Echoing their real life, the film touched on issues that these people are dealing with in their real lives: a battle against mining companies for the protection of their land. Their Amazonian homes contain vast amounts of oil, and they have seen an uprising that one of the audience members directly related to the Na’vi resistance in Avatar. “It’s reality, what’s happening now, just in another dimension,” says Marlin Santi, one leader, whose words are translated; he feels the film could help bring highlight the abuse in the real, through the film’s mirror on humanity.

When we compare the film to real life, however, there is an important aspect that is not new to this story; Achuar leader Lius Vargas brought up possibly the most idealistic, unfortunate aspect of the film, that of a white man sweeping in to rescue the indigenous people, becoming the liaison and the savior. “This is a Hollywood movie, so it’s practically a given that a non-native comes to the defense of the people, and leads them to triumph in the end,” says Vargas.  The importance of a movie like this, or a book like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, published in pieces in 1899 and as a book in 1902, is that they spotlight some of the horrors that come along with imperialism–which was an important and shocking story for regular people in the western world in Conrad’s time (arguably not so much of a shocker now). But both Conrad’s and James Cameron’s stories have that white man savior, continuing, albeit in a slightly more socially and politically aware manner, the underlying superiority of the “civilized” man. This largely does nothing to dispel the whole idea of the “white man’s burden,” that notion that he must spread his enlightened ways and rescue the world from its perceived “darkness.” This underlying theme was obvious to Vargas as he watched the movie.

OK, I hopped on the bandwagon for a second there, but I swear I’m back on the ground now. Love it or hate it, that movie encourages chatter.

Anyone living in the United States is familiar with the “Pine Groves” and the “Terrace Hills” and insert-generic-nature-term-here subdivisions that plague areas developed in the last several decades. I find them terribly boring, non-distinct from each other, almost comical. But having never really researched it thoroughly, I don’t know many of the details about street names inside those neighborhoods. Do they follow the same theme? Are they based entirely on nice-sounding and emotionally inspiring concepts? Do they simply draw names from hats? The answer is out there somewhere. I can only shed light on one example, the Magnolias in Cherokee County, Georgia, and the answer for this case may be all of the above.

The Magnolias on Google Maps

The main road is Magnolia Leaf, which sounds normal to an unknowing stranger or newcomer to the ‘hood. Take a left on the next intersecting road however, and things start to digress. That’s Society Way, which begs an air of I’m not sure what, but definitely sparks pretension in my mind. What political message is trying to make its point on Society Way? I’m not sticking around to hear it.

After that you can walk down any of the surrounding streets and feel the confusion build: Market Place Dr., Breeze Lane, Blossom Way, Lantern Lane, until you arrive at the other end of the neighborhood and land on Antebellum Place. This is the first helpful clue to the theme the street-naming council was going for, with its clear reference to a historical time period. So, they’re thinking Southern atmosphere, let’s stir ideas of the weather, the plant life, lack of electricity, a pre-Civil War society…

A Magnolia tree, long a favored symbol of the South (Old and New).

After some thought, it can be roughly deduced what theme the developers were going trying to provide. Most people who use these roads will give it little thought at all, or will give it the least amount of thought. Perhaps the developers were going for a nostalgic Charleston theme. Introducing a confusing selection of South Carolinian and Old South terms to a neighborhood in a neighboring state can stir images of those things for drivers-by, whether or not their imaginations are accurate . So perhaps in this sense, they have created the mood they were going for. For others who put together the strange relations between the words and the historical references of each, the message becomes even more vague. Are we trying to recall this era in southern history in grand terms, by mixing traveling preachers with cotton gins and breezes, and adding a little nod to southern society by naming one road that very general “Society Way”? Are we pairing rocking chairs with “antebellum” because it will make the subject more approachable? I don’t think people want a history lesson in their neighborhood street signs; and if they do, let’s attempt to make it a bit more clear than the one presented here. There’s already enough trouble reconciling today’s South and the antebellum era of slavery. We don’t need to exacerbate the issue with vaguely related street names drawn from a hat.

The “Revisiting the Past: History Museums in the U.S.” has been lingering in my mind since I read it several days ago. I did not know very much about Ford’s propulsion of his own version of historic preservation, or the formation of Greenfield Village. Neither did I know anything about Rockefeller, Jr.’s role restoring Colonial Williamsburg, VA. The details about their roles in preserving U.S. history (and both the positives and negatives of their projects) were quite fascinating.

