A New Reading Site – Part 1: Reading the Reality before my Senses

Whenever I encounter a new experience or encounter a new reality my brain quickly goes into overload trying to make sense of it. My brain does not sit easy in the midst of experiential chaos; I like to make order out of chaos at least to the satisfaction of own mind. I am pre-disposed towards finding conclusion to situations quickly. This tendency is not a bad thing, intelligence is there to be used, and yet at the same time it is an approach to new realities which is full of risk. I have to continually remind myself of the arrogance of a resident alien believing he can make logical sense of the Philippines within a few weeks or months.

So I have been getting very philosophical, thinking a lot about how I see the world, and how I make sense of the world. Here is where I am up to!

Whenever we encounter something new our pre-existing dispositions, ideas and prejudices weigh heavily on how we see, interpret and understand any information we receive. The way in which we make sense of the world depends very heavily on the place from which we view the realities in front of us; all of us have a particular location from which we read the world, our own personal ‘Reading Site’.

Take for example a written text, a novel, a sacred script or a newspaper article. The interpretation of this text often owes as much to the ‘reading site’ of the reader than it does to the intentions of the author. Two people can read the same text and yet construct a very different interpretation of it.

What goes for written texts in this example applies also to wider experience, to the sights we see with our eyes, to the discussions we have, to news media, to films, to liturgy, to art, to magazines and to music.

I as a Western European, so my first instinct is inevitably to make sense of The Philippines from my Western European ‘reading site’.  I have to be aware that this affects what I notice, what strikes me as important, what affects me emotionally, what makes sense and what doesn’t make sense.  I have to remember that ‘Objective Truth’ is always hidden behind a thick wall of ‘Subjective Truth’. As a human being I cannot stand outside the reality I have brought with me. (Incidentally I am very aware that these ideas about truth are in fact the result of my own very post-modern reading site!)

To believe we can read reality without a ‘Reading Site’ is to delude ourselves. However being conscious of my inherent prejudices and assumptions can allow me to be on alert to them. I can attempt to make judgements more slowly and listen to the world around me much more carefully than I normally would. The challenge while living here is not to make sense of the world here according to my own ideas and prejudices, that is easy. The real challenge is to deconstruct, and become aware of, my own ‘reading site’; and to attempt to understand how the ‘reading site’ of the people who live here is different.

What does reality look like for the very poorest people? Where are they seeing reality clearer than I am? And at the same time, what are their prejudices and pre-existing ideas that obscure their lenses?

What do I, as a wealthy European, look like through the eyes of a Philippino child living on the streets of Cebu? What do I, as a citizen of a seemingly secularising nation, look like through the eyes of a devoutly Catholic Philippino? Who am I from their reading site?