Perspective and privilege

I've been watching Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson on Netflix. Carl Sagan's show was captivating to me and this one is no less so. In the first episode, Tyson describes Sagan as a science communicator, a phrase that I love and find apt. Richard Feynman once remarked that if you can't explain something then you don't understand it. By that logic, these folks know what they are speaking of, and they speak of it well.

(found on TEDtalk website) Full disclosure: I have a mad Feynman crush.

The experience of watching this new show has been much more settling than I'd anticipated. Well, settling and then unsettling and then settling and then unsettling and again and again. Observing the movements and patterns of nature is an extraordinary exercise. It shifts your gaze, fills your immediate thoughts with data and relationships and can impart a sense of awe at the world in which we find ourselves that seems to let us shake off the horror of personal hatred and shame. As we are reminded, we are all made of star stuff, and if you believe this, if you look into the stars and you see what made you and me and everyone around you, it is possible to imagine that it could weaken your notions of privilege and superiority.

from youdopia.tumblr.com

There is a breath, a sigh that comes with a re-focused gaze. Partly because I get So Over searching around my own little life from time to time and partly because there is joy in learning and understanding that cannot be measured. 

There is another breath, another sigh that happens when I think of all the ways in which critical analysis, observation and experiment, the building of systems of understanding and questioning, the communities of thought that offer foundations to young scientists and new projects, how all of those are constantly under attack. At the heart of science, at the heart of art, lies the fundamental need to keep asking questions of the answers that life provides. That is a habit that dangerously undermines the stability of a controlling interest; an authoritarian state that relies on ignorance and compliance to perpetuate; an economic system built on separation and hierarchy; a myth of tradition that prizes anti-intellectualism and rigid social roles. 

There is privilege in education. There is privilege in being non-conformist (non-compliant, as well). There is privilege in creativity and curiosity. There is privilege in quiet, in conversation, in leisure time, in the practice of watching art and observing nature and reading and writing. There is privilege that allows for the development of skills of critical analysis. There is privilege that surrounds the safe spaces where intellectual stimulation and complication and frustration and clarification can happen.

Shows like this keep trying to extend privileges, to further respect for intellectual pursuits, to encourage involvement and imagination. This one in particular, also reminds me how limited our access to lives not constantly running up against the walls of privilege really is. The universe is tremendous and weird and fascinating and fantastic.

from patheos.com