"Gethesm?"

As the joke goes, one studying for a PhD learns more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. Funny, right? Maybe funny and true.
One of my professors recently recounted a story of when he was in a class full if PhD students discussing a poet who's writing made extensive allusions to Christianity. After some time working with these texts, a portion of the class asked, "okay, what is this 'gethesm' he keeps talking about?" The professor teaching the class--who was decidedly not a religious man--stared open mouthed at them. If PhD candidates could not recognize an allusion the the Garden of Gethsemane, they might as well close up shop and go home.

This is not innocent ignorance, although I doubt the students themselves are to blame. Our society declares that it is globalizing; all cultures are to be respected and accepted. If these students could somehow make it from kindergarten to doctoral work without learning about Gethsemane, society is enforcing this virtue of acceptance with blatant ignorance.

How are we to respect and co-exist with other cultures if we know nothing about them? Such an approach to multiculturalism can only be peaceable if it is built on not caring about our neighbors' cultures. On the most superficial level, this brand of ignorance makes it risky to invite anyone over for dinner, not knowing what they may believe about Divinely codified dietary laws.

On a deeper level, the fallout of 9-11 merits some thought. I hope we have not forgotten that tragedy. More than that, I hope we remember the prejudice many Arabs have felt since 9-11 simply because they are Arabs. Personally, I am inclined to thinking that these hate crimes would not have happened if more people were educated in a way that allowed them to understand that the fundamental beliefs of Islam are not suicide bombers and anti-Americanism, but faith in Allah, devotion to family, and respectable moral standards. Maybe a properly educated child, or adult, would have the intelligence to realize there is a difference between fundamentalist extremist terrorists and everyday, practising Muslims. I tend to thinking that if a few Americans had read the Koran for themselves and read it well, they might be able to realize that it teaches values not so far removed from those most of us claim as our own.

Maybe I am too much of an optimist.