Different views=More power to you.

One of the main things that stood out to me in “Beyond the realm of reason”, in regards to forming opinion or our own “rhetoric” was the line that read, “Our rhetorics, in a sense, are interdependent. Our knowledge, and theirs, become powerful only in relation to each other.” When you think about that, it makes a lot of sense. Imagine if everyone was democrat and nobody was republican. Our views as Democrats wouldn’t be very powerful because there would be no one to challenge and question them so we would never have to defend them. Our ideas and opinions are, according to Bordieu, formed by our habitus, or our “durable dispositions”, the way we are naturally inclined to act. I believe what was trying to be put across in this article was that just because something has been completely and accurately proved by science with concrete evidence (in this case global warming), there will be those who are opposed to it for their own reasons, for instance, the John Birch Society. This article is more about how people form opinions rather them the opinions themselves. In this situation, the John Birch Society is the marginal group but using the power of the dominant press. They write there opinions in a way where the person reading them will feel like a “heroic rebel” because they know they are opposed to such “nonsense”. Who knows, those part of the John Birch Society may take much pride in being the “underdog”.

The Center for Science and Culture article I decided to look at was entitled “The Dark side of Darwinism”. I couldn’t wait to see what this was going to be like, since I am a strong believer of evolution and cannot stand when people believe it doesn’t exist. I am Catholic in my religion but my parents both work in a scientific field and I went to public school where evolution was taught, so I was raised to have a more rational, scientific mind, which is part of my own habitus. Back to the article, one of the lines that stood out to me the most, not in the best way, was “Evolutionary thinking inspired modern scientific racism.” When learning about evolution in school, a thought relating to racism or genocide never crossed my mind. It all goes back to the whole idea of it doesn’t matter how much concrete “truthful” evidence there is, people will always have their own “truths” about such things. And like I mentioned in the beginning, without our differing “truths”, we would maybe not have passion to stand up and fight for them.