History and Our Christian Faith

1. We say we are “Christians” and the summit of God’s revelation is in Jesus Christ. Because we call ourselves Christ-ians, we admit that Jesus Christ is central to our faith. Jesus is like the center of a wheel and everything else rays from the center. So our faith in him is really important for us. Let us reflect more on this faith in Jesus.
2. “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses... God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified" (Act2/32 and 36). The ancient Christians were saying this as a matter of faith. Notice what they say—they believed in something that happened in history. It was a confession of faith in a historical event. The event of Jesus living and then crucified was a historical event. God raised him and made him both Lord and Christ is a declaration of faith. Until today this is the Christian faith.
3. Today in our Eucharistic celebration (during Mass) we pray the “I believe” after the Gospel reading and the homily, if there is one. Look at that prayer and notice how we affirm our faith. See the contents of that prayer. That prayer has come down to us over a long period of time. We are born Christian-Catholic in our families and maybe in our societies. Our confession of faith is already “ready-made”. But what about history behind it? Do we realize how historical our faith-affirmation is?  Over the centuries this faith passed through many processes. Then, also, throughout history, faith faced challenges. Let us see one challenge that stems from modernity.

Very early times of the Church: everything accepted without question

4. During the very early years of Church history believers had a simple approach to knowing Christ. People accepted without question the reports of the gospels. Jesus, for those people, really walked on water. He really multiplied bread. Etc. The resurrection did not have resistance—people accepted it as a fact. Jesus Christ was divine—it was not questioned. Faith accepted these as historically true. The Bible as read was accepted as an authority of faith.

At the start of modernity: rationalism and the question about authority

5. Many centuries afterwards, when modernity came rising, people started to question the link between history and faith. Sometime in the 16th-17th centuries of Europe, there was a growing rejection of religious tradition and Church authority.  Instead of relying on what priests and elders would say, it would be more appropriate to see what “reason” itself can say. The human person can “think on his/her own” without authorities telling what to think.
6. So, if religious authority was getting rejected, it was possible to affirm reason.

Applying to knowing Jesus

7. What about the way Jesus was treated? It was less acceptable to see him in the light of what the Church said. Remember that authority, especially religious, at this point, has been highly questioned. So if Church authority cannot be basis for understanding Jesus, what can be basis? The understanding of “what is human” at this point made people think that the human is a “rational” creature with the autonomy to think and decide for oneself. So this too was applied to Jesus.
8. Many preferred to see Jesus as a “rational man” who can think and decide on his own. To say he was “son of God” was to accept the authority of the Church. So it was best to avoid saying Jesus was “son of God” and better to say that Jesus was a “rational man”. The study about Jesus became more of a “rational philosophy”. Jesus was seen as a good model of a moral and rational man. Remove the “superstitions” like the notion of “Son of Man” or “Savior”. Many people preferred to see Jesus as a pure rational man. Jesus was a “model” of being a rational man.

Modernity and the development of science

9. Later on, at around late 1700’s and way into the 1800’s, modern science became highly successful. It had a strong influence in the minds of people. The modern natural sciences were considered the best approaches to understanding reality. All studies had to be influenced by the natural sciences and mathematics. It was really the height of modernism. So the science of history had to pattern itself from natural science.

Applied to knowing Jesus

10. The growing success of modern science had an impact on understanding who is Jesus. Knowing Jesus scientifically would mean removing the aspects of faith far from science. So then the study about Jesus made some people say that historical science can prove that Jesus was a man of “vision”; he was a “rebel” from Galilee. He was controversial with the leaders of Palestine. Jesus was a “liberal man” and he had a strong influence in the social life of his time. Jesus was an “exceptional man” and he was “a great man”. Notice that nothing was said about Jesus as divine. It was not necessary. Looking at historical facts was enough.

But there came a new question: Was Jesus even historically true?

11. There were people who asked about the guarantee to identify the true historical facts of Jesus. And so there were persons who said that maybe it was not even possible to know the actual historical Jesus. Maybe it was impossible to have a real, concrete and true historical account of Jesus. Historical science would not be as exact as natural science anyway.
12. Some people then said that the Bible, and especially the gospel stories, were “confessions of faith”. Faith influenced the way the Bible texts were written. So all ideas about the divinity of Jesus did not have a scientific basis. All the Christians say about Jesus as “son of God”, “Christ (Messiah)” were all expressions of faith and not truly real in the concrete world.
13. This had a major consequence. If the Bible—and the four gospels—only spoke of faith expressions then these texts cannot be even be considered historical texts. There is no access to the real historical Jesus because the documents about him have been marked by the imaginative affirmations of faith. We cannot know the real Jesus. We can only know what gospel authors wrote about them; and the gospel stories were not historically true they were faith expressions only.  
14. If nothing can said about the historical Jesus, then all that would be left is the bias of faith. Everything about Jesus could only be the “faith stories” of the ancient Christians, like the gospel authors, who wrote the New Testament.
15. Notice this new element. A criticism can be put against faith. Faith can be “dogmatic”, it can be imaginative, it can be cultural but it is not scientific. Faith can be imaginative statements about Jesus but faith does not tell us the real Jesus.

Let us pause for a while: Some Catholics did not join the debate

16. Well, let us note in passing that there was a big population in the Catholic Church that kept distance from all these debates. They did not want to get involved with debates with science, history and scientific study of the Bible. Many Catholics stuck it out with the old tradition with the dogmatic affirmations about Jesus. The dogmas were left unquestioned. There was no need to verify their historical roots. Just accept faith dogmatically.
17. Notice that some Catholics remained in the past. They did not want to pay too much attention to the movements of modernity. They did not want to mix science, reason with faith. They felt that faith was enough and the use of rational-scientific thinking had to part in Christian life.
18. We can say that this is ok…but in a limited way. We can join the population of Christians who will not dialogue with science and history. We can stay within the confines of believing in Church dogma. But we surrounded by a world that is marked by many questions. When we reach out to people and talk to them about our faith we will be getting to contact with people of many modern questions. We cannot be indifferent to their struggles.

