Bartman, an FGCU student writes inspiring reflection on Episode of 30Days.
Title: Cocoon of Empathy
Date: 10-25-10
Author: Nathan Bartman
"The episode of 30 Days followed the emotional transformation of a resistant individual into an empathetic individual. This individual, well-spoken, well-educated, a lawful citizen who contributed to his community, displayed an absolutely uncompromising attitude toward the national immigration problem, tinged with shades of exclusivism and prejudice. After he acclimates to his new life as poor, inner-city, illegal immigrant, he begins to see things differently. While he does not change his opinion at the end of the episode, he certainly has gained a strong, emotional bond with the people he lived with—not the immigrants he lived with, or the illegals, but the responsible, trustworthy, caring human begins. This bond will undoubtedly give him something to reflect on, which gives him something to consider when he is ruminating over national problems in his future.
I appreciate the man whom the filmmakers followed. He broke my expectations of a prototypical, angry, emotional, ignorant, racist conservative (not to pick on conservatives—it's just a cultural stereotype), and represented himself with eloquence (in more than just one language), with lawfulness, and with reason. At worst, his sin might have been a lack of empathy, or a stubbornness regarding his emotionally-loaded opinion.
This entire endeavor reminded me of the religious attitudes I kept throughout my adolescence, intensely interested in philosophy, religious studies, comparative mythology, and the arts and humanities in general. I was extremely critical, and consequently dismissive of organized religion, specifically of Christianity simply do to its overwhelming influence on Western culture. In addition to several (retrospectively minor) incidents which confirmed my negative expectations, I had mentally cut myself off from any alternative conceptions. Everyone managed to offer me deficient or otherwise wanting responses that lacked any sort of subtlety that my particular intellect thirsted for, and begged unadulterated fundamentalist.
Yet when I found that I discussed my concerns and interests with well-educated, thoughtful men and women, of different religious backgrounds, open and caring, they all were concerned with the same issues, all held similar opinions, and all of them rejected a literal, fundamentalist interpretation of their texts and traditions. By allowing other people into my lives, I was changed by them. “'I do not forget,' wrote psychologist C. G. Jung, 'that my voice is but one voice, my experience a mere drop in the sea, my knowledge no greater than the visual field in a microscope, my mind's eye a mirror that reflects a small corner of the world'” (237).Loeb gave me something interesting to think about when he suggested that a “good society . . . honors our individual gifts and encourages our particular callings” (259). I haven't lately been thinking in terms of what society has to offer me. Maybe that is a fault that I can improve on in terms of lacking an appropriate appreciation for all those advantages I have that others would (literally) die for. So it's interesting to conceive of a society which maximizes individual opportunity and happiness, quite accommodating to the populace. In the end, I am simply grateful that I am allowed to live in a place which will constantly challenge me socially, ethically, and emotionally, making me ever stronger and more capable of being who I want to be, and helping those issues which touch my heart."- Nathan Bartman
