Monday, July 20, 2015

Comparative America

One of the things that I was reminded of today in a conversation with a co-worker is that people often have difficulty understanding how other people believe things that they themselves do not. And how this leads to difficulties in social discourse. But rather than belabor that point, which I believe that I have made before, it occurred to me to speculate on how to solve it.

And so I wonder if there isn't room in academia for what one might call "comparative society," a course in which one takes the United States, slices it into some of it various constituencies, and teaches the students about how this or that group sees the world, and what this means for how they interact with the rest of the nation, and what lessons might be learned for interacting with them.

1 comment:

Alexolovio said...

It is very interesting.
Difficulties in social discourse is the problem number one of modern society. Sorry, I am not an American, but I'm talking in terms of a cosmopolitan.
God has placed the problem of "ifficulties in social discourse" as a punishment for the Tower of Babel. Maybe the people was able to control his mental representations before the incident.
I think it is a question of our psychological complexes. They are hindrance for our sober discourse. People are subjective, cautious, fearful, obsessive ideas, etc. Society needs the Institute of culture of dialogue. This may partially solve the problem of difficulties in social discourse.