Bultmann and the “message” of Jesus

19. It seemed that science was dominating the world of knowledge. The scientific approach to history became more and more critical. It was accepted that when studying about Jesus there cannot be an accurate historical science.
20. But then something new emerged. During the late 1800’s and well into the 1900’s, a strong theological school became influential in Bible studies. This was exemplified by a protestant Lutheran theologian named Bultmann. Bultmann radically separated history from faith. He agreed that it was impossible to know the real, concrete historical Jesus. So what?
21. It was not necessary to worry about the real, concrete historical Jesus. What was most important, for Bultmann, was the message of Jesus in the gospels. The message, and not the historical reality, was most important.
22. Think well about this position. It looks attractive. If we cannot be sure about the “real Jesus” we can still rely on the message. We can still rely on “meaning”. Maybe we are not sure about what Jesus really said; we are not sure about what Jesus really did. But if we read the gospels we can get meaning and lessons that we can apply to our lives.
23. This is attractive. It is less stressful because we do not have to worry about the truth about Jesus. We already get meaningful lessons for life.

The rejection against Bultmann

24. Many theologians did not agree with Bultmann. (We mention names like Kähler, Bornkamm and Pannenberg from the Protestant side and Rahner, Thüsing and Kasper from the Catholic side. But we need not go into details of their works). What was this new position?
25. This new position would say that the Jesus Christ preached by faith is also the Jesus Christ of history. There is a continuity between them, they are connected and linked. Faith in Jesus Christ cannot be separated from the real history of Jesus Christ. What led the new theologians to say this?
26. They would say that the gospels were written to show Jesus of Nazareth. There must have been a reason for writing the gospels. The gospels were not made simply to make an expression of faith. The gospels had something more. Ok, let agree that the gospels were written as faith expressions. But they were written because of a historical event. The ancient Christians were “triggered” by the encounter with Jesus.
27. The historical event was real and it was what the gospels responded to. If we look closely at the gospels, then, we can see how the historical weight of Jesus was affecting it.
28. Our Christian faith. Christianity is inscribed within history. It is not just a religion of wise ideas and moral norms. It is not just about meaningful lessons from the Bible. It is not just a product of human culture. The Christian faith is rooted in actual history—what really happened in a particular place and in a particular time: the Jesus-event.
29. The presence of Jesus was a revelation to the Apostles and the early Christians. The Apostles and the early Christians said many things about Jesus but what they said were not pure fiction and imagination. They were rooted in the concrete historical experience with the man named Jesus from Nazareth. The Jesus event really happened and the gospels stories are proofs of that event. Even if they were written with some literary styles, they were written out of concrete experiences with Jesus.
30. A historical event motivated the writing of the gospels. Before even preaching about Jesus and before even making faith affirmations there was the historical encounter with Jesus. The “real Jesus” of history—the Jesus-event—was the motivation for faith and the motivation for expressing in terms of faith. Before the faith that we now have was developed and before the early Christians expressed their faith there was the encounter with the man Jesus—a true historical man. The confession of faith—and the writing of the gospels—were responses to the experience of having encountered Jesus.
31. There are versions about Jesus and we know of four. They are the gospels according to Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. Note that we say versions. They are “points of view” regarding the same historical man.
32. So if we follow the thinking of the recent theologians we can see that we are still in the line of revelation. We are not following a faith that is merely invented by the Apostles and the early Christians. Yes, we have many cultural elements in our faith, especially the cultural elements of Judaism. Remember that the encounter with Jesus was in Palestine, in full Jewish culture. The Apostles and the early Christians were marked by their Jewish roots. So their versions and interpretations about Jesus were influenced by their Jewish culture and tradition. But the historical revelation of the actual presence of Jesus was not an invention. That revelation really happened historical—in the concrete.
33. Jesus of Nazareth was Christ, Lord and Saviour. This is what the Apostles saw. Christ was this historical man Jesus. This is what the gospel authors said.

The consequence for our faith

34. The gospels do not prohibit us from studying the historical Jesus. In fact, the gospels were really attempts of the early Christians to resist making Jesus a myth. They are proofs that a historical encounter happened and it was such a powerful experience that gospel writers had to mention the experience but in the language of faith. The gospel stories prove that faith begins with a historical encounter. The fact that they are written as story-telling of what happened is proof that a real historical event—the Jesus-event—really happened. The story-telling was written with certain literary styles but the styles do not stop us from seeing the historical reality.
35. When we read the gospels, even if we read texts of faith, we can discern the historical content underneath. Through the gospels we can have access to the historical Jesus. The gospels are like windows opening and allowing us to view the “real Jesus” of history.
36. The Jesus-event really happened, then it is bound to be in the same human conditions are we are in. In principle, therefore, faith is also open to the sciences. History, anthropology, sociology, psychology, etc. have a place in the study of our Christian faith. Theology and the Christian faith, in general, do not necessarily have to close itself from the sciences. We say that we do not exclude science from the study about Jesus Christ.
37. This is a challenge to us, actually. We may be doing so many practices in Christianity—and we wonder if we are really doing something purely cultural or doing something rooted in the Jesus-event. We have practices that characterize our lives, and we might want to ask: are these practices really from Jesus Christ or are they simply the creative products of culture?
38. If we read the four gospels and if we pray the “I believe” during mass, will we say that they are simply results of imaginative cultural faith confessions far from the real historical Jesus? The answer is…..WHAT DO YOU THINK?
39. Faith does not stop us from looking at the historical Jesus. In fact, faith is the refusal to make imaginative stories about Jesus. It is the refusal to make a myth out of Jesus. The gospels are not mythical stories. The gospels are faith proclamations about an event—the presence of Jesus—in history. It is possible to do history through the veil of the gospels. Faith includes the courage to face the historical conditions behind what we affirm.
40. We must also verify the history behind our faith. We must see how history supports our faith. If we do not do this, we will be having a “cultural” religion. (Remember what we were saying at the start of the semester about religion.) The gospels are not cultural because they suppose the revelation of God. God has entered into history. History is very relevant to faith. The Christian believes in a historical Jesus.
41. Faith and reason, faith and history, are not separated. Faith needs a historical base.History and faith come together. Our affirmations of faith should not contradict the historical reality of Jesus. Our faith cannot be imaginary and cannot be a mere creative product of humans. Between the historical Jesus and our faith affirmation there is no break. We must discern the historical Jesus through our faith. We are not afraid of using science especially history science.
42. Faith has a historical base and history opens up to faith. The Christian cannot understand Jesus of Nazareth outside faith—considering that the main access to Jesus are the gospel texts. Yet this faith makes no sense if it has no historical content.

