"All I know is that the knife went in. If he hadn't been there, he wouldn't have been killed. It's just my luck I'm here on this charge."
"If the church had better locks, I wouldn't have broken in."
"It wasn't really me when I stole the car."
Theodore Dalrymple treats countless patients in Britain's prisons and explores what is at the heart of these broken lives in his book "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass." Dalrymple states, "They describe themselves as the marionettes of happenstance," yet he contends that all actions must be evaluated in light of the worldview behind their actions or how their ideas effect their behavior.
Every individual has a worldview, set of beliefs that determine his or her actions. Those ideas have consequences--for good and ill.
So what is a worldview?
• It's the belief system that directs our decisions and actions.
• A worldview answers four basic questions:
-Where did I come from?
-Who am I?
-What is wrong with the world?
-How can those problems be fixed?
In other words, a worldview answers:
1. how the universe was created
2. attempts to explain problems
3. seeks a solution to what's wrong
How do you see the world? A victim of fate, the captain of your destiny, or part of a grand design?
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1 comment:
Hi Lauree Beth!
I love your blog-- I think it has the potential to do a lot of good for a lot of people. I like how you incorporated the stuff we learned in the Ethics class and the Converged class into one great, fantastic, "I can't wait to unwrap this" package! :-)
Talk to you soon! :-)
~ Steph
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