I have spent some time studying revisionist historians’ role in changing the face of and perspectives regarding American history; I have also studied the movement towards pluralistic, social history that bloomed in the 1960s-70s. But I had never considered those movements to revise historic traditions and perceptions in the context of the MUSEUM– that proved the most enlightening element of the article. It seems simple to me now, and obvious that the museum world would have to be adjusted as women, African Americans, Native Americans and others were writing a more dynamic American history. But prior to this I had not made that connection. The museum’s role is an important element of the story of American history (and its recent revisions), so I found this article very worthwhile.

I found it surprising that prior to the founding, mid-nineteenth century, of the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, there was not a large  or well-orchestrated effort to obtain or maintain historic sites and houses. The women who had organized before that were somewhat successful, but I suppose it is taken for granted, in today’s world of UNESCO sites and national parks, that spots of intrinsic value have not always been valued as they are now.

The article was well-worth the read, as I have made several connections to other historical trends I’ve studied; it has also remained in my brain, where I continue to ponder the main points. To me, that is the mark of a strong piece of writing.

On a different note, I have been looking into the photos for my exhibit panels, and have found several that may work for the introduction. I am very interested to visit Tuskegee during our upcoming field trip, particularly now that I am part of the team that is working on the “Why Tuskegee” panel. The history of that area, Booker T. Washington, and the field and institution will all come to life, I feel, when I can see them myself and have the place in my mind. Looking forward to it.

Newseum was a curiosity, to say the least. I am not sure what to make of it, and can certainly see the reason behind the controversy (both the topic being covered and the investors who funded it). Nevertheless, it seems a bit inevitable, albeit sad, that visitors today are lured to flashy, technology-driven exhibits and museums. The average citizen might prefer it to quiet, reading-based, reflective museums. It is a real issue facing the museum world today, and technology will probably never be able to be entirely left out of museums as an element in telling the stories of history. The trick will be making it just as thought-provoking. Well-made videos can do this– I know I have seen several excellent ones while visiting exhibits and museums in the past.

In the chapter “Waizhou, U.S.A.,” Lee describes immigration in all its aches and pains, and brings new dimensions to every Chinese take-out or buffet restaurant I have ever entered. These men, women, and even entire families, have started life anew, and in the United States, the best way for Chinese people to do this is the Chinese food industry. Lee introduces a family, and the mother has lived several years in the US without having learned English. Without the ability to communicate in English, this family (and many others) are limited to jobs in the food industry. And, as Lee points out, the Chinese food industry in the United States is hardly even the food with which these newly-arrived Chinese people are at all familiar.

Lee came to know this family while they lived in New York City, and subsequently wrote an article on their hardships; it was published in January 2003, in the New York Times (I recommend a quick read of this, to get to know this family). But this article is merely the beginning of a tragic tale: she recounts their hard journey of getting to the United States, and then the decision to move the family down to a small town in Hiawassee, Ga., where they bought a small Chinese restaurant in a strip mall. The tale that unfolds in the book is far more tragic, and scarily honest in its assessment of Chinese immigrants adapting to life in small cities across the country.

[It should be noted here, for lack of a better location, that "Waizhou" means, basically, "out-of-state" in Mandarin, and this is the term that defines all of the United States beyond New York City. Hence, Waizhou, U.S.A. is an appropriate term defining the locales across small-town American where Chinese restaurateurs end up.]

The family, Ms. Zheng and Mr. Ni (husband and wife) and their three children, Jolin, Nancy, and Jeffrey (nicknamed Momo), were living in chaos for awhile, apart while each Zheng, Ni, and Jolin was allowed entrance into the US. After living several years in poor conditions in New York City, Ni convinced his wife a relocation would be their best plan. But without much English, Zheng and Ni had a difficult time functioning in the rural Georgia community– quite a far cry from the New York City Chinatown they had left. The family’s money went farther, but at the expense of cultural misunderstandings and family dysfunction. Not long after arriving in Hiawassee, Jolin began acting out against her mother. Questions arose about the childrens’ safety, after a report  was filed that Momo and Nancy had been playing outside the restaurant unsupervised; things went from bad to worse, and the children ended up in foster care. A strange case of domestic abuse followed, with Ni’s arrest (although, as Lee points out, the entire situation is a bit debatable, and the real circumstances may be different).  Ni spent two nights in jail.  This second offense meant the children could not come back home. Zheng and Ni both took it very hard, obviously so; it was made that much worse by the language and culture barriers. “Difeh” began to consume their lives: DFACS, the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services, that is. All of a sudden, their lives were analyzed, personal, invading questions were asked, and DFACS controlled when and where the parents were allowed to see their children. This can all be read in much more detail in Lee’s account of the unraveling; I am only trying to cover a tiny outline. But she does raise the issue of weakness in the child and family agencies system. “Newspapers are always filled,” Lee says, “with accounts of how child and welfare agencies ignored the warning signs and failed to protect the life of some fragile [child] who ended up dead. It’s less common to hear about the flip side, when the government intervention makes things worse.” Ni even felt that the way he was treated was a violation of his human rights, and way beyond anything the authoritarian regime in China had ever attempted upon him. This family’s hardships are worth considering; they are merely a few immigrants among hundreds of thousands sharing the Chinese-American experience.

