Now that is a model of the
sort of foreign practice, founded on foreign problems, at which a man's first
impulse is naturally to laugh. Nor have I any intention of apologising for my
laughter. A man is perfectly entitled to laugh at a thing because he happens to
find it incomprehensible. What he has no right to do is to laugh at it as
incomprehensible, and then criticise it as if he comprehended it. The very fact
of its unfamiliarity and mystery ought to set him thinking about the deeper
causes that make people so different from himself, and that without merely
assuming that they must be inferior to himself.
I tried to look past this paragraph as I was reading this
piece. It’s not that I don’t understand where he’s coming from because I do,
Chesterton is implying that it’s okay to laugh at something that is out of the
norm for someone. It’s not the fact that they are laughing at it
disrespectfully but more in the matter of finding it unfamiliar. For instance,
I laugh at inappropriate times not because I find the situation funny, more so
that it’s a nervous tic of mine when I encounter something that’s uncomfortable
for me. I do have to argue though that if one is planning to travel is it not
common courtesy nowadays to learn of the people’s ways and culture’s before
they get to their destination? I can sit here and argue that laughing may be
found to be rude or disrespectful in one culture and they simply can’t
comprehend that your laughing is merely because they think you find their ways
incomprehensible and they can’t see it any other way, what happens then?
Like Professor Murdaco wrote in his blog, this topic is truly
debatable, and I can see how it is. Even as I’m writing this I find myself
going back and forth with my statements, so is there really a right and wrong
to this? Being a nurse we are expected to be culturally competent because New York is known to be a "melting pot" and with my line of work I have to be mindful and respectful of picking appropriate treatments for my patients. If we don't that doesn't benefit my patient especially if it doesn't align with their cultural ways. I guess you could say it all depends on how you perceive things and to
not be open-minded or amused by a new culture is only reflecting on your own
self.
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