What is the danger of a single story?
I have a fairly powerful hunch that if I were to sit down with four-year old Adichie, crayons and pencils flying through the air as she created little western society-based masterpieces, and divulged to her that I have always, in fact, preferred a juicy, yellow mango to an apple, she would hesitate to believe me. In fact, she would probably react with violent surprise and twisted facial expressions, revealing her inner turmoil upon suddenly realizing that everything she had known about the world, her world, was a lie. The single story had lied to her, and consequently robbed her of a certain paradise--a paradise that would come from knowing my Caucasian self as someone more dynamic than a blue-eyed, apple-eating, ginger beer-drinking American. And in this way, the single story has also robbed me of dignity. By reducing myself to a simple, generalizing stereotype, I am no longer an individual with a unique history, mindset, and hope. My culture is no longer a special entity of society working towards a multitude of goals in a multitude of ways due to the range of abilities these people possess. My country is no longer a diverse sea of colorful faces and stories that has endured both pain and triumph and has yet to be defeated. The story is sacred and terrible all at once because it is all we have connecting us to the rest of the world. I cannot be in Clovis while simultaneously visiting Iran. The closest I will ever get to this is turning the news on and experiencing the words and images of the country as perceived by others. In many circumstances, pertaining to many things, I am a blank slate waiting to have written on me knowledge of places and people I have not seen. These stories that fill my slate may be inaccurate, biased, or entirely false, and in most cases I have no way of discerning the valid information from the invalid. Though I am one person, and my opinions will most likely not create a massive tidal wave ripple effect, an entire nation or world of partially blank slates, involuntarily ingesting a single story, will turn the story into a stereotype, and the stereotype into a fact until the story has been engrained into our minds so forcefully, we are unable to reshape the knowledge in our minds that we have held as truth for so long.
What is the remedy for a single story? Seize hold of the ignorance repressing the growth and development of your global understanding, and use the body and mind you were given to explore individuals, cultures, and nations that may be under a single repeating conception in your mind, use it to read other stories. Or better yet, spread your own piece of hidden insight, and write your own.
Well, first off. I enjoyed, and was slightly confused by, the analogy leading into your little discussion. And once you started to explain what you were saying in such a creative way with examples and comparisons that made it clear to understand i came to recognize it as a very interesting post. It sparked my thoughts and made me think about myself being an "empty slate" without my control. And i agree with you, im not sure how much, though i am leaning towards fully. Because we are fed information so forcefully and without retaliation, we are just like a blank sheet, being drawn on and having our identities, in a way, created by someone else. We are drawn as stereotypes, prejudices, or just falsified facts, and it is difficult to start over or erase this. Because like you said, it is hard to reshape something we have held as truth for so long. There is nothing that can be done, besides by yourself, that can remedy this. So in the end i guess i do agree with you completely. Now i know.
ReplyDeleteHello Cupcake! Anyways, similar to my blog, you brought up the idea that Adichie accusing western society of being ignorant is highly hypocritical for in itself is a general stereotype from one story. I really appreciated you initial anecdote at the beginning because it totally sums up how bad the idea of a single story is, and how easy it is to accept it. I also like the fact that you addressed the concept of information, and its abundance. Adichie's analysis is almost old fashioned, because through various tools, like the internet , we are able to view a multitude of different stories. It is our job to harness these tools and eliminate this ignorance. (Lastly, i thought the analysis was completely dequicious. :) )
ReplyDeleteI love mangoes, especially the yellow breed. I'm exhausted, though unlike Ian, I was able to follow your scenario completely. Surprisingly. (That was not some diss on Ian; it was merely a statement regarding my astonishment, that I was able to absorb every bit of your story, as fatigued as I am feeling. Hence: "Surprisingly.") Anyhow, after reading your post, story and all, I do agree. We are all blinded by our naivety; we tend to believe whatever we hear or read, and once learned, the information can rarely be unlearned. Thus, we go on believing solely what we were taught first, whole truth or not. This is where we fall into seeing most things stereotypically. And we have all this unneeded prejudice, for we do not see things for how they really are; rather, our prejudices permit only that we see things from the biased standpoint at which we first learned them. This only enhances and increases the ignorance of society; we never really do know the truth. To answer your rhetorical question, there is no remedy; we will only continue in our naive, ignorant ways, believing the lies which we were first told. And nothing will change...It is a sad, sad world.
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