The historical Jesus

1. Christianity is rooted in history. We say that whatever is from God is not in an imagination. Christianity sees God as having historically engaged—in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is a historical person for the Christian.
2. Archaeology is one branch of science that helps us see the historical world during the time of Jesus. But who exactly is Jesus? What was in his thoughts, in his way of living, in his understanding about himself? Archaeology cannot help with these questions.

Roman sources

3. We can look at documents. There are non-Christian documents. These are not plenty. Once a “Pilate Stone” was discovered with the name of Pontius Pilate in it. This stone is a block (82 cm x 65 cm) of limestone with a carved inscription. It reads: “To the Divine Augusti Tiberieum ...Pontius Pilate...prefect of Judea...has dedicated [this]”. This is proof that Julius Caesar was a true historical man.
4. There is another Roman document from a historian named Publius (or Gaius) Cornelius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117). He was a historian (and senator) of the Roman Empire. He wrote one book, Annals. In this book (15/44), written at around 116 AD, Christ and Pontius Pilate are mentioned. There was a mass execution of Christians. Tacitus wrote: “…Nero …inflicted the most exquisite tortures on…Christians by the populace. Christus…suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus….”
5. There was a Roman historian named Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus. He is more known simply as Suetonius (ca. 69/75 – after 130). He was historian and a good horse-rider. He wrote a book Life of Claudius (25/4) and there he wrote about the emperor Nero expelling Jews from Rome: "As the Jews were making constant disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome." Suetonius spelled Christ as “Chrestus”.
6. And then there was another Roman historian named Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus (61 AD – ca. 112 AD). He is better known as “Pliny the Younger”. He was a historian and lawyer. Why was he called “the younger”? Well, someone was older: Pliny's uncle was “Pliny the Elder” who helped raise and educate him. Pliny the Younger wrote, in around 110AD, about Christians: “They were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god….” (Epistulae X.96)

Jewish sources

7. The Jews themselves had their own historians, one of which was Flavius Josephus. He wrote a text sometime in the 90-95, also very close to the time of Jesus. In his books he mentioned the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians. He mentioned Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, and of course Jesus. He mentioned “James the brother of Jesus”. He even mentioned the “Essenes” of the Qumran community. In his book Antiquities (20.200), he said that in AD 62, the high priest Ananus (or Ananias) had assembled “…the Sanhedrin. He had brought before them the brother of Jesus the so-called Christ, who was called James, and some other men, whom he accused of having broken the law, and handed them over to be stoned”. See, he mentioned Jesus Christ.
8. There are a few other documents referring to the time of Jesus and the people around Jesus, but those texts were written already in the 10th century. Historians find them important for the historical studies about Jesus, but we need not mention them here.
9. Let us conclude: From the non-Christian documentary point of view, there are evidence of the historical truth about Jesus Christ. But these non-Christian documents only mention Christ. They do not give more information than that. The best documents we have about Jesus Christ is the New Testament, and in particular the gospels.

Christian Sources

10. Experts note that the oral Aramaic at times found its way in the Greek writing. When gospel authors recall the words of Jesus, they would write in Greek but with the Aramaic turns of Jesus. So, this tells us how historically “near” the gospel texts are to the man himself, Jesus.
11. Let us not forget that the gospel accounts were written for the communities of the evangelists. Mark had his community to write too, Matthew, Luke and John had their own communities. So when the gospel authors were writing, they had in mind the context and the needs of their communities. They organized their text according to those needs. This explains why they are versions of the same event—the Jesus event. In our synoptic class we spoke about “the Jesus for Mark”, “the Jesus for Matthew”, “the Jesus for Luke”. It is not that there were three Jesus, but it was that they showed profiles—versions—of Jesus.
12. The gospel texts were primarily confessions of faith. They were expressing the faith of the authors and the communities. So, in a way, it would be difficult to see them as “historical texts”. The authors did not write the Jesus-history like modern historians. They wrote with the influence of faith. In fact, they wrote to promote and support the faith. So we cannot—and should not—read the texts as historical texts in the modern style. But through them we can discern the historical Jesus.
13. Jesus had such an impact on the lives and minds of people. So when people shared their faith in Jesus, they also kept memory of his presence. Through the faith colour of the texts we therefore can see how people—the early Christians—had historical memory of Jesus. We can see the impact Jesus had on their lives—and the impact was so powerful that it left a mark on the written texts.
14. The gospel texts, therefore, cannot be considered purely “non-historical”. No. In and through them the memories of the early Christians were stamped.
15. Do not forget that in the early times—a little before the resurrection of Jesus—the early Christians believed in the presence of Jesus. Jesus had risen from the dead and although he was not visible he was still present. How? There was the belief in the Spirit. But then also, through the apostles and through St. Paul, the words and gestures of Jesus were still present. The activity of the Apostles, including St. Paul was preaching or proclaiming about Jesus: kerygma. There was still a strong sense of the presence of Jesus among the communities through those preaching. In fact whenever the early Christians would make major decisions, they would call for the inspiration of the Spirit and ask what would Jesus do in their situations.
16. People kept memory of Jesus. They recalled the Passion and death as a Prelude to the Resurrection. The risen Lord suffered and died…and then rose again. So it was one big story: Passion-Death-Resurrection. It was a story of someone present in their lives.
17. But then over time the Apostles started to die. Those who actually saw Jesus were also dying. Memory had to shift. Suddenly, the early Christians began to realize that they were having a memory of the “past”. The kerygma had to be supplemented by didache, or “teaching”. It was then from proclaiming to teaching and giving lessons. In the time of preaching there was a strong sense of Christ being present among the communities. When the time of didache came, it became important to make that sense of presence felt and accepted. This time, it was no longer the words and gestures of the Apostles that made Jesus present. It was the time of the gospel texts. They had the role of making Jesus actual in the lives of the communities.
18. The communities needed a “foundation story”—the Jesus-event story. The words and deeds of Jesus were recorded so that the early communities could have reference and make Jesus actual in their lives. So the gospel texts were marked by a memory of the historical Jesus actualized in the faith of the people.
19. The Jesus that the gospels were referring to was living sometime in the 1st century Palestine. There is a large agreement among experts that Jesus died under Pontius Pilate. It was perhaps in the year 30…and some would specify the date as April 7,30. This is still a matter of verification, as experts are still working out the dates. Jesus became known, and therefore started his ministry, at around the 15th year of the reign of the Roman Emperor Caesar Tiberius. As for the date of the birth of Jesus, a lot of researches are still on going. There are indications that Jesus was born a little before the death of Herod the Great.
20. Let us leave the debate on details to the experts. Let our data be enough for us. The experts read the Gospel texts and try to make dates comparing with the historical dates outside the Bible. It is a technical job. One thing is for sure: Jesus was a historical man. He lived and died at the time of Pontius Pilate, at the time of Herod Antipas, and at the time of the Baptists—the Pharisees, Saducees, Zealots, Essenes etc. In other words, Jesus really lived in the 1st century Palestine.

