I'm afraid this tale is very true! There's all sorts of prejudices one might add - 'too posh' or too 'common'; too pushy or too hesitent; too unexpected or too persistent...!
Is the moral of the story that people really only want to hear their own voices?
In my experience in ministry, it is very common for people to miss the true significance of something. Someone offers a profound and moving prayer to God, for instance, but they are denigrated afterwards for praying with poor English, for wearing a political T-shirt, or for being chosen over someone else, and so on. And that applies, too, very generally in life.
To me the moral of Youngjin's cartoon seems that we long for the unknown but simultaneously cannot face our own constructions that come along in the mirror with that stranger. We long for the uncanny without the willingness to acknowledge our own strangeness. But strangeness can never become the obvious. A man that looks into the obvious to encounter strangeness will therefor never meet what he does not know, neither of Other and of himself. The encounter will never take place.
I'm afraid this tale is very true! There's all sorts of prejudices one might add - 'too posh' or too 'common'; too pushy or too hesitent; too unexpected or too persistent...!
ReplyDeleteIs the moral of the story that people really only want to hear their own voices?
In my experience in ministry, it is very common for people to miss the true significance of something. Someone offers a profound and moving prayer to God, for instance, but they are denigrated afterwards for praying with poor English, for wearing a political T-shirt, or for being chosen over someone else, and so on. And that applies, too, very generally in life.
DeleteTo me the moral of Youngjin's cartoon seems that we long for the unknown but simultaneously cannot face our own constructions that come along in the mirror with that stranger. We long for the uncanny without the willingness to acknowledge our own strangeness. But strangeness can never become the obvious. A man that looks into the obvious to encounter strangeness will therefor never meet what he does not know, neither of Other and of himself. The encounter will never take place.
ReplyDelete