Lee says on her Web site that this family’s story was part of her inspiration for the book. The unraveling, and somewhat haphazard reorganization, of their lives, and the cultural confusion and destruction that took place between the Hiawassee community and this 5-person Chinese familial unit, sheds light on the larger issues facing Chinese immigrants today. There is great demand across the country for Chinese restaurants– every little American city has at least one. And most often, they are run by Chinese people, who cook food that slightly resembles the food they were raised eating, and sometimes have trouble speaking English with you. Even if completely fluent, they speak English with an accent. I never took this to mean very much; to me, I would think, this person was obviously born in China, came over here, end of story. Turns out that is far from accurate. It amazes me to think of the stories behind the faces I have seen in restaurants and take-out joints, and of what these people may have encountered in order to have the opportunity to serve American-style Chinese food. Here, I do not mean “opportunity” to imply that any American is entitled to be served food by a Chinese immigrant; I mean it to suggest the imagined life, set against the reality.

This is one of the most poignant and significant chapters in Lee’s chronicles of Chinese food. The humanity of this Chinese family and the pain, legal battles, fights, and cultural confusion that threatened their cohesion (and, indeed, inflicted permanent damage) allow a window into the life of Chinese restaurant owners and workers. For such a well-loved, hugely popular food institution in the US, Chinese food businesses seem to remain behind that impersonal veil.

Read Jennifer 8. Lee’s book, for the full account of this family’s bittersweet story. Their story is an important account of one aspect of modern America, juxtaposing the popularity of Chinese food in nearly every city across the country with the stories of the families who wake up every day to cook the food.

I may be looking at it from too different a perspective, concerned for no reason at all. After all, I am a firm believer in the value of Harry Potter, and vehemently defend the series when faced with an anti-Harry opponent. Maybe there are many redeeming values in Guo Jingming’s seven novels, and the writer’s Cadillac will spur no sense of jealously in a Chinese youth’s eyes.

Read the report and tell me your thoughts.

To do so, we’ve read a collection of poetry written by Japanese Americans about the internment during WWII, American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, and Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. It has been a fortnight full of enlightening ideas regarding what your ethnicity means to others and to yourself, and how one adapts culture, and creates hybridity. The guest professor (the entire course has been taught by guest professors, except for the first 2-week segment taught by the coordinator, Dr. Tom Keene), Sarah Robbins, has facilitated a series of great class discussions, getting us really deep into what it means to be Asian-American.

Somewhat by coincidence, my own curiosity lead me weeks earlier to a book on the new release table at Barnes and Noble– one that delved into the curious incident of a Powerball lottery that had several dozen winners, all of whose numbers had been identical and inspired by the same thing: a fortune cookie. The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, written by New York Times writer Jennifer 8. Lee (yes, 8), takes the reader  on a  journey into everything you’ve never imagined behind the ethnic food we love so much; and, Lee argues, it isn’t really all that “ethnic” anyway. Chinese American food is essentially American food, says Lee, and from there she shares stories about the origins of the fortune cookie, the international argument caused by soy sauce, the dangerous lives of Chinese deliverymen, and a heart-wrenching tale of a Chinese immigrant family who was nearly torn about by working and living in a rural Georgia town.  I have found this book to be an interesting addition to my own understanding of the Chinese-American experience. Though it focuses on food, who can really argue that food is not a basic playing field for cultural exchange, no mater what your ethnicity or geographic location? Even without knowing a person’s language or culture or history, they can share with you their food. And so, through this familiar medium, Lee explores the whole globe to define “Chinese food.”