On Doing Nothing

The other day I was on my way to Dasma, Cavite. To get there I took a "van" ride from my neighborhood to Pala-pala, right next to Dasma. On the way the aircon was not functioning. Everyone inside the van murmured about the problem. One whispered saying, jokingly, that she will have a heat stroke. I dared to call the attention of the driver. I told him about the problem and I asked if he could do anything about it. He just put his hand on the aircon vent and continued driving. He did not seem to care.
That was one illustration of telling a lie. We paid for our ride and part of what we paid for was to receive a correct service. We did not get the correct service. We were lied to. The driver did not comply with the "agreement".
Then I thought of the passengers and I felt frustrated over their indifference. But eventually I sensed that we were all "powerless" and that we just wanted to get to our destinations.
With all the injustices going on in our society we, "the people", stay silent. We just want to get to our "destinations".
I thought of Alfred Schutz and his "provinces of meaning". Some people are wealthy and powerful enough to financially sustain living in a province of meaning with the style of pure fun and entertainment. They do not have to go through the suffering of many other people of daily life. They exempt themselves and enter into a life-style that allows for a "province of meaning" outside that of the everyday.
But to sustain that financially means to prohibit others from access to proper living.    

Social Living

Recipes

A person is born in a society that is already existing. Even before birth there is already the social world. Each person is born in a specific family, a specific neighborhood or village, a specific country. Nobody chooses the circumstances of birth. Each of us is born in a place that already has its social ways. Each of us is born in a place where people work, relate with each other, speak a language, have ways of preparing food and wearing clothes, have musical forms, etc.

Society is experienced as having fixed ways and patterns. Every member of that society is born into those fixed patterns and continues to live within the fixed patterns. A person grows up from childhood and is made to be participant of the fixed ways of society. This participation is sometimes called “socialization”. As the word indicates, a person is made part of society. We might have our parents and elders, teachers in school, bosses in the workplace and they form us with skills and ways of behaving so that we can participate within society.

In our class we will often use the word “recipe” (Alfred Schutz). The word is borrowed from what we do when we cook. In cooking there are specified ingredients and specified preparations. In other words there are “recipes” for this or that type of cooking. If a recipe is not followed we are not sure what we are eating. Now this word can help us understand our social life. For us, in our class, we say that a recipe is a fixed social pattern which everyone in the social group follows. In a society notice that there are recipes for boys and girls in the family or school. There are recipes for proper dress wear. There are recipes for relating with older people. There are recipes for managing age. Look at a clear example. For a society when a young lady reaches a certain age she will have to consider getting married. It is recipe for that society.

Recipes are very helpful. They are “ready-made”. A person born in a society is made to fit-in the recipes of the society. There are already many ready-made patterns of behaving and acting in the social world. A person does not have to experiment and explore how to live in society. Recipes eliminate the trouble of starting something and exploring if it is right or wrong. Recipes are there already.

Recipes also make people feel “at home” in their social setting. People are not lost and ignorant of how to live in that society. They simply have to follow the recipes. They are socialized into the recipes.

Recipes also make people feel that they belong to each other. Every member of a society follow the same recipes. Everyone shares the common recipes. People feel that they are together; they are bonded by their social recipes. Individual members can move around, live, work, relax without much difficulties inside the common surrounding social world.

Let us try to observe this experience a bit more. Each of us is born in a social world with recipes. We note that the recipes have existed long before the person’s birth. So each of us experiences entering into a social world with recipes each of us did not make. We experience this very strong inside the family. When we come to school we also experience this a lot. As we move around the social world we really feel that we are in a world with many fixed patterns.

Voluntary groups

But then we also involve ourselves with “voluntary groups”. In a voluntary group we have to make recipes! We do not experience a totally ready-made social world. As the word itself indicates, we voluntarily enter into relationships and we start making recipes and create bonding. Take the example of getting married.

In getting married the man and the woman will have to build their relationship. They have to make their fixed patterns.

Yet a voluntary group is not completely independent of the fixed social recipes. When a man and a woman get married, yes they will have to fix their relationship and create patterns for themselves and their household. But they still assume that they are under the social practice of marriage with its legal features. There is still the social recipe for marriage and the couple did not create this.

Look at the voluntary groups we may have had in our own lives. We make friends, for example. We voluntarily choose who will be our friends. But the relationship is also characterized by social recipes for friendship. We might organize a club, say a sports club. This is a voluntary group. But even a club is characterized by social recipes. Yes we voluntarily define and redefine our relationships but we have to consider the general recipe settings.

Notice then that even if we act in voluntary ways and bond in voluntary ways, we are still under a fixed social world with fixed social recipes. We can look at our very personal lives and our very intimate relationships. No matter how personal and intimate we get we still live in a social setting. The fact that we have to speak a language is already proof of how we are “so inside” society.

Our social world is really complex today. We really experience this blending of fixed social recipes and voluntary bonding. We make friends. We join clubs. We link with associations. We enter into relationships in which we have to also create bonding and start recipes. In fact more and more today we experience the possibility of more voluntary relationships. How do we manage living in this complexity?       

