This week held a lot of water. One of the assignments was to watch Elder Oaks's CES devotional, Truth and Tolerance. I feel like it fits perfectly with the conflicts going on right now. All over Facebook, people are showing their views on touchy topics, from abortion to same-sex marriage. Lately everyone has been making their profile pictures into either equal signs (to represent equality for everyone, especially those who want same-sex marriage legalized) or plus signs (to represent that marriage should be a man plus a woman). One thing that the devotional showed me is that we are all entitled to our beliefs. Further, whatever our beliefs are, we have no right to be cruel in expressing them, and we have no right to try to keep others from expressing their views or by quarreling with them. In my eyes, the instant you stop being kind is the moment you have lost all ground. No one will listen to someone who attacks them; it only further entrenches them in their views. We can only win others over through kindness. President Hinckley put it best: "There may be situations, there will be situations, where, with serious moral issues involved, we cannot bend on matters of principle. But in such instances we can politely disagree without being disagreeable. We can acknowledge the sincerity of those whose positions we cannot accept. We can speak of principles rather than personalities.” Elder Oaks also talked about how many have fallen into a culture of moral relativism - the belief that things are right and wrong based merely on your opinion of what is right and wrong. Elder Oaks discredits this fallacy by pointing out that there are absolute truths. Truth is truth, no matter if you conform to it or not.
We also learned about illegal immigrant families from Mexico and how they adjust. It was a sad study, because the families were doing this for their children to have better opportunities than they had. But, they had to give up a lot. The fathers often went over first, to secure a home and job. If the separation time was longer than a year or more, the family dynamics changed. The family system had to shift to fill the void that the father had left. Often, when the family reunited, things didn't go back to how they were before. It was hard for the children to reconnect in some cases. Also, the parents became more authoritarian in many cases, because they didn't know the American culture, didn't want their children to get involved in the dangers of drugs, bad friends, etc., and they needed to stay away from deportation. Also, the mother often had to enter the workforce to keep up financially. Thus, the children lost their father for a time, and once they got to America, they often lost their mother too. Not only that, but when they left Mexico they often left a tight-knit family system of cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Familialism is a big part of the Mexican culture. The traditional family (with father coming home from work while mother stays at home with the children) had been replaced by the family sometimes not talking to each other for a few days due to conflicting schedules.
We also learned that class has a lot to do with the success of the family. In many lower class U.S. families, there are a lot of single-parent families. It's not that these families don't want stable families. In many cases, they don't have a single positive role model of how a family should be. Also, the culture in many lower-class societies is that when problems come, you can walk away. Many people, like William Doherty, are trying to help these disadvantaged families.
Finally, Brother Williams asked the question, "Are all cultures equal and valid?" That question made me ponder a lot. What do you think: are all cultures equal? Food for thought.
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