40 years. On the one hand, they are terrifying for the teacher because they are unpredictable, and teachers are not great fans of unpredictability. On the other, as you make clear, they can shake up a class, and that is often a virtue.
The biggest problem with Anonymouses is that anything someone might say to dispute their assertions, to argue alternatively, Anonymous almost always takes as a personal attack or as 'proof' that you are closed-minded (a little projection going on!)
They live in a closed system where they are always right and where everything either proves that they are right or proves that the things that seem to show they are not right are obvious lies (a little paranoia on your salad, anyone?)
So, pretty quickly they become a class nightmare. I would guess that your instructor immediately recognized Anonymous as a type and was saying to himself in despair, "Oh fuckkkk! A whole semester of this jerk...." Hence his silence.
I gave up on trying to conduct class discussions a long time ago because I was tired of students not understanding a teacher's role which is to provoke, prod, and question. If I do my job right, at the end of the semester you should not know my opinions about politics, sex, religion, any public question, or my personal life. The only time I will show any passion is when the subject is dogs and training dogs or, as here, when the subject is education.
But students often think that they can guess what a teacher's POV is by the fact that he wears a beard and jeans, or doesn't have an attendance policy, or whatever. And that's led to students taking my prodding and questioning to be reflections of my own ideas and getting angry at me for what they imagine I believe.
Another reason your teacher kept his mouth shut perhaps!
Anyway, there sat a student completely misreading my attitude toward, for example, abortion--sitting there fuming and accusing and saying that this class was indoctrination. And me unable to defend myself! I completely agreed with her about abortion--but could not say so! So, it was frustrating being accused of something I was not doing (indoctrinating) and holding beliefs I did not hold and not getting through to a student.
One reason I would never teach ethics!
So here I've talked about teaching and students, but not told you my opinion about any of the substantative issues you touch on: religion, homosexuality, tolerance, free speech.
The previous paragraphs constitute a reaction to your piece: it stimulates my thought, makes me sort out my opinions, and it helps me to understand your point of view. Rather than analyze the actual writing, I'm paying you the compliment of reacting to the content (still without offering my opinion of these controversial issues!)
Those are the things an opinion piece should do.
I at first didn't know if this piece was going to be accurate for this week's topic, but I'm glad it went over as well as it did. It was something that, as you can tell, caused a lot of mixed feelings for me, mostly anger and ire but I could still take into consideration that he lived at a different time than myself. I try to be objective to comments and things of this nature, but sometimes it's hard to just swallow it down and ignore it, which leads to these kinds of situations. I always try to be the quiet one in debate classes because there are so many outstanding variables that I really need to think about. I also always try to weigh the effect of what I'm about to say or thinking about saying. This was one case that I just couldn't keep quiet.
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