The "local" and the "foreigner"

People who belong to another social group--let us say "foreigners" (or "outsiders" [Schutz]) do not exactly share the same recipes as the "locals" (or "insiders" [Schutz]). Of course two social groups can have many features in common (like two regions in a same country). But two groups can also be very different in many ways (like a European nation and a Polynesian nation). If members of one group start living in the locality of another group the locals may have difficulties understanding the foreigners. The locals have recipes that are so habitual, automatic and unquestioned. When they see the foreigners they notice that the foreigners do not follow the local recipes. The foreigners behave quite contrary to the "expected" (local) recipes. A resistance can build up towards the foreigners.
Foreigners may also feel a resistance towards the locals. Foreigners have their own recipes which for them are also habitual, automatically done and unquestioned. Locals may wonder why the foreigners behave in a different manner while foreigners may wonder why locals behave in a different manner. Of course, in many instances, groups living together may be more tolerant of each other. They might even adjust well towards each other. But we know of how many prejudices and biases also arise; some groups strongly reject each other. In other cases a local group will look down on itself and start emulating the foreign group.  Social scientists speak of "ethnocentrism" and even "xenocentrism".
Consider a foreigner coming to a place and settling there--for long or for short. For the foreigner the recipes of the locals are not all so obvious and clear. The local recipes are unfamiliar. The history of the locals is not the history of the foreigner; the foreigner may be attached to a different set of ancestors. The foreigner, in the eyes of the locals, is now a "newcomer" without a history.
The foreigner might try to "socialize" within the new place but still using recipes from home. The local recipes are not ready-made for the foreigner. The foreigner, up to this point, may be an observer of the locals, an observer and not yet a full participant. The foreigner needs to know how to act and behave according to the approved patterns of the locals, but the foreigner is still groping. This can be quite difficult.
Of course a lot depends on how deep the foreigner wants to participate in the local life. A lot depends also on how dependent the foreigner is on the resources of the locals. While being an apprentice, the foreigner has to keep a distance from local recipes to learn. The foreigner cannot just jump in. (The experience of participating in joke making can be an example. What is funny for the foreigner may be insulting to the locals.) Trial and error will have to be done over time. (Learning the local language is one example. Learning to appreciate the local dishes is also another example. Moving from a "high context" society to a "low context" society [Hall] can also be an example.)
At this point the foreigner cannot just apply the recipes from home and yet cannot fully plunge into the recipes of the locals. The foreigner is in-between. Adaptation may take time.
While the foreigner is learning to socialize in the new place many things of the locals remain puzzling. How far can the foreigner absorb--and trust--the recipes of the locals? The foreigner is still working with imagination and guess-work. The local recipes do not yet appear habitual, automatic and unquestioned. The foreigner still has questions regarding the local recipes. The foreigner then appears as a "distant participant" in the eyes of the locals. This can lead the locals to interpret the foreigner as "lacking loyalty" to the ways of the locals. The foreigner does not look like fully compliant with what is so obvious for the locals. Again this can lead to prejudices and biases towards the foreigner.
At what point is the foreigner already "at home" and sufficiently participating in the new place? At what point will the locals take the foreigner as "one of us" already?

Language

A bit part of what each of us knows do not come from personal and private experiences. A big part of what we know comes from parents, elders, teachers, etc. We learn recipes that are already present long before our birth. One of the most evident example is language. Before a person is born in a society people have already been speaking the language there. The newborn child enters into a society that is already speaking a language. The child does not have to create a new language; the child enters into (is socialized) into the language of that society.
Language may be something written in a dictionary. There are many words of the language recorded in the dictionary. But really, the dictionary does not reallt tell us the whole language. People do not speak like walking dictionaries. Words in a dictionary can be translated to other languages. But the language people use in daily life can hardly be fully translated into another language. We know this experience. When we try to translate certain expressions we use in our language to, say, English, we feel that whatever translation made is not "hitting the mark". Daily life speaking is really different from dictionary listing.
A dictionary can give a definition of a word; a definition can be in a few sentences. But note well how we speak and note well the meanings we give to the words we utter daily. A word or an expression can be filled with so many meanings that overflow. The dictionary does not capture the wealth of meanings. Some words and phrases we use can even have emotional colors. (Just think of how "pork-barrel" is understood today. It resonates with different meanings.) For a good example of richly meaningful language, let us look into the poetry of each of our countries. There is a level of language which really cannot be strictly translated into another language and cannot be fully encapsulated by a dictionary.
Yet let us admit that there is also the dictionary level of language. The different words and phrases may still be recorded in a dictionary. These might even be translated to another language. (Think of what Charles de Foucauld did with documenting the Touareg language of North Africa.)
Now, in each social group there are smaller groups with specific languages. For example in the military the soldiers coin terms and phrases proper to military use. The soldiers have "their own" language, in a way. They have words and phrases for military use. Think of scientists who have their specific languages. Think of people in business, people in computer programming, etc.
Much of what is in language is also an influence from history, notably from the history of the local literature. When locals speak they might be plugging in words and phrases taken from their literature (and arts). Of course this may happen quite automatically. In a Christian society people might, from time to time, plug in ideas from the Bible. In an Islamic society people might plug in ideas from the Koran.
Let us look at the different levels of knowledge (Schutz).
There is the level that is purely private. We might say that it is "mine". It is not shared with anyone else. We see this in our use of marks. When reading a book a person might stop and leave a bookmark to remind that person where to return to in the next reading. That is up to the person. The person might want to use a piece of carton, a piece of paper or a leaf from a tree. The person might just fold a page. It is all up to the parson--it is private to the person. So this level of language is private and it relies on the personal use of someone--the meaning is up to that person.
In nature there are events that make us conclude cause and effect. If we see smoke we might conclude there is fire. If we see thick clouds we might conclude that it will rain. There are events in nature and what they "mean" do not depend on us. This time it is not up to the person. Something is really going on out there in the environment and the person makes the connections. Maybe the connections are not accurate and can even be wrong. A person might think that a running nose is due to a fever but maybe it is due to an allergy. But the point is, here we rely on what is out there. Maybe this is not yet language-communication but it is already independent of each of us.
Finally there is the language-proper level. Here we use "signs". A sign means something to the person expressing it. It is derived from a person. A sign always refers back to an expression of someone.  In other words, someone wants to say something and uses a sign.
On the road we see road signs. Meeting someone we ask for a direction and the person uses the sign of a pointing finger. A parent might want to show gratitude to a child and make a huge smile. These are signs. They are made to express--they communicate.
Notice how different this is from natural events like smoke and fire. Smoke is not intended to "mean" anything for nature. There is a causal connection between the fire and the smoke. But smoke can be a sign if, for example during election for a Pope, the smoke is used to mean something.
Uttering words and phrases is a way of using signs. Writing a text is a way of using signs. Making gestures can be a way of using signs. Note that there is always the form of saying something by someone--a person. There is communication involved.
In daily life we might not pay attention to this anymore. We are flooded with signs everywhere from the spoken language to the written texts to the drawings and illustrations in shops, TV, videos, etc. As we use the computer we are face with so many signs--just think of the keyboard. We click on icons which are also signs. Signs are everywhere. Communication is everywhere.
Notice then that signs are not just means of expression they are also means of interpretation. If we do not understand the keys in a computer keyboard, how can we use it? If we do not understand the sign posted on a public toilet door, imagine what we might do. In other words we must also understand and interpret correctly the signs around us.
We are flooded with systems of signs. The written text of a book is a whole sign system. To communicate--express and interpret--we must be very at home with the system. We need to be formed in it. As children we were formed to speak and understand a system of language.
Without this formation we cannot participate in society. Society has it recipes, yes, and the recipes are embodied in language. We might now know who started all this--who started the recipes and the language. It does not matter in daily life. What is important is that we are formed into the communication system of signs.

