When
we judge other people by their actions most of the time, we do not
realize how narrow-minded we ourselves are. For example, in the short
story, 「The Lottery」, the town folks stoned Mrs. Hutchinson to death at
the end. Readers might consider the villagers cruel to have kept this
tradition. Yet, perhaps the town folks did not think so at all, because
that was one part of their culture. They were merely asking for an
abundant harvest in the coming year with the ritual of stoning. This
issue brings out an ambiguous question. How could we decide what is
right or wrong?
Prejudice plays an important
role while we are trying to decide between right and wrong for prejudice
usually leads us to consider one issue as purely negative. It would be
much more objective if we look at every event from different
perspectives. Or, if we could put our feet into someone else』s boots
that would also help us avoid prejudices. The recent debate about Jin,
Mei-Ling (金美齡),
for example, polarized the people: one group of people (they are the
majority) fiercely oppose her idea of Independence of Taiwan, while the
other support her. The difference in opinion is so sensitive that it
flares up people』s emotions whenever she is mentioned. But if both
groups would be willing to calm down and look at this issue from a
different angle, for example, perhaps 「Mrs. Jin was merely offering her
personal opinion about Taiwan」 and her idea is different from ours; then
maybe the situation will cool down quickly.
In this day and age, we need
to be more open-minded, especially when we are faced with so many
different choices and ways of looking at the world. Undoubtedly, there
are many things we』ve never seen or imagined before, which our ignorance
and narrow-mindedness will quickly describe as wrong. Yet the same is
true when other races of people look at us. Considering all these
possibilities, we need to recognize that there is nothing completely
right or wrong, it is just a difference in opinion.