To become better people and to understand humanity…that’s why we read and learn.
Naoki Urasawa’s Master Keaton aired back in 1998 to 1999 about insurance investigator Taichi Keaton who solves mystery cases, lectures part time for various colleges, studies archaeology, and most of all, aims to live as the “master of life.”
Episode 5 had one moment which stood out to me, in which Keaton delivers a lecture about his own professor who continued teaching during WWII in the midst of battle, taking his students outside of the building ruins, simply because there were still 15 minutes left. His professor stands boldly and declares to his students:
“The enemy is doing everything it can to rob us of our power and our ambition. If we don’t continue to learn, we’ll soon be in the hands of Hitler.”
(Viz Media dub of Master Keaton Episode 5)
But the solution, as Keaton’s professor explains, is that continuing to learn “will help us make it through this war that has brought out the worst in human beings, hatred, and murder.”
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When I watched the scene a few weeks back, I tried to recall why we learn, why we even bothered to wake up for school. Maybe it was routine. Maybe it was our parents. Or as my Psychology teacher commented two years ago, kids actually want to learn and understand the world.
Many of us hold the teachers of our lives in such high regard. These teachers can be our peers, our parents, our school teachers, or anyone who we meet. After all, we take after these role models when we see greed, racism, injustice, and immorality, whether we fight, whether we stay silent. These are the life-changing people.
We grow out of intolerance and misunderstandings by understanding the nuances, by thinking deeply, and by caring profoundly. We mature through this process by reading or hearing the stories of other people, or when we chose to listen to other opinions without pushing our opinions outwards.
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Learning ties into awareness. The recent racial movements, the heated online debates, and the United States’ recent forms of discrimination have reached the media. It is controversial and it elicits strong opinions.
I do not believe the voiced concerns are necessarily exclusionary. The hashtag #blacklivesmatter is not specifically valuing black lives over other lives, but highlighting the recent and historic challenges that black individuals have faced in the United States. Awareness is key. It is the first step against silence–the same silence when we implicitly condone discriminatory acts, no matter how minor.
Compassion for black people can help change this negative stigma against their group without undermining the efforts made for other groups. As Savannah Brown explains in her video about intersectionality, the goal is increasing inclusive discussion, rather than excluding groups in our decisions. Keeping an open forum is essential to combat these injustices.
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When Keaton concludes his lecture, he voices his own belief–
“If ignorance is part of human nature, then it is our mission to study that aspect and to overcome it.”
(Viz Media dub of Master Keaton Episode 5)
We learn because ignorance is dangerous. We learn because if we do not understand our history, if we do not recognize our potential for the future, then humanity will fall into a callous disregard for human life, and nobody can stop it because nobody understands how.
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
Discussions, literature, classrooms, online debates, and all channels through which information is passed are a part of learning. Meeting different people humbles us and imparts lifelong wisdom. Reading literature can help us become empathetic. Awareness wards off ignorance.
In the face of discrimination, I hope we can continue to keep our hearts and our minds open and most importantly, to keep listening and learning.
The Doodler Process 