Objective meaning

For a specific social group there are recipes and language that are communicable and understandable for the members of that society. Members of that society accept and follow, without much questioning, the fixed ways of the society. This is what we mean here by "objective". What is objective does not depend on an individual's choices and changes. Whether the individual agrees or not, accepts or not, a recipe and a language are fixed and observed by society. So for us in this class we say that a recipe and a language are objective when people in a society observe them and follow them and live according to their prescriptions.
We need this level of objectivity. Imagine if a word means different meanings for each person, society will be chaotic. Somehow all members of society express and understand "objectively"--according to the ways of that society.
But this does not exclude our own personal and even private meanings and behavior. An objective sign may be used for personal reasons. Take the example of cursing with a pointed finger. Objectively, in a society, for example, that raising of the finger is taken as an insult and is a curse. It is a "bad" gesture. That is the objective meaning for that society. But maybe a person will use the gesture to express charm or to express a joke. The gesture may objectively mean "bad sign" but it is used, in a specific instance, to be a joke and does not include insult or harm.
In daily life this happens a lot. We use the objective signs and add our own personal meanings to them. Signs have objective meanings that members of society understand. But a person might want to use a sign to express a personal meaning within a specific situation. (Just think of the "smiley sign" we sometimes add to our electronic messages.)

Interests and relevance

In the course of a day we are filled with interests. As soon as we wake up, say, in the morning we start organizing ourselves according to interests. Some things are very relevant at a particular moment while other things are not. We pay close attention to certain things while we forgo attention to other things. Take the example of making a cup of coffee for breakfast. What is most important at that moment? There is of course the coffee and there is hot water. There is the importance of having a cup. Maybe connected to that is the relevance of sitting at a table. Maybe still connected to that is the piece of bread. Still connected to that may be the newspaper. Of course the newspaper is not so directly relevant to making the coffee but there are people who like to read the papers while they have their morning coffee. For them the two are more or less connected and relevant to each other. As they prepare their coffee they pick up the newspaper and lay it on the table. Let us go farther from the activity of making coffee. What about the traffic conditions in the city? What about the weather? To an extent these are not that relevant to coffee making, not for this particular moment. What about molecular biology and philosophical metaphysics? They probably really have nothing to do with making coffee this morning. Notice then that somehow an organization or a structuring is made at each moment of the day.
So a person wakes up and makes coffee, takes a shower, moves to take a ride to work, starts working, takes a break, returns to work and later starts moving back home. There is a lot of structuring going on, a lot of shifting of interests and relevance. At each particular moment the person organizes things from what is most relevant to what is least relevant. At work the person is constantly shifting relevance. But playing football is completely irrelevant; it has nothing to do with the work. Maybe on weekends the person plays football with neighborhood friends; during that time relevance will again be structured. Very likely the relevance of what the person does at work is, during a football game, really irrelevant.
During the structuring and re-structuring of relevance a person might choose and decide on what will be relevant. So while making coffee a person might not feel the need to have the water very hot and maybe the person does not want very strong coffee. That is the person's own choice. That is "up to the person". But notice that at the same time there are elements that are not of the person's choices. The bitterness of the coffee and the rate of time of heating the coffee may be quite beyond the person's own choices. The bitterness of the coffee depends on how it is manufactured and on what type of coffee. The rate of heating time depends on the stove. These are not anymore things initiated by the person. When that same person goes to work the person may be deciding on the pace of work; so maybe at this moment he or she would prefer to go slow and take it easy. But there is the presence of the boss and there is the demand of production to meet. These elements do not arise from the choice of the person working. In the midst of the choice to work hard or to take it easy, there are things that the worker needs to face too--elements that are already there independent of the decisions of the person working. 
As we structure our interests and relevance we make choices and decisions within a given world that already exists and is fixed. We move around in daily life making our initiatives but we do that in an existing world.

"Typification" (Schutz)

