An inevitable bias

As an English/Poli Sci major, I do a lot of reading.... a lot. As in, I live in the library. This is where I work, study, socialize, eat (thank you, Biblio Cafe), and sleep (accidentally). Thus you find me here, spending some quality time behind the circ. desk at quarter to 2 in the morning.

In any case, all of this reading has its benefits at times - necessarily, really, to offset the pain of sleep deprivation and fear of impending blindness. The latest in this front (ignoring a string of new Shakespearean insults I'm storing up) finds itself in Orientalism, a work by Edward Said that criticizes the Western view of what was, until rather recently, generally referred to as "the Orient" - the East to our West, the backward to our developing, the exploited to our exploiting, the inferior yin to our superior yang... supposedly, that is.

Though we discussed Said for the sake of postcolonial literary theory, the concepts can be applied across the board. After all, the perspective through which we view the world plays an integral role in how we interact within it. If we proceed to make assumptions, generalize, and simplify - especially in the case of those claiming to record an unbiased truth or history - we'll continue to miss the boat, and consequently endure all of the conflict and repercussions tied to it.

...My goodness, between beginning this post and now, I dealt with an overflowing toilet in a library restroom, closed the library, returned to my room, and skyped with a friend in Hyderabad (darn time change). Will have to adjourn for the moment, to continue the discussion post-sleep and spinning class (which, thankfully, will wake me up, sleep deprived though I may be). The basic gist: only by recognizing our own bias, perhaps even particularly regarding how much we truly don't know, can we begin to approach a real level of understanding. Thus, classes like ours- sometimes it takes a bit of re-educating rather than just educating.