The reading that I have selected for reflection is Acting Without Thinking - The most elective protest movements have been enriched by debating ideas and strategy. I met this reading with initial defensiveness and closed assumptions. Having been raised to think, debate, and defend one's thoughts and opinions, this article initially triggered very guarded feelings. Then I took the time to stop. Reread. Reread again. And at that point, so many things finally started to come together.
My grandmother passed away several years ago and I wish I had had the opportunity to discuss this article with her. I believe she would have loved it and said that it is exactly why she wanted me to develop the skills of discussion and debate. She was a forward-thinking challenger of the status quo. She was raised without the money for a formal education and so all of her education came from anything she was able to access in her community. She would read everything, talk to everyone, and actively participate in politics at all levels. She challenged everything.
Learning about her world was only the first step as she was a firm believer in action. She would advocate for change and be prepared to defend it to any length. Being able to defend her opinions and actions had come from the debate, the discussion, and the education. She didn’t blindly act and she didn’t waste her resources.
To me, there is a direct parallel between the think-first, act-second philosophy that my grandmother worked to pass on and the concepts behind this article. Heer writes, “problems like racism and climate change are easy to identify, solutions are much harder to come by—and in fact impossible to achieve without intense and serious debate.” If we want to make a difference and find solutions to these deep-rooted and systemic problems, then we have to be willing to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. We must be willing to have respectful and open conversations where we are prepared to challenge what we believe and why. It isn’t enough to think, challenge, and debate, we must be ok with having our views challenged and be willing to acknowledge when someone else brings forward an idea or opinion that doesn’t necessarily fit within the framework of our current views or beliefs.
So, while I now believe that this article directly reinforces what my grandmother tried to get me to practice all of those years of difficult discussions where she challenged me to defend my opinion, I also am now keenly aware of how much work I still have to do. My work lies in questioning my own ideas and views, not just in defending or arguing them. I must be willing to nudge each piece out of its pretty packaging to understand the root of that belief. Beliefs are relative to one’s lived experiences and to start expanding them requires one to layer those thoughts within a base of questions and uncertainty. Through uncertainty one finds possibility.
Resource:
Heer, J. (2015, April 24). Acting without thinking . The New Republic
