Coming Together

Description

In a culture that seems to delight in dividing us and getting us to argue with each other, can we come together? It takes courage to challenge our own beliefs, to listen to others, and to stop accepting filtered information as the source of our beliefs and ideas. Can we meet this challenge and find common ground to stand on, and from there change our world?

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

one of the coolest things about running a will in school well running we rear wild University because it's a little different than a 01 their school is that I get to interact on this really close connected level with people in a mentor based relationship over a long period of time but the cool thing about that is that I get to learn just as much from them as they do for me and today what I'd like to share with you was inspired by a talk with two students we were driving up to a really beautiful place for just a short two-day adventure and here's what came up in conversation right now especially I'm looking at the United States we live in a world divided and if you just look at the conservative liberal kind of dichotomy there wow how much we've learned to almost hate each other to not listen to each other to judge each other as you probably know from watching my videos I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist so that's not what I'm going with this but i do want us to notice that there are cultural forces in motion that really encouraged us to be at odds with each other and it seems to me that that certain elements of our culture benefit from us being at odds with each other if i can strongly label myself conservative i strongly label myself libertarian or liberal then i'm going to tend to watch certain shows listen to certain radio programs buy certain products there's good reason to box us to categorize us but there's a price that we pay and it's a price forgive my language here but it's a price of ignorance where we become ignorant if you think about this age we live in this age of ultra information the world is becoming through the internet through our phones that can take in stream live video across the world it's becoming extremely transparent and in the car right up I was saying you know it seems that we're going in this direction publix of immense transparency where it's going to be very difficult to hide anything anymore but then one of my students very wisely pointed out that with too much transparency with that level of technological ability to transfer information there's too much information out there so we as individuals there's really no way for us to take in all that information to filter through it to try to figure out truth from fiction so what happens we get people news networks newspapers youtubers we get people who filter that information for us and then give us their version of the truth and if we've aligned ourselves with a certain worldview then it really i start identify myself with so typical one people would we put forth is if i'm very conservative i might align myself with Fox News and then I start to believe everything that I here on that news channel

I start to accept their version of reality and to identify myself with it so here's all this information you can imagine it's filtered down through very small little stream through some people that decide what information we should have what sort of slant should be put on that information how it should be presented to us and then we are fed that very very selective diet and usually that diet you know they're going to benefit by feeding us a diet that keeps us identifying yourself in that in in group and then identifying ourselves through and with that news channel kind of see how it works what if instead we came together what if the Liberals and the libertarians and the Conservatives what if actually we all want maybe the same basic things at the heart but we can't even begin that dialogue we can't begin that dialogue because we are so wrapped up in identifying ourselves and then in getting a certain little stream of information and believing that to be the truth and then we enter into the state of ignorance where we can't see truth anymore and we're at war we're at odds with all these people around us I'm going to get radical here and say maybe the information coming in maybe that's not the most important thing maybe the most important thing is all of us coming together as human beings and realizing the interconnectedness that we share and realizing how we start to act together and to work together and to open real dialogues that come out of our hearts instead of what we've been told maybe we can change the world together maybe we can make a real difference we're not going to do that under the current paradigm we're just going to be made into people who spit back stuff that we've heard I'm suggesting that maybe we stop tuning in to those new sources a little bit we start questioning the things that we think we identify ourselves with I'm a libertarian and I am like back to the Constitution stopped and asked what makes the Constitution so sacred this was drafted by some people a long time ago under very different circumstances is it really the best document that's ever been made this is the argument that you'll hear to govern human light and even if it is the best one that's ever been made could we create something better the comments below as you know have become an incredible ground for people sharing ideas and thoughts I'd really ask you especially in this one to start dialoguing with each other you know that I try to answer every comment below but I'm starting to see more and more of you talking with each other and what's super cool is I really rarely see people like fighting and nagging at each other on this channel I think all of you know it's basically a very cowardly act to to be at home at your computer typing and cutting somebody down who you're never going to be face-to-face with I'm asking in the comments below can you can you guys talk about this a little bit can you share the view point that you currently hold to and then let people observe you challenging yourself and see if you can really look at those ideas that you hold and see if they really are as strong in your heart as you felt that they have been over the years could we see in these comments coming together where we start to see that we all share some real basic ideas about what makes human life worth living about what makes human life right but how maybe we could change our culture and change the world so that it looks a little bit different than it does right now please use the comments below talk with each other and I for one and really excited to see what unfolds down there thank you all for watching sees