The other day I was doing work around the house and watching Hulu. I stumbled upon an episode of the new Rosanne show. Now I am aware of the controversial nature of her individual political beliefs and support our current president. That aside, the show is being used as a vehicle to shed light on the differences felt by many Americans as it relates to politics, religion, nationalism, patriotism, racism, classism, sexism, etc. Her character mirrors her real life personality while the others characters ,like her sister Jackie, are\u00a0 liberals who does not share her political point of view and they find themselves in constant dialogue about it. In addition, they have added that she has an African American granddaughter whose mother (also African American) is married to her son DJ they both serve in the military. Her grandson (Darlene\u2019s son) is gender neutral and refuses to follow gender norms and cultural pressure as it relates to him being a young boy. \u00a0One of the episodes focused on prejudices and avid hatred that many \u201cright winged\u201d Americans have (primarily post 911) against those from the Middle East. It hones in on the stereotypical biases that feed into the beliefs that everyone from that regions are all Muslim terrorists who come to our country to kill Americans. This \u201cfear of terror\u201d that warps our ideals of patriotism into nationalism that is reinforced by group thinking and community formation that maintains such a misguided belief system and therefore justifies heinous acts against a group of people. \u00a0\u00a0(Whew that was a mouthful..)<\/p>\n
Ok so the story line goes like this\u2026new neighbors move into the neighborhood. Roseanne is watching them constantly assuming that they are terrorists. She makes assumptions on how they look, and how much fertilizer they have in their garage (which she feels is going to be used to make bombs). As you may know, the Conner family is a lower class white family in Chicago. In this episode, they were unable to secure the money necessary to pay their bills for the month. This was crucial specifically because their daughter in law is deployed to Afghanistan and her daughter is supposed to Skype with her at 2am. The only Wi-Fi available was their new neighbors. In going over to ask if they could use their Wi-Fi ,they discovered that their neighbors were not from Afghanistan but were Yemen and had the same distrust and fear of her family as she did theirs. The neighbors allow them to use their internet because they say that the children should not suffer because of ignorance of the adults. The young girl was able to speak with her mother. Furthermore, an incident at a grocery store where her neighbor was refused groceries due to her ethnicity brought even more awareness to the hatred they continue to experience each and every day. In witnessing this situation, Roseanne is humbled by her misguided biases (mind you they only have 30 minute episodes so they have to get to the \u201cmoral of the story\u201d pretty quickly) and advocates for her neighbor against the store clerk.<\/p>\n
I know you may be thinking…So what was the point of sharing that episode? Well this week we read the book The Righteous Mind Why People are Divided by Politics and Religion<\/em> by Jonathan Haidt. His premise is that our morality drives our beliefs, belonging and doing. This is the foundation by which we understand and engage in politics and religion. He is a moral psychologist and seeks to break down using a variety of scientific theory and psychology to explain his point of view. The book was not at all super engaging for me. I thought he minced words and theories to get his point across but I do think there is something interesting about studying the creation of community and how people adapt and formulate beliefs not just as individuals but as a group. The episode I shared is an example of moral plight that is very evident in our American society especially today as it relates to how we view politics and religion.\u00a0 Roseanne\u2019s character acted out of intuition as a means of survival.Throughout the episode she continued to justify her behavior because she believed that she was doing her duty to protect her country from those who would seek to bring harm to it. I think that this quote from Haidt pretty much sums it up \u201cIntuitions come first, strategic reasoning second. We lie, cheat, and cut ethical corners quite often when we think we can get away with it, and then we use our moral thinking to manage our reputations and justify ourselves to others. We believe our own post hoc reasoning so thoroughly that we end up self-righteously convinced of our own virtue.<\/em>\u201d [1]<\/a><\/p>\n