Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Question 1: How we perceive others

It think it is impossible to not categorize someone based on what we percieve.  Otherwise, what would be the point of having a complex thinking machine like our brain.  It's in our nature to think about stuff and making it make sense for ourselves.  

The only way I think that we would not categorize or judge people is if we lived in a full on utopian society.  Even then I think it would be wishful thinking.  I don't know if anyone remembers a movie called "Logan's Run."  If you don't you should see it.  Its a fun movie from the 70's.  It's about a Utopian society closed in and away from the outside world.  There are no old people, in fact people have this crystal embedded in their hand that glows a certain color when they're time is up.  No one can age past certain 30 age because it is against the law.  The only way that people can get a chance to live past that age is if they enlist in what they call "carousel."  Which is basically Russian Roulette with laser beams.  No one ever makes it although they keep hoping.  If people try to run from having to go into carousel, the hunters chase them.

Anyway, its a fun movie with a unique story.  It just serves as an example of a society where the only thing that goes on doesn't even remotely resemble life today.  Everyone wears all the same colors depending on their age and everyone is fairly attractive.  Not a typical society of people I would say.  All the people don't even think about what their life means.  They don't even know that they can age and grow old.  
I am glad that we don't live in a Utopia where everything is perfect because nothing ever is.  I've seen to many movies like that where perfect people end up being lunatics.  Uh oh, just caught myself in my own perception.

1 comment:

chocoyuko said...

I think it is true that you said we are categorizing things to make things around us make sense. I remember a book, I read in an English class, similar to the movie you mentioned. The book is called, The Handmaid's Tale. It was about the world with no emotions, opinions, differences nor uniqueness. I felt scared about the content of the book. I realized that having differences and being unique is what humans about. If everything is the same, we don’t categorize nor judge, but we will lose humanness. I think we can gain a perfect world, if there is any, not by diminishing the differences, but by working with the differences.