The experiences we have in our lives make us who we are. We saw with Father Berrigan that his early experiences, how he was raised and taught to believe as a child, greatly affected who he became as an adult and he believed and stood for later on. How would things have been different had some factors in his life been changed? If his mother was not been an immigrant, had he had 6 sisters instead of brothers, had his family not been poor, but middle-class or wealthy, would he have changed? I think the obvious answer is yes, but how drastically would it have changed him? When do we stop thinking as children and following our parents every belief, and begin thinking for ourselves? Do we ever really lose all of our beginning beliefs? Should we want those beliefs to change? How we are raised and what we go through in our early lives will shape how we grow and learn and interact with others when we are older. Isolated experiences as well can change our whole being in the blink of an eye. We saw with Stewart Parker that what he experienced here in America is what based the character of Peter in “Pentecost”. How would the play have changed had Parker not gone through what he did in America? He seemed to draw connections between the struggles in America and Ireland at the time, so it is evident that his experiences in America were important to his writing. The experiences one has can also veer them off onto a completely different path with no warning. Maybe a college student studying business gets into or witnesses a terrible car crash. Suddenly, they realize they don’t want to study business anymore, but instead want to be involved in the medical field. Experiences can change us that quickly, and this changes our whole lives in the process.
The idea of being directly connected to something can also affect how experiences change us as people. We can be part of a group, organization, job, whatever it is, and not be directly connected if we don’t get involved. Once we become involved though, and go through the experiences that these groups are going through, our minds, values, beliefs may change. When we see things happening in first-person, right in front of us, our perspective changes and we are seeing the issues from a different angle. It is more personal to us because we are right there. Take the college student from before. Instead of being there when the crash occurred, if they had instead read about it or seen it on the news, would it have affected them so strongly that they decided to change their major? The answer is probably not, but potentially. Everybody experiences things differently and are affected differently, so we can never know how someone will react or change when they experience something. They may even experience the same things as us, and have completely different reactions and thoughts about what happened. We need to remember this when having discussions and debates with people who have different beliefs than us. They may have had completely opposite experiences from our own, which made them who they are, and we need to respect that. Our experiences make us who are, and can change who we become. The question we must ask ourselves is how are these experiences going to change us? For better, or for worse?
I think that all of your different ideas on how and when a person can change and the ways that different people and experiences can impact the way a person thinks or interacts with the world are very interesting and thought provoking. I would say that the way that someone is raised is one of the biggest indicators and influences on how they think and interact with the world. Family life and the way someone is raised are essential to how they look at the world and later make choices about their involvement in society, politics, etc. I would disagree however though with your idea that very few people can or would be converted to an idea through a single encounter with a protestor or demonstrator. I think that when our ideas change, it is often because there was an initial conversation or interaction with someone that was so powerful that we begin to think about the situation differently or question our own beliefs. I think because of the power of a protest or demonstration, these times can often be that spark that changes someone’s viewpoint. The person begins to think that if someone is so passionate about something that they are willing to go to jail for it, why does it matter to them so much? While demonstrations might not change the viewpoints of everyone, I do think they are powerful and can create change or at least conversations to challenge a person’s thoughts and viewpoints.
You posed an interesting question about whether Stewart Parker may have written the play differently had he not experienced what he did. I believe that he likely would not have wrote the play at all.
Although I was unable to find what we read about Parker in class on Wednesday, I believe we talked about how profound his experience at Cornell was on writing of The Pentecost. Considering the direct parallels to Peter from his own experience, I don’t think that he would have had the inspiration to write what he did. You also talked about how being a part of an organization or group can affect how beliefs, which I think is completely true. However, if we were raised or previously directed in a different direction than our current experience in this group, I think those previous experiences have a more profound impact on us. In almost every case, it takes consistent exposure to a new idea to really conform to the new way of thinking that may come from it. This is present in almost every situation of social change in society. There are likely very few people who would be converted to an idea through a single encounter with a protestor or demonstrator. It takes time to determine what we believe and why we believe it, just as it took time for us to grow into the people that we have become today.