Worldview: Then and Now Essay

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Worldviews: Then and Now

Having a worldview is something that has always been with society, but that has not been studied and focused on in such detail until recently. The original term came from German, as there was really no word for it in English. Now, it has a much more commonplace meaning, and is used more frequently to provide insight into how a person sees the world around him or her.

A worldview is comprised of a number of different things, but it most notably begins with language.

The language the individual first learns will shape his or her view of the world, simply because there are only so many words and phrases that can be used for various things. Without other phrases or words that can be used -- and that would be in another language -- a person is limited to particular types of phrases in how he or she expresses thoughts, feelings, and ideas.

With that in mind, a person's worldview begins to be shaped at a very early age, as soon as he or she starts to perceive surroundings and be taught names for the objects that are encountered on a daily basis.

There is more to worldview than language, of course. Where a person is raised and how that person is raised are both highly important facets of shaping a worldview.

The experiences the person has throughout youth and young adulthood shape the worldview very strongly.

While it is possible for that worldview to be changed, it can take a great deal of time and effort to do so. Discussed here will be the importance of worldview, along with the issue of how it is perceived now and how it was often perceived in the past. Five separate authors will be considered for the thoughts and beliefs they held surrounding their own worldview and the worldviews of others, as well.

The Importance of Worldview

For many people, there is really nothing more important than their worldview.

However, many people do not realize that their worldview is that important to them, until they have it challenged in some way.

When they see some kind of challenge to what they have previously believed, they can either turn away and remain stubbornly opposed to something different, or they can open their minds to the idea that there are many different ways to look at the world.

When people choose this option, they can find that their worldview is changed, and they are forever different because they were willing to explore something that was not what they were used to. However, that does not mean that their worldview is not still very important to them. It simply means that they have a worldview that is somewhat different from what it used to be.

That can be a good thing for many people, because they are able to adjust their worldview from what it was when they were children to what it is when they are adults, with more knowledge about who they are in relation to the rest of the world.

By considering how important a person's worldview is, one can expand his or her own thinking and examine how different people throughout numerous cultures have adjusted to the changes that they have seen over time. The authors addressed here -- Bronowski, Feynman, Dubos, Mayr, & Freud -- had strong worldviews that were based on their languages, cultures, and ethical understanding of other people and countries. However, the way they went about focusing on those worldviews was very different from the way many people examine and explore their worldviews today. That is important to make note of, because the idea of having a worldview is not something that changes over time, but the way these worldviews have changed and developed has evolved.

Bronowski

Bronowski was concerned about the generalization of culture. The more generalized a culture becomes, the more likely it is that the culture will become "watered down" and not allow people to explore their differences.

People who all share that culture will also likely all share the same worldview, and over time that worldview will end up one that really does not stand for much or have any deep-seated beliefs or feelings.

Of course, there will certainly be people in that culture who will develop their own worldviews, but the generalization of the entire culture will continue on an overall basis. It becomes harder to make judgments when the culture is more generalized, as well.

While judging a person on a religious or related type of level is not considered to be a good practice, there are still many types of judgments that do need to be made, often on a daily basis, by people in all walks of society.

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With a strong and grounded worldview, making judgments about what is best for oneself throughout life can more easily be accomplished.

Throughout the practice of science, though, Bronowski found that he was compelled to form what he considered to be a fundamental set of human values.

These are often different from the values that are formed by most people in society, especially when that society is very generalized, because scientists are focused on something much more than what would typically be seen in most of society. Bronowski was very interested in the creative mind, but he was also interested in the scientific mind, as the two can be related but are often very different from one another.

Over time, Bronowski came to realize that people who do not deviate from the norm when it comes to their worldview can have trouble seeing the world for what it truly is, and therefore have trouble with judgments that will keep them (and their society) healthy, happy, and whole.

Feynman

Feynman's worldview was fascinating because he was a bit of a maverick and a free thinker, especially for someone who was considered to be a scientist. The vast majority of scientific discovery and activity is based on things that have been discovered before.

People take what they have learned, and they continue to build on that and work with it until they find another metaphorical block on which to build.

That is the common procedure, but it is not one that Feynman often used. Instead, he was more interested in taking everything that was commonly known about a particular scientific issue and tearing it completely apart. He would take it down into its individual pieces, and then he would reassemble it his way.

By doing this, he shaped his worldview and gained a much deeper understanding of everything he studied from a scientific standpoint. However, it is quite possible that the time he spent in this manner could have been better spent by working on new discoveries that could have been of value to the scientific community.

Feynman was not interested in that, though, as much as he was interested in understanding the deeper implications of what people said they already knew. Rather than simply and blindly believe whatever he was told, and use that information to build on, he wanted to first make sure the information he was given was true and accurate to the best of his knowledge, not just to the knowledge of someone else.

That was a skill and a goal that is often considered unique to the scientific mind, and one that served Feynman well in the work he did. He advanced physics much more than nearly anyone else in his field, even though the way in which he went about it was often from the side or the back, instead of tackling it right from the front.

His worldview was very different than that of many scientists, but it was one he employed to the fullest, and it worked for him.

Dubos

The worldview of Rene and Jean Dubos was different than that of the other authors addressed here. Rene, with collaboration from his wife Jean, wrote about tuberculosis, and how he believed that man was destroying the planet and causing diseases like TB because of the industrialization that was seen throughout the world. He walked a fine line between hope and despair, based not just on what he saw taking place at the present moment, but what he believed to be happening to the planet and to mankind as a whole.

He even called himself the despairing optimist, and addressed what he believed to be taking place throughout the whole of society.

His concerns about the world and how badly it was deteriorating related mostly to tuberculosis, but were also based on the ideas surrounding disease in general. He also did not completely believe that advancements in medical science had much to do with disease being reduced, and that there were other factors at play.

That is something worth carefully considering, because there were differences of opinion between the Duboses and their contemporaries, that were not addressed in standard ways because Dubos' way of looking at the world sometimes set him at….....

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