I am going to share an expert here, because I think it is an excellent illustration of the way we see cultural hybridity today, and how “assimilation” itself may be changing in meaning. Her sentiments in this passage echo almost exactly a point we touched upon today in class– when a minority combines itself with the majority, what elements of each culture are retained, which are lost, and to what extent might each be a bad or good thing? By giving up parts of your own culture to assimilate, how much becomes a personal loss? And what happens when walls or bumps arise between the two cultures one may be living in that might cause someone to step back an reevaluate their identity? She adds to it an interesting additional point: when the minority or immigrant population becomes an integral part of mainstream society, that society itself adapts to it, and appears different than it used to. We can see this most clearly all around us in the United States. As shes says earlier in her books, we often think of apple pie as being quintessential “American”– but when is the last time you had apple pie, and when is the last time you are Chinese food? Exactly. Probably in the last week or so. Interesting…

I think it is a testament to the writer, and a great cultural learning tool, that we can see elements of the Chinese American experience in her own exploration of American Chinese food.

I’ll leave you with her words:

“As much as the mainstream changes the immigrants, the immigrants change the mainstream. As recently as three decades ago, being American often meant distancing yourself from your immigrant ancestry. In her 1975 essay “Ethnicity and Anthropology in America,” anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote, ‘Being American is a matter of abstention from foreign ways, foreign food, foreign ideas, foreign accents.’

Even our definition of ‘assimilation’ is changing. The old-school definition referred to how a minority blended into a majority. Now social scientists are pushing a new definition: the convergence of disparate cultures. The popularity of Chinese food shows that assimilation may no longer require that minorities be subsumed into the majority. Instead, in a country where 20 percent of the population consists of immigrants and their children, assimilation means convergence from all sides.

…

In reality, General Tso’s chicken is arguably as American as it is foreign, Chinese only in the way that burritos are ‘Mexican’ or spaghetti and meatballs is ‘Italian.’ These are ‘native foreign dishes’– ‘native’ because they originated here and may exist nowhere else, but ‘foreign’ because they were inspired by other cuisines. American Chinese food has developed its own identity– so much so that it is sold in Korea, Singapore, and the Dominican Republic as its own distinct cuisine. “

The last two weeks I’ve learned some random interesting things about Wikipedia. While the English Wikipedia has over 2.8 million entries, the next-largest is the German Wiki, which lags far behind that in size. However, host Patrick Cox points out that it is no less thorough in its encyclopedic knowledge. What the German version is lacking that accounts for the massive size difference is the thousands upon thousands of “stubs” and entries explaining very tiny elements of American or English pop culture. Stubs themselves are incomplete articles that might eventually be deleted, defining very trivial parts of culture. And the other, more extensive but equally as trivial entries might be credited to people who are experts on very specific things– say, for instance, if I wrote a whole huge entry on every detail of the Home Alone movie series. The distinction between German-language Wiki and English-language Wiki is this stringent weeding out of trivial knowledge. The German focus is to make Wikipedia the same caliber as any printed, published academia-based encyclopedia. The English-language one is, therefore, much larger, and filled with much more specific detail. This is not a bad thing– plenty of times I have needed a random factoid answered that has been a bother in my head, and have eased my mind with Wiki. It’s just quite an interesting cultural thing to consider.

It also baffled me to learn of the barriers that some language systems have overcome to streamline their own Wikipedias. Chinese language, for example, has two writing systems– traditional characters and simplified characters (the latter has been pushed and taught since the mid-20th century). Some articles were being written in simplified, some in traditional, and the characters are different enough to cause a problem for readers who can’t read both systems. Chinese programmers hastily developed a way to duplicate the articles into both, solving the issue. The predicament only gets tougher for Kazakh speakers, though: they have three writing systems. This is an element of global language barriers that I have never thought of before– that one language when spoken could have three possible translations into writing. The language in Kazakhstan can be written in the Cyrillic alphabet (like Russian), the Roman/Latin alphabet (like English), and in the Arabic right-to-left format. Adapting a system this complicated to modern world is breathtaking.

And one more trivial bit of knowledge lies in the Spanish-language Wiki. Drama erupted in 2002 after a mere mention of putting advertising on Wiki article pages enraged a group of contributors; they split from Wiki and began their own user-written encyclopedia Web site, Enciclopedia Libre. Eventually things were mended (because it had been literally just an online conversation that contained the thought of advertising), but the remarkable thing is the power of the individual in something as big as Wiki, on something so big as the Internet.

