My World View (Weltanschauung)

Watching the world above, we see the seven continents which are geographically

divided into different countries with different cultural values, traditions and beliefs,

religions, and other aspects that make the world complex and diverse. As diverse

cultural beliefs, they (people in different countries) have still some things in common.

The World Literature subject brought me to the places which I did not expect that

those certain places have different styles and different ways of living and making the

world colorful, through reading its masterpiece literature stories. As I viewed the world,

my world did not change, but my understanding of myself, other human beings, society,

and where I am in history and what that means changed enormously. I've learned

something very useful and important about the way I perceive things and gain

knowledge, I learned about things I didn’t know I knew, and I am mesmerized by those

stories who molded me as a person, who belong in this judgmental world.

So what is a world view? World view is one way of naming "grid" for thinking

and believing that God built into every human being. It is a set of basic beliefs-about

God, the world, human being, history, death, knowing, as well as much more mundane

things-that make up what a person assumes to be true. Out of one's worldview, a person

evaluates, makes decisions, and makes meaning and sense of his or her life (Downers

Grove: Intervarsity Press, 1796). Every human being has different worldviews. As we go
along with our discussions on different Literature short stories of different countries;

The Cask of Amontillado, The Lottery, The Lesson, Death Constant beyond Love,

Metamorphosis, A Strange Story, and the film Spirited Away, these stories gives more

emphasis on the Universal themes that what makes-up our society unpredictable and

hard to understand. Themes such as, love, cultural wars, poverty, environmental issues,

revenge, discriminations, traditions, education, death, greed, LGBT Community,

behaviors, alienation, and conscience, brought my in-deep analysis that our world

however is just a one big community with one ultimate goal, 'to survive'.

If we make fundamentally different meaning of the world, then all of our

attempts to improve communication or expand the pie of our material resources will fail

because we may not be addressing our deeper differences that continue to fuel conflicts.

When worldviews are not in our awareness nor acknowledged, stronger parties

in conflict may advertently or inadvertently try to impose their worldviews on others.

Far more profound than trying to impose a particular solution to a conflict or a way of

communicating, the imposition of a worldview can be destructive to a whole way of life.

Since our worldviews contain and shape our cultures (shared starting points and

currencies or values), working effectively across cultures requires some understanding

of the soil from which cultures come. Our worldviews also shape, or help in

determining, values.

Each countries cultural values change across cultures, since they have to do with

what we consider most important, and the ways we see our relationships, the world, and
ourselves. Some of the values that vary across cultures includes; Power which are the

social status, prestige, control over others and resources, Achievement meaning the

success through competence according to social standards, Hedonism meaning the

pleasure of sensuous gratification for self, Stimulation -- excitement, novelty, change in

life, Self-direction -- independent thought and action - choice, creativity, exploring goals,

Universalism -- understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of

people and nature, Benevolence -- preservation and enhancement of the welfare of

members of in-groups, Tradition -- respect, commitment, and acceptance of ideas from a

person's culture and religion, Conformity -- restraint of actions, inclinations, and

impulses likely to upset or harm others, Security -- safety, harmony, and stability of

society, relationships, and self.

Our worldviews can be resources for understanding and analyzing conflicts

when fundamental differences divide groups of people. By looking at the stories, rituals,

myths, and metaphors used by a group, we can learn efficiently and deeply about group

members' identities (who they see themselves to be) and meanings (what matters to

them and how they make meaning). When we do this with each side to a conflict, places

of connection and divergence may become clearer, leading to a better understanding of

the conflict in context. Worldviews, with their embedded meanings, can be the seedbed

from which new shared meanings emerge. These shared meanings may arise as people

co-create new stories, design new rituals, and find inclusive metaphors to contain their

meanings.
 The issue about "Cultural wars" in my own view are just the same as "worldview

wars", in the sense that, people fought because of their own different perceptions in

viewing things which they believed to be true without considering others own views.

And because we get our worldviews mostly by absorbing them from our parents and

family, teachers and a larger surrounding culture, we tend to dominate others by

creating views that we had learned from these peoples. In fact, whether we are in the

school or in the classrooms, we have dialogues/conversations and debates, in our

homes, peers, office, or in the hallway, or wherever we are, conflicts still exist because it

is inevitable.

In any given conflict, a combination of these values will play out. Because people

relate to these values differently when they hold different worldviews,

misunderstandings and negative judgments about "the other side" may follow. As

people become aware of the existence of different worldviews, they may stop expecting

"the other" to make sense of the way they perceive the world, and realize instead that

"the other" makes sense of the problem from their own worldview. In other words, the

other side's "outrageous or nonsensical ideas actually become reasonable and sensible

when seen from their point of view.

An example of the value of recognizing the existence of divergent worldviews

comes from the dialogues between advocates on either side of the abortion conflict in

Canada and the United States. Though, to my knowledge, no systemic study has been

conducted investigating value and worldview differences between pro-life and

pro-choice advocates, my evaluation of dialogue processes reveals some interesting

observations.

Most literature stories really inspired from the countries historical background, as

well as the authors personal experienced and views during their time. In the stories that

we had discussed in the whole semester, conflicts were pretty much vulnerable, conflicts

either in our inner self, in our society, or we are in conflict with the nature itself, because

during that time, war was the number one problem in the world. And I think, conflicts

are there to remind us that life in this world is not that easy to deal with, the harder we

try to make things better, the more possibilities of conflicting minds are blocking us

along the way. For me, in order to prevent the future conflicts to happen, we should not

be too much insensitive to others, we should learn to understand things before we

criticize it, we should not judge someone by their look, and we should give respect to

each other’s point of views.

