Thursday, January 22, 2015

Gaudium et Spes

Many people dread reading Gaudium et Spes because they think it is boring and very lengthy. Even though there is some truth to this, there is some importance to reading it for our travel writing class. Gaudium helps teach people how to deal with difficulties in our society and be accepting of other cultures. In Gaudium it states that people need to “satisfy the right of all to a human and social culture in conformity with the dignity of the human person without any discrimination of race, sex, nation, religion or social condition” (Gaudium 60). I have not traveled very much, but I believe the best part about traveling is learning new cultures. Gaudium is asking people to not be judgmental or stereotypical of other backgrounds. How are we supposed to immerse in other cultures if we are constantly judging them? I think it is crucial to embrace other societies or religions to understand other people’s viewpoints. People must be open to try their best to conform to other cultures while their away. It is kind of like you get a few days or weeks to be a whole new person and experience so many new adventures. Sure it might be scary at first but I think it will be worth it in the end!

I feel like you only have one life to live and traveling helps make us experience so many great things. In Gaudium it talks about how important traveling is “Everything must be done to make everyone conscious of the right to culture and the duty he has of developing himself culturally and of helping others” (Gaudium 60). This quote made me think of the video we watched called “Faithful Travel” because he went to many countries to try and help people with his strong faith. I really think this quote fits in well to our travel writing class because it emphasizes the significance of traveling. For me traveling is not all about just visiting certain museums, or getting your tan on. I think traveling is a way to develop a person’s diversity. It may even be helpful to learn new cultures because our country and becoming more and more diverse. I remember in one of my classes my sociology professor told us in 2050 Caucasians will be the minority. Eventually we are going to have to accept other cultures into our lives. Not everyone is going to white, Christians, and English speaking. Traveling is so important and Gaudium expresses this many ways because it states to be diverse and accepting of other cultures.

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2 comments:

  1. UnknownJanuary 25, 2015 at 11:08 AM

    I think the quotes you chose from Gaudium were very fitting for this course. The idea that we need to embrace other cultures and become more diverse ourselves is something that I believe to be crucial for this day and age. You are right in saying that travel helps us to broaden our outlook on the world. We spend so much of our time wrapped up in our own problems that sometimes it does take a trip to a less fortunate region for us to realize how minuscule our problems truly are. With the notions that Gaudium provides, I think it sets forth some pretty good guidelines and rules that we should all keep in mind when we do travel.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 3, 2015 at 3:36 PM

    Great article Abby! You are right about Gaudium completely. It wants us to focus on traveling and emerging ourselves in the cultures of others. It is kind of scary though to think that after being the majority for long, whites will become just another color. Kind of like in a crayon box, nobody ever uses the white crayon. The important part of the experience though is learning about other cultures and how they live. Around the world people are so different. To incorporate every culture into your life is basically impossible. They contradict in several ways. Our goal as humans should be to find what culture makes us happy and to understand that other people are happy with their cultures.

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