Perception L. Jones in Order to Understand

Perception L. Jones In order to understand the reality of any complex situation, it is essential to understand basic critical thinking principles. In fact, without realizing that there are several "perceptual blocks" that most people harbour in their "view" of any situation, greatly improves one's probability of having an accurate understanding of the issues involeed -- espeically when that situation is highly charged with emotion, polarization, or conflict.

One excellent example in my own life when I was highly influenced by perceptual blocks was my perception of the Israeli/Palestian problem. As a young person, I was greatly impressed by the story of the creation of the State of Israel.

Indeed, the image of the beleagured state of the dispersed Jewish Tribes, especially following the horrors of the Second World War only buoued my impression of Israelis as "Exodus-like" (as in the Leon Uris Novel) idealists, forging a new, free land, where Jews the world over could finally have a nation, language, and strong identity of their own.

Further, in the news media, as well as in American society as a whole, Israelis are often portrayed as "like us," and as representatives of the "only democracy in the Middle East," far from the barbaric nature of their Arab neighbors. Thus, when I went to Israel for the first time, I fully expected to see a nation of proud, ethical people, bravely fighting the scourge of barbaric terrorism in their midst -- perpitratied by the masses of backward Arabs, bent on fighting to the bloody end.

In short, my perceptual blocks, led me to assume that there was a "good" side and a "bad" side to the Isareli/Palestinian conflict that was as clear as black and white. I was very wrong. When I first arrived in Jordan, before crossing over the border into the West Bank, I found my sterotypes only too validated.

This means "I saw what I expected to see." I was tired, and annoyed after a long flight, and saw the characteristic lack of respect for "turn taking" in the long line at the visa window to be an example of barbaric Arab behaiviour.

Further, by the time I did cross into the West Bank, amid shoving chaos, heat, and general misery, I was fully convinced that the Arab population was in horrible need of instruction on the proper behaivior of "civilized society." Interestingly, though, as I spent some time among the Palestiian villages, and visited the families there, I began to notice other things -- perhaps not a part of my society, but things that I realized had merit of a different kind.

For instance, I noticed that families helped each other, that children could play freely in the streets, and even walk for miles to school, without fear of kidnapping or abuse. I also noticed immense hospitality, so much so that one could not sit in a person's home for more than five miniutes without beign offered tea -- and usually dinner, even if the houshould in fqueisotn was obvoudly in the direst of streights.

I also saw grinding poverty, barbaric cruelty, Israeli soldiers pointing their automatic rifles at children as young as five years old, houses demolished and villages completely closed off without explanation. Indeed, I also saw a kind of stoic humor in the people I talked to -- a far cry from the rabid "Jihad!" that most people associate with the Palestiian population.

I even recall one young man telling of how he was shot in the leg, and then taken to a field where he was blindfolded and beaten for three hours by three jeeps full of Israeli soldiers -- all for the crime of looking for antiques on his own land.

What struck me in this exchange was not the cruelty of the incident as much as his attitude when he told it, as if he did not want to make a big deal -- almost in a "well, what are you gonna do?" way. In fact, his smile never left his face. A realized that my perceptual blocks set me up to see the Palestiian people according to my stereotype of them as barbaric terrorists.

Indeed, my preconception of them, which was only buoyed by my particular frame of reference as an American citizen exposed to a particular cultural and media bias against Arabs in general, only prevented me from seing that they had a very legitimate "side" to the Israeli/Palestiian issue that I had not appreciated before. By living among them, in essence, from a different "point of reference," I began to experience a "paradigm shift" in which I realized that fact.

I believe that the reason I had such a one sided bias against the Arab Palestiians had to do with some of the most common problems of perception that all people suffer from at one time or another. Namely, I accepted limited and misleading information to form an opinion of the issue from only a static point-of-view, I allowed my cultural background to make comparisos and judgemetns concerning a.