Conflicts can be substantive, psychological, and procedural. It is involved with

identity and meaning -- who we see ourselves to be, and how we make and find

meaning in our interactions with others, ideas, and the world. Intractable conflict

usually involves some threat -- perceived or real -- to our identity or cherished

meanings, or both. It may also be about material goods or resources, and it may be

exacerbated by ineffective communication. But because intractable conflict is bound up

with meanings and identities, it cannot be resolved by improving communication or

finding better ways to deal with resources alone. Identity and meaning are part of every
human life in all world cultures. Meaning is generated from our sense of identity and

from the information we receive. Our cultures give us messages about desirable

identities (who we are, who we seek to be, and how we related to others) and sources of

meaning (what matters and why). Since our cultures give us different ideas about

identity and meaning, our way of pursuing our goals and working out differences can

create or escalate conflict.

Cultures from the West and East countries differ from each other a lot, resulted

from different conflicting minds. As what I have learned, Eastern countries do not

appreciate or accept the view from the western, because for them, influences from the

west are considered as an evil thing that made them dominate, control and rule the

world. However, cultural values may differ but we are still bind by one dream, to

promote and attain world peace. Which I think, is one of the hardest dream to achieve

but it is possible to reach.

Another thing, the world today is facing Poverty, a drastic problem which is hard

to be resolve and cannot be easily eliminated because of the existing attitude of being

selfishness and greediness of those people who control and deceive others for their own

good and personal interest. This may seem the stuff of conspiracy theories but without a

doubt economic and political advantage is gained through devious means which have to

be kept secret from the public. It is true that a part of the human makeup is a certain

fixation on power, influence and status. And certainly humans spend a lot of time,

energy and resources to come up with ways and means to gain power over other
humans. So if we take this human tendency, then it is not unreasonable to conjecture that

there are those who, if given the opportunity, would like to rule the World. Also given

that the World is gradually becoming one economically and politically integrated unit,

together with all the ingenious, corrupt and conspiratorial means through which power

may be obtained, then an evil self serving world is definitely a distinct possibility.

What did I mean? Simply, I did not blame only the Government here for making

us lived in poverty and lived in a miserable community, but the people itself too should

be blame. Poverty around the globe is the result of the some Government official’s

greediness of power; they have a hard time focusing on others because they were

making their own blueprint for their future self. And so as the people who did not make

a way to help their selves. Instead of making a move to step forward however in their

poor situation, some people were just waiting to be fed up by the government, waiting

for a guava to fell in their mouth while lying under its tree, waiting for chances that will

given up to them, and waiting for a help.

Discrimination also is one factor that affects everybody’s perceptions towards

others. Not just in the stories that we had read and discussed. Discrimination is quite a

big issue, that even today in the modern world discrimination exists. It is one thing that

make our humanity lost because we sometimes tries to judge someone without knowing

, without seeing, without understanding on what they feel. Racist is quite popular

around the world. If you are a black person, everybody seems to be staring at you,

laughing at you and judging you because of your looks. It makes you felt isolation and
alienation, you felt that no one likes you, no one believes in you, no one tries to listen to

your views. Knowing that these would make them realize that it is better to end-up their

lives than to continue it but no one’s going to ever tries to let them feel what love is and

what respect is. It is a common problem but we should address those people who

suffered discrimination by giving and showing them some respect. They are just human

like you and can feel pain like you.

Life maybe unfair, but let’s just face the fact that, if we continue on staying where

we are, we cannot step onto the other side (which is maybe a good fortune for us). There

are questions that keep on running in my mind and that are, what is the solution in

solving these problems that our world is facing now? How can I/we help in reducing

and eliminating these sorts of struggles? Social, Economic and Political problems? How?

In order to generate this sort of master solution to the problems of this World in

Social, Economic and Political realms then this really comes about through tackling the

problems of this World in the realm of pure ideas and the closely associated domain of

human beliefs and Ideology. The problems in the realm of pure ideas and problems

relating to Ideology and Human Beliefs, is that it has an implications towards the

problems of this World in the Social, Economic and Political Realms. These are directly

relevant to issues such as Social Justice, Social Equality, and Economic Disparity and also

promote certain ideals such as Human Rights and Peace.

More so, as the world continues to create problems, people and things are in

constant change, so it would be a big help if these changes will make us people, living in
this world, united as one community and help one another in fighting these problems.

The process of truly solving the problems of this world, involves a battle of ideas. If you

lose this battle then all is lost. If you can win this battle then everything becomes much

easier. Everything including bringing about World Peace, Saving the Environment and

World Ecosystem, Prevent a Global Tyranny and creating a better more Just World. This

battle in the Realm of Ideas and the struggle to fix the problems of this World is really a

battle for hearts and minds. And it’s also really a battle to change the behavior of people

of a sufficient number of people such that they become part of the solution rather than

part of the problem.

People's behavior affects a lot, it derives from their thoughts, and their thoughts

derive from their beliefs and these beliefs derive from and consist of ideas. So in order to

change people’s behavior and get them to act in ways that are conducive towards

solving the problems of this world, then we need to give people powerful, exciting and

relevant new ideas. It’s really ideas that change us and it’s really ideas that can transform

society. By changing the ideas we believe we change what we think and we change what

we are. If you change the thoughts of enough people then you can change the world.

Changes are all we need. Accept and adopt new things and use it in a righteous way.

As we ended up our World Literature stories, more ideas and lessons kept on

running through my head and my perceptions and views towards the human world

change me a lot. It thought me and cultivated my sense of humanity, my human being,

my inner self, that I could be someone who can help the world out and commit change. I
honestly have hard time thinking about my world views, but as I re-read those literature

stories, I realized that the World is very enormous and how complex it is. Now, I clearly

understood that though we have a diverse culture and views, we can still become one.

In the eyes of God, we are all the same anyway.