Kolvenbach and King

Throughout the course of the semester our class readings have had underlying aspects of inequality and justice. The term justice, to “just behavior or treatment” is a main theme discussed in both Peter-Hans Kolvenbach’s Service of faith and promotion of justice in Jesuit higher education and Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail. Throughout both of these texts there is a relationship to societal injustices to specific groups of people as well as the speech about systemic change. 
            Both of these texts discuss inequality in relation to the actions of the man. Both Kolvenbach and King accumulate the idea that man himself needs to change his actions in order for justice to be brought and inequality to be irradiated.  It is interesting to see the trail that each text traces as a source of inequality. King focuses specifically on the institution while Kolvenbach looks at the Jesuit religion and faith. King states, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” (1) which inherently points to the culture wide problem of racial inequality and how it must be fixed on small scale situations before it can be fixed nationwide. Planting the seed of justice by changing one’s person actions to reflect equality among all races will eventually lead to the changing of unfair societal norms. There is not one step “cure” to racism, but rather the slow and simple adjustment of one’s thoughts and actions. The idea that King alludes to that we are all Americans is indeed the big picture of how people of the country should be viewed, rather than with racial identities. These prejudices can be irradiated not simply with time but with constructive restructuring of racial images. 
            Kovlenbach’s approach similarly identifies the actions of man as the problem however he also discusses a “service to faith”. Throughout the text Kolvenbach places weight on technology and how it changes our society. He also referred to the man as having selfish tendencies and identifies that as a signifying blockade to progress being made. In turn, Kolvenbach recognizes the need for change however he questions if man is able to clearly see this or not. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Spiral of Time in Potiki

Potiki is a story focusing on a Maori community fighting to maintain their autonomy from hungry land developers who are desperately trying to coerce the Maori people off of their sacred land. The author, Patricia Grace, constructs the story through a patchwork of memories, where different events, different times, and different viewpoints come together in like a mosaic.   Grace disrupts the linear narrative and describes time in a cyclical way, a never-ending spiral. Rather than segregating time the “past time” of the ancestors from the “present time” of the community, there is a new way of describing time. I found “now-time” to be a fascinating concept, where there’s this spiral temporality where past and future time are narratively experienced. The concept of “sacred time” was more challenging to understand, where the narrative of Christ and the and the ancient myth of Mäui align.   The spiral, like kowhaiwhai, signifies repetition with a difference. Toko shares q
Read more

Potiki literary analysis

In comparing  Things Fall Apart  and  Potiki,  it is evident that each culture, and even individuals within a culture, define home differently. Many of the characters in  Potiki  rely upon the geography of New Zealand to define home. Hemi particularly views home through this lens.              Hemi first demonstrates his commitment to the land when he loses his job. While he is initially disappointed, he quickly resolves that “He’d always known that one day he would return to the land, and that the land would support them all again," (60). He trusts that the land will provide for his family, which is exceptional given that he has recently become unemployed. Additionally, Hemi expresses the importance of protecting his own land. He reflects, “These days people were looking more to their land” because “They had to if they didn’t want to be wiped off the face of the earth,” (60). He then points to the Te Ope people as an example of those who had been forced to protect their land. 
Read more

Potiki Reading

          From the beginning of her novel, Patricia Grace makes her priorities clear: She will be telling the stories that have been untold, and more importantly, unheard. Potiki  begins with the story of the carver, a master storyteller, who places the history of his people in his craft. Like Grace, he is "Seeking out and exposing the figures that were hidden" (7). However, his final story is left uncompleted, because "[It] is not yet known" (10). With the death of the carver, the narrative begins, and the reader is thrown into a somewhat tumultuous world.           Unlike Things Fall Apart , there is a strong emphasis on the "hidden" nature of the story. Roimata's internal conflict is not nearly as clear as Okonkwo's. In fact, it feels almost unknowable. "As a child I lived with my father in a railway house with a small, dark kitchen... Our window framed the flying windows, flying eyes, of trains which riveted the senses, carrying them into
Read more