Note: This was sent to all current Pericleans and Mentors the Sunday after the Paris attacks.
Pericleans,
Again the media presents us with an array of profoundly disturbing images, this time from Paris.
How should a Periclean Scholar respond to this? That there is just one “right” way to react, feel or act is most certainly not the case, but are their wrong ways to respond?
In a word, yes.
Your experience as an Elon student and more particularly as a Periclean Scholar positions you to recognize ‘thin’, glib, hateful, ethnocentric, Islamaphobic and otherwise unproductive responses. As you communicate f2f, email, Tweet, Facebook, Instagram, and blog your feelings and hear/read those of your friends, acquaintances (etc.) I know that you will all use these tragic recent events as an opportunity to educate, as best you can, those who seek pathways of understanding and/or express any iteration of the “wrong” ways to respond. We must grow as a human family, and this will best be accomplished with compassion, patience, humility, and, yes, love.
I urge all three Classes to spend some time in class this week talking about Lebanon, Burma, Paris and beyond.
I posted this on our Periclean Scholars at Elon University Facebook page:
Regarding the recent events in Paris…
Most of us generally have little self awareness about our limited range of knowledge about the world and routinely -albeit unconsciously- subscribe to media spun narratives. That it is hard to keep up with world affairs in a way that transcends lazy myopia is increasingly true. But, to quote Edward R. Murrow, “Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.”
On a related note Murrow also pointed out that, “No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all accomplices.”
In what ways might this be true?
Our task, then, must be to ceaselessly work to know both ourselves and our global brothers and sisters better and then to partner, with the goal of banding together in efforts to eliminate injustices which drive weak and delusioned people to desperate, tragic and inhumane actions.
My best to all of you as you enter this week.
-PLP
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