Remember what we said about "objectivity". It is what people in a society accept altogether. it is what has become common for people in that society. Members of that society accept and follow, without much questioning, their fixed ways. What is objective is not private to an individual alone. Objectivity is social. Recipes are objective social patterns. Let us look at recipes from a new angle which we shall call as "typification" (Schutz; see Weber).
Our experiences are characterized by naming things and people and events. We call this animal "dog", that tree as "mango tree", that person as "old man" or "uncle", that work as "manual work" and that walk as "very tiring". We many not know everything about the things and people we encounter yet we name them. We give an "accent of belief" in them--we believe they are real and true elements of daily life. We "conclude" about what they are even if we do not have full details about them. 
This animal here is a dog and I call it dog. What breed is it? I do not know. Who owns it? I do not know. What is the anatomy? I do not know. Yet I conclude it is "a dog". Together with this conclusion are certain expectations about the dog. I am sure it says "bowow", it wags its tail when pleased, it gets hungry, it can bite, etc. How much do I need to know about the animal? Maybe in daily life it is enough to be familiar with it. Again, there is no need to deepen knowledge of details about this animal. In general and as far as my interest is--as far as relevant details allow--I conclude that it is a "dog".
If we stop for a while and really observe our experiences, we may be surprised to see how unique each and every experience can be. I see this animal on the street this morning and then I see it again this afternoon. My experience this morning may not exactly be the same as this afternoon. This morning it was bright and shiny and the sun was really beating down. Well, this afternoon it is cloudy and bit humid. So the color of the dog this morning was brighter than its color this afternoon. Yet, I conclude: it is the same dog. 
Just look at our experiences and see how unique they are. A friend of long ago shows up and I relate with my friend and I conclude that she is "the same friend". Actually over the years she gained many experiences and lessons in her life and she is not exactly the very same person today. Yet, notice how "concluding" happens: she is the same person I knew before. 
In daily life we make many conclusions about things and people and events. We conclude about and we give names to our experiences. As we do this, notice how we "trust" our conclusions. We will discuss this notion of "trust" later.
We might use what is commonly said today, "we put them in boxes". We box-in our experiences. Even if they can be very unique and ever changing experiences we still "freeze" them in boxes. We do not feel the need to focus on the unique differences nor on the very many details involved. It is enough that they are put in more or less well-made "boxes". We "typify" them--put them in categories and types. Later we will discuss the role of relevance in doing this.
But right now do we not notice that this itself is recipe living? In social recipes we put many things in boxes: we box-in people, we box-in age roles, we box-in sex roles, we box-in career paths, etc. In a country there might be different regions each having a language or dialect different from the rest. Is it not often that people from a specific region box-in, typify, people from other regions? The northern people are "thrifty" while those from the south are "lazy". At times people in a country emulate so much people from another country, a case of "xeno-centrism". In a country financial assistance of extended family members may be an obligation and it is typified. In another country this assistance might not be obligatory at all.
Observe that as we typify our experiences we arrange our types according to relevance or interests. This animal I see in the street is a dog and I see not further need to know more. In my typifying the animal I might include conclusions like it is a "possibly harmful animal" and "it escaped from its owner". Do I need to know more and say more? No. What my type concludes is enough. My familiarity is enough, I do not need to go further. For example, the dog's breed and anatomy do not serve as relevant information. So my type "dog" is marked by what I say is relevant and what I say is "enough" is the way I structure my relevance.
In society we see this happening. Social typifications are organized according to social relevance. What social members consider as relevant marks the features of their typifications. An over admiration for foreigners has its relevance structures. A discrimination against certain regions has its relevance structures. The classification of what career is "better" has its relevance structures. The idea that at a certain age one must get married has its relevance structures. Let us try to point how relevance is operating here.
One reason why we box-in our experiences is because we have routine, daily problems and we want to have routine solutions for them. We do not want to complicate life, do we? For all relevant purposes this animal in the street is "dog" and, we might add, "possibly can bite". Anatomy and breed do not enter as relevant features of the type "dog". I need to be careful about the presence of a stray animal so my type is limited to this. I organize my typification according to this routine case. Becoming an expert of the animal kingdom is not within the scope of daily routine and is not a routine problem. Hence my type "dog" does not include the scientific details about the animal.
Another reason why we box-in our experiences is because we have roles to play in society. We behave according to those roles. A child is expected to behave this and that way. A lady is expected to act this or that way. A policeman is expected to act in this or that way. A priest is expected to act in this or that way. So we box-in these many aspects of daily life--we typify them according to the expected roles they play in society.
Another reason why we typify experiences is to guide our relationships with each other. We conform to what is important and relevant for everyone in the social group. We can deviate but we must consider what people take as important. We enter the "importance" boxes. Consider the ways of being polite in a social group. Maybe for a social group it is typical for a teenager to be very polite to elders. A young person then is guided by this whenever he or she is with an elderly.
Notice then what is very relevant for people when living in recipe life--with types. Notice what is relevant to everyone. Life has to be standardized. There are standards--rules, mores and norms--that guide (and propel) society. Typification is a way of standardizing. All the unique differences and massive details are tapered off so that there are common, boxed, ways of living. We live according to what is "enough" for the social group. Do we need to go further than what is "enough"? There is no need. So long was we stay within the standards and so long as we live standardized there is no need to go further. What we have is enough.
Later we will discuss one important area of social life in which knowledge is "distributed". Although there is a tapering of information and details for a standardized social living each social member deepens access to particular information. Hence we find "experts" and "specialists" in society. This, again, will be a discussion later on. Right now let us simply say that social life is standardized.
We really do not have to live like this strictly. Many say, for example, that one must "think out of the box". But can we really live out of a box? Can we really be out of any box? If we move out of a box, where do we go?
Boxing-in experiences is part of recipe living: we typify our experiences. Now the typifications we do are quite social. Inter-regional typing for example is very social. People name their experiences and they typify their surrounding world. Each person born into a social group with its network of typifications is socialized into this network. It is "objective" in as much as it is what "everyone in the social group" does.
Ok, it is true that we have our private lives too. We can do things privately and in very unique ways. We can, in principle, live as we want. We might want to look for new horizons of living and we might want to do alternative living. Fine. But no matter how private we want to be we still live within a social world and there are standards still to obey. Our private interests cannot just rule over social relevance. Somewhere along the way we need to align ourselves with social interests and social boxes. Typification precisely plays this role of tapering off the over-personalized and over-privatized ways. Everyone is expected to be in a common way of standard living. Everyone must still live inside the social box.
Sociologists have topics about social control and deviance. We have an idea now of what those topics could mean.

