Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Prejudice; Community

"...sets us free again in the wilderness, and we exult."

I've been reading a book that a favorite friend gave to me. So far,

I liked a part that included this:

Mr. Abbey writes as a man who has taken a stand. He is an interested writer. This exposes him to the charge of being prejudiced, and prejudiced he certainly is. He is prejudiced against tyranny over both humanity and nature. He is prejudiced against sacred cows, the favorite pets of tyrants. He is prejudiced in favor of democracy and freedom. He is prejudiced in favor of an equitable and settled domestic life. He is prejudiced in favor of the wild creatures and their wild habitats. He is prejudiced in favor of charitable relations between humanity and nature. He has other prejudices too, but I believe that those are the main ones. All of his prejudices, major and minor, identify him as he is, not as any reader would have him be. Because he speaks as himself, he does not represent any group, but he stands for all of us.

And a different part that included this:

The community here is that of "recorded human experience". . .It is bewildering both in its amplitude and in the eminence of some of its members. A teacher leading his students to the entrance to that community, as would-be contributors to it, must know that both he and they are coming into the possibility of error. The teacher may make mistakes about the students; the students may make much more serious ones about themselves. He is leading them, moreover, to a community, not to some singular stump or rostrum from which he will declare the Truth.

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