I am, after all, just one person, putting my thoughts here.

I can picture Mr. Coyote vividly in my head, legs still moving to propel him further, but hovering dangerously in the air, until, in seemingly slow motion, he looks down and realizes he’s in for an inevitable plunge.

Anderson points out that just like the Road Runner, we’ll get scuffed up but make it through (however, more chastised).

I look at this era and see both a truly new path before me. A retracted world, bruised and still not over the bout (not even close, really), is staring me in the face. In a way, this is the most frightening of worlds to step into, after four years in college living off student loans and working for minimum wage, hovering between dependency and full responsibility. A brutal employment arena awaits, every company and non-profit retracting spending and freezing their hiring, and get-rich-fast plans nonexistent. I have spent years accumulating a base of knowledge and experience so that I could face the real world with confidence. I’m still confident, knowledgeable, and capable—but the world I am going to enter next May looks very different.

I never wanted to be rich though, really. And reminding a new generation where the definition of “needs” distinguishes itself from “wants” is really the only thing that could happen—the Dow Jones’ seemingly endless climb upward was a false reassurance for nearly three decades. Did we really think it could never end?

For my lifestyle, I embrace this shift gladly. I already rather like having less, and I’m making it my personal goal to really, really, cut my belongings down by a large chunk this summer. (Bless moving to a new place for keeping us real like that.) Thinking on a smaller scale is more appealing to me in terms of belongings, living space, clothing, and even beauty care (painting your own nails in the front yard, how lovely).

The disconcerting thing is who will hire me, and how I will afford health care. I’ve recently been looking deeper at the inefficiencies of health care systems (U.S. and others, too), and the whole thing is a huge cumbersome mess. That topic is for another blog, that I’m mulling over right now. But the thought of embracing any clunky system that exists currently is frightening. We are scared stiff about the calamitous costs that can get dumped on us without medical coverage. It is real, and it is scary. Not to get too far off topic though, the best I can do is equip myself with all the things I know, love, and have seen, and keep in mind all the things I will continue to add to my arsenal over time, and hope for the best. I will always work hard. I will always keep learning. And in tough times, I think the ones who most eagerly embrace the new, redefined world are the ones who can best lead it towards its more sustainable future.

Anderson provided another gem of an illustration of this uncertain, but certainly global, situation that we face, one that I find perfectly juxtaposes the excitement and fear of those huge seismic shifts that come our way sometimes. He says: “The meltdown amounts to a spectacular moment of global consciousness, this generation’s version of the Apollo astronauts’ iconic 1968 photograph of the earth from the moon—an unforgettable reminder that all 6.7 billion of us are in this together, profoundly and inextricably interdependent. (The sublime always had a bit of terror mixed in.)”

Now, what kind of immense picture does that conjure up, of this great, big planet? I can see billions of faces, mine included, staring boldly towards the future.

The assignment (for my World Since 1945 class) is to research an event of international political significance that has taken place between 1945 and 1999. Approaching it at a specific angle– versus just attempting to do “the Vietnam War”– we need to examine three primary sources relating to that event. So basically, I need three sources coming from the time period that the event occurred, analized and compared in 5 pages. I’ve not done much yet in my career in history with primary sources, and that is essentially the bread-and-butter of an historian’s job. Examining the documents (journals, letters, government documents, etc.) that remain from history give us the real insight. It is when the analysis comes in that books and essays are created, giving us the perspectives we may have on history. You have historians to thank for compiling and tidying much of the history you know.

For my topic, I have chosen the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that Mao Tse-tung began in communist China in the 1960′s. His confidence that tradition and intellectuals would ruin the socialist society was so strong, thousands died in the wake of their attempted obliteration. This is when the Red Guard came to be, and images  still linger of young children in their Maoist uniforms patrolling their country for “revisionists” who posed a threat to the state.

From this period of Chinese history I will draw several primary sources and narrow it down to the three that best bring varying viewpoints to the table. My initial research returned several works of compiled documents from the state and Mao, a compilation of first-person accounts of the response of Chinese villagers and peasants, and several works from reporters and diplomats from abroad who experienced the Cultural Revolution firsthand while there. I will be going through these sources and others, and hopefully narrowing it all down to my main three points of view on the singular movement. From there, I will look at the Cultural Revolution as an entity and use those three viewpoints to analyze it; vise-versa, I will use the context of the Cultural Revolution to analyze what is said in the documents I choose.

