Doors Close, Windows Open

Class 2 Reflection Paper

I entered the classroom and saw that our graded papers from last week lay on the professor's desk. Even though Dr. Soren wasn't in the room, he must have dropped them off earlier that morning. I picked it up and flipped to the last page where Doctor Soren had written grades. I received a B. Not bad for my first paper in twenty years. Still, I wondered what it would take to earn an A.

*****************************************
Reflection Paper 1, based on "The Courage of His Confusions" and "Flatland" by Amanda Peterson

Both works asked us to consider the possibility that there are things we cannot readily perceive, and that life is to be lived as a quest-ioning rather than resting in the obvious or our convictions.  Ciardi suggested that intellect is best engaged through the asking of questions.  The active and creative mind is one that is confused, with far more questions to life than answers.  In Flatland, we are introduced to a 2-D world.  While the intro describing Flatland was, at times, almost painful in its tedium, I think the author did a good job of setting up a dry, colorless world of moral convictions, hard line beliefs, and defined laws that quite similar to our daily lives.

Once the reader was lulled into the dullness of this little land, he had the key character, Mr. A. Square, be visited by a 3-D character, the Sphere.  Thanks to the Sphere, the Square was forced to see the world in new ways.  This was a double-edged sword, as knowledge often is. Genesis and the fall from Eden, because Eve... the woman, of course... decided to bite from the fruit of knowledge!  I guess knowledge has its consequences... but why?  Maybe there's something to what Einstein said, "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities." Change masters and revolutionaries were never understood or appreciated in their own time. 

In the Bible, Jesus said that a prophet could be accepted (respected) anywhere except his own land.  One's wisdom and insight is rarely appreciated in one's own time or land.  Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, is quoted as having said, "Knowledge is power." If that's true, why does expanding one's horizons beyond what's accepted as 'common knowledge' result in being outcast?  Square's fall from Grace happened because he went against the conventions and beliefs of his society.  He could not prove how he knew about different dimensions, but he could not suppress his knowing either.  So, he was imprisoned. 

Galileo experienced something similar when he advocated the notion that the earth, along with the other planets, revolved around the sun.  This went against the prevailing wisdom of his time, which maintained the earth as center of the universe.  Galileo faced the Inquisition, because advocating Copernican ideals, was considered to be a contradiction of Scripture (Copernicus, in the mid-1500's, had first published this proposition).  Galileo was warned by the powerful church not to defend this heliocentric view. Had Abbott drawn from this?

Just like the Square, who could not suppress his controversial view of the world once he'd bitten into the fruit of Knowledge, stubborn Mr. Galilei didn't stop.  As a result, he was condemned to house arrest for life, and he was forbidden to publish.

The Square, much like Eve and Galileo, couldn't go back to thinking or living the same after tasting Knowledge.  They all fell from grace in the eyes of their systems and were cast out.  So how does any of this relate to the question of why we are here?  Maybe questioning is the starting place. Before I can consider the answer to a question as big as "Why are we here," I have to activate my ability to question. Dwell in confusion rather than certainty.  Don't jump to easy answers, but rather, question everything--especially those things I hold as Truths.  It takes courage, which is necessary to engage real thinking.

I think Flatland could also be viewed as a warning that once we attain a special knowledge outside the bounds of conventionally accepted norms, we may not be accepted or approved of anymore.  Could I handle the consequences of choosing a path other than that which is accepted by my family or society? Will I face other's censure and disapproval with courage or retreat to the convictions that offer the sanctuary of acceptability, but not freedom?