Life in a (shell)

This article talks about closed communities. The example used is not intended to offend any group or theology and the names used herein are monikers.

Allow me to recount my experience with an orthodox Jewish girl from my days at Baruch College. This girl (let’s call her Hindy) had been in Hebrew school all her life, had only orthodox friends, watched/listened/read exclusively Jewish media.

It was both of our first semester at college and, for her, the first time out from the (shell). We had history class together; Early Modern Europe 1517- 1715. I found the course very interesting, but Hindy was distraught. She was absolutely torn between her traditional teachings and what the Indian professor was telling her. It was obvious that Hindy could no longer brush off one truth and settle for another… they had both come to occupy the same space. Every class I could see little bits of the girl fall away as new bits and pieces took their place.

We didn’t keep in touch afterwards, so I don’t know if she came to terms with the paradigm that her life became. I do know, however, that she can never go back to the bliss of ignorance. Once we have tasted the sweetness of the forbidden fruit, we can never go back.

A few years later, while at Kingsborough College, I had an experience with another member of the Hasidim. His name was Josh and he was longing for an escape. It was clear that Josh was a good guy; open, honest and interested in what you have to say. Nobody minded him hanging out with our little mixed-racial group, but he was still unable to fit. His indoctrination within a closed society left him with a single set of behavioral mannerisms and social queues. Simply, he was unable to adapt to the way we talked, acted… the way we just were. So, even though we welcomed Josh, his (shell) prevented him from transgressing into a newfound world.

Plato’s Parable of the Cave gives an all-too-clear example of how this system insulates itself. In Plato’s Cave, the man who sees the truth is the minority. Attempts to explain this to the ignorant majority are seen as a threat to their private utopia. The visionary is then put to death, in order to preserve the established view (in statu quo res erant ante bellum).

Image source: Plato's Allegory of the Cave


There are no solid truths. Anything and everything we know is fluid; can be melted and molded based upon the crucible in which it’s placed. The “new mentality” accepts and affirms the possibility of multiple truths co-existing. Individuals indoctrinated in only one truth are at a loss, which causes further withdrawal and disconnect, which causes the illusion of persecution, which is responsible for so many bloody culture wars.