Sitting at the start, this seems like both a daunting and exhilarating project. But at the same time, this is an essential part of doing research– looking at primary sources. And I couldn’t ask for more flexibility in the topic, nor for a better topic. China is, after all, full of intrigue for a foreigner. So, I must get started.

In my History of Science class, we’ve been contemplating the world from an Aristotelian perspective. Remember, Aristotle thought the earthly world was composed of four elements: earth, water, air, and fire—and that a thing’s essence, rather than gravity, was what pulled it to its proper place within nature. The cosmos, on the other hand, was observed to be perfect, and was therefore composed of the fifth essence, or the “quintessence.”

In viewing things through Aristotle’s theories, the world was just as complicated as it is today, even though they had yet to develop the concepts of gravity, or chemistry, or the laws of inertia. So the ways of explaining things that puzzled humankind seem silly by comparison to the things we hold true today.

And the final thought that brought me to a point I will soon make came from Plato’s allegory of the Cave, which cropped up in class and conversation twice in the same day. To best understand Plato’s idea, see my rough drawing below:

platos-cave

The fire is blazing in the back of the Cave. There is a small precipice, and on the other side stands a man; this little man represents Mankind. He only looks—can only look—at the wall in front of him. What he sees in the world, in his little end of the cave in other words, is the reflection of the fire. What Plato means by this is that everything we see here is the shadow, the earthly representation of things which exist in a perfect form elsewhere. (The true form, the essence, can be seen by men who strive to find it through logic and reason, he proposed.)

When Plato’s cave was brought up for the second time in my day, it was because we were discussing how Man, inside his cave, might never want to turn around and see the “true” form of the world he thinks he knows. Just as most people shy away from great change, from stirring up their beliefs and lifestyles, little Man is very content to stare at his Wall, keep his perception of things just as it is.

And so, my point: in looking at the Manding people’s prayers to their ancestors, someone who knew and lived by western customs might learn about, think it’s interesting and different, but also think it to be silly and incorrect. But the thing is, someone in Mali might think the exact same thing about western traditions.

My Liberian professor told us about one of his relatives who died in the U.S. over the summer, and how the family members that are also living here buried him the American way, with a funeral home wake and standard gravestone. The relatives in Liberia were upset; was there going to be a feast, with a plate of food given to the gravesite as an offering to the ancestors? Well, no, that’s not how they do it here. Was the body going to be displayed in the home? No, that’s not allowed here. Then how could they be sure the body would be passed into the ancestral realm correctly? Bring the body back to Liberia, they demanded. No, that is way too expensive, we cannot do that. A clash of cultures, indeed. Whose method of burial is right? Is one or the other silly, or moreover, is one wrong?

Thinking like an Aristotelian, I see the world in a complex way, but definitely not complex compared to the way we explain things today. My professor said that when his children were young, it was much easier to explain to them that the ball falls to the ground because it is simply “earthy.” It belongs in its natural place, below water, air, and fire. How would you explain gravity to a child? It is much more complicated. But, gravity is also the theory we go by today. So, Aristotle was wrong. But his way of thinking made sense to a lot of people for a long time, nearly a thousand years. And though it seems silly to us now, during that time his theories explained many things that were confusing then. *

And the final thread, the shadows of Plato’s Cave, represents the way we see things, all of us, on earth. We see reflections, yet we see them as the absolute truth. The way each of us lives is comfortable to us; we are resistant to changing our location, or our job, or a friendship or relationship, or a house, or the foods we eat, or our religion, or our idea of truth.

But if you are right, then is everyone else wrong? If you stayed in the Cave, always looking at things as you’ve known them, when or if you ever turned around and saw the “true form” of the fire, might you say that it was silly? I’ve been looking at fire all my life; of course I know that this new form is just some obscure vision of fire. So, by this reckoning, even if someone were faced with the “True” version of fire, he would dismiss it because it was not like the version he knows.

From all of this, I glean that what is “right” to someone is usually strongly founded in what they have known for most of their life. Even if a man learns all the other burial customs in all the world, he would still somewhat adhere to his, think his own the most normal—or the least silly. But as Plato might muse, does that make it right? Is it the real Fire?

*Aristotle’s synthesis of the world has many more faucets than just the concept of the four elements—far more than I can give justice here, without getting off-topic. Please research his synthesis if you’re interested.