Our acting in the Social World

We are familiar with daydreaming and imagining things. Our fantasies can run in many directions. Yet while doing the fantasies we cannot say that "something is happening". We make no decisions and we make no definite goals regarding our fantasies.
But then when we try to solve a mathematical problem in the head we can say that we are already "doing something". A decision is made: "I will solve this problem". Maybe it is all in the head but still there is already a decision made. Action involves decision making.
More often often our actions are done bodily. We walk to a place, we ride a bus, we write, we talk, we hammer nails, we cook food, etc. We have specific plans and goals to accomplish and we decide on making them happen. Of course we may not always succeed. My plan to serve a delicious dish turns out to be a catastrophe to my guests. But the point is, as we go through our actions we try to fulfill goals.
Each person has in mind goals and plans. There are immediate goals and there are long term goals. There are even goals people make for their whole lives. What do people really have inside their heads? What exactly do they want? What exactly are their goals? If we look closely enough we have to admit that we do not really know completely what each person has in mind as goals. We might conjecture. Watching a lady rush to riding a bus I might conclude that she wants to be at work at the right hour. But how sure am I with that conclusion? What exactly is going on in her mind? What does she intend with her running to the bus? Do I see her goals not just for today but for her whole lifetime? That person herself is in the best position to know her goals and plans. The observer can guess, conjecture, make conclusions. Yet each person is the author of his or her actions. Observes stay from a distance.
But of course there can be more accuracy in knowing the circumstances that lead a person to act. An observer can look into the given conditions of a person. A psychotherapist does this by delving into the past histories of the client. The psychotherapist can find out, to quite an accurate point, the circumstances that make the client behave in this or that way.
Circumstances can be accessible to both the observer and the person acting. Both can look back and check. But during the course of acting only the person acting has full access to the plans of the action. An observer cannot fully see what is the goal set by the person doing the action.
In society, in principle, each person lives a private and personal life. In principle nobody can fully see what is going on in the head of anybody else. Each person maneuvers through the web of relationships and facts. Within the setting of a social world each person weaves his or her own personal story.
Yet we notice one common fact: we all seem to be doing the same things and same actions. It is "recipe". A school child preparing for school goes through the actions of wearing the school uniform just like so many other children. It is "recipe" for school children. A mother prepares the evening meal and goes through the actions of cooking a common cultural dish just like so many other mothers at home. It is "recipe" for all household mothers. A young man reaching a certain age goes through the actions of seeking a career path just like so many other young men. It is "recipe" for all college graduates. A young lady reaching a certain age goes through the action of getting married just like so many other women. It is "recipe" for all late teen or young adult ladies.
Although we really are private persons our actions show that we do things just as everybody else in society does. Somehow we do not look as private and personal as we say. We tend to be more like our social recipes rather than be so unique and original.
We are within a social world and our social world is marked by the successful actions people have done in the past--and continue doing now. Although we can, in principle, do things in our own very private and very original ways we have gotten into the habit of doing what everybody else does. It is "recipe". We have seen that the actions of people have passed the test of time. We have seen our own actions having passed the test of time. So why live "outside the box" when what we and social members do are already proven practical, successful and very feasible. All actions are quite familiar so why explore the unfamiliar? (We will discuss the possibility of social change later.)
Within the context of social living even as we try to live personal lives we still "hook on" the typical and common ways of doing things. Somehow we drop the unique, original and personal and we live just like everybody else does. We "economize" on our actions by following what has already passed the test of time. Our lives tend to be lived in routine ways.
Hence what do we notice? There is a general routine of actions for the day, for the week, for the year...even for a lifetime. All social members move and act together towards a common, general life-plan. To use our terminology above, there is a "recipe" way of living for members of society.

Culture

Let us pause for a while and consider this word which we have not used so far. The word is "culture". We are fragile humans. We really need one another. It is quite impossible to live in complete isolation from others. Just imagine never being raised by a family or by any human. Just imagine never learning a language and never knowing how to use tools. Just imagine never having any share in social recipes!
We really rely on what so many contribute in social life. People in the past have done many things--tools, technology, politics, education, the arts, etc. What they have done are transmitted over time. We inherit their recipes for living.
We continue to live according to those recipes. Somehow social life is not chaotic; social life has a form of stability. We can locate ourselves in society and know where we belong. Culture is what social members have made for the stability of social life. People adapt to their environment and culture is what makes them adapt. Over time this success in adaptation is passed on from generation to generation.
We might be very critical of our societies and this is valid. We do have questions about how we live our social lives especially today. But no matter how critical we get we cannot deny the fact that we still need to live in some form of social stability. We do not opt for anarchy and complete chaos. In fact a complete chaos is not real. No matter how unstable a society can get there is a minimum of stability. Culture will always be present.
We usually associate culture with song and dance and food preparation. We associate culture with the style of wear of each social group. These are, indeed, "cultural". But culture is more than just these. These are included within culture. As we just said above, culture is people's way of adapting to the environment--adapting to life--and securing stability in that adaptation. To have that stability people transmit they actions and successes to coming generations. Thus culture is also a matter of stability over time, from generation to generation.

The presence of other people: what actually happens?

At this point we need to look closer into our social relationships and have an idea of what is going, what are the "mechanics" in relationships.

The Well-informed in the Common Sense World

In our surrounding world what do we see? We see plants, animals, houses, people, machines, etc. Let us include the stars and the sun and the moon and the clouds. We see these and we classify them. We see a dog in the street and we see it as, say, street dog. Maybe it is “owned” by someone. Ok, we might also have books and web sites telling us what the dog is.

We know it as a dog and we have a name for it, our languages call it by name. We assume that other people see that—and name it—a dog. (Aso, chien, hound, anjing, in whatever language.) It may be quite ridiculous to ask if we really see a dog. It will be ridiculous to ask if what we see is exactly the same as what we think and know. I know it is a dog and it is a dog. We see things in our surrounding world and we have different names for them. The world in which we live is a world of defined things and people with definite qualities.

In fact the world in which we live is a familiar world. We are not shocked and surprised with what we see. We do not see cows floating in air. We do not see ducks playing cards. We do not see people with ten arms and hands. We do not see our friends talk in extra-planetary languages. We do not see the walls of a room change colors every time we open and shut our eyes. Maybe in cartoons these can happen. In fantasy and dreams these can happen. But in concrete daily life we have a specific accent of reality which we cannot just brush away and deny. 

We accept our daily experiences as real and as what everybody else accepts them to be. This is how we can understand the meaning of “common sense”. Common sense is what everyone accepts as true, correct and real. It is precisely “common” to everyone.

To live in society we move according to “common sense”. It is “common sense” that this is a dog. It is “common sense” that this is a child. Let us talk about growing up. It is “common sense” that at a certain age a young lady gets married. It is “common sense” that after college a young man should work. It is "common sense" that we should not commit adultery. It is "common sense" that God exists and we should go to mass each Sunday. Etc. Each social group has its sets of “common sense” from very small matters to deep matters of morals and religion. (It may be very interesting to discuss the different "common sense" living of people from other countries).

Just consider a bit more this “common sense”. It is what everyone in the social group accepts as true and real. It is not put to question. It is quite enough for social members to live and function daily with “common sense”. Thus our surrounding world is a “taken for granted” world that is familiar and unquestioned.

We experience our world in a very automatic way. But very often what we see is not completely what we know. We may look at a dog and say it is a dog and that’s it. But do we know the anatomy and physiology of the dog? Do we know what type of dog it is…from which classification of dogs? De we know the exact weight of the dog? In “common sense” living we might not need to go further that what we see. We might not need to penetrate the details of what we see.

So we see people, things, animals, machines, clouds, etc. Do we know them completely? Do we know the complete details of each and every thing we see? We are satisfied with the familiarity we have about them without needing to go into so many details. Well, we can also consider the things we do. For example we buy something from a store. We pay the cashier. That may be enough for us. But do we know the whole economics behind money and production and costs and inflation etc.? Maybe it is enough to buy that product, that’s it. Whatever happens in all the details behind what we do is not our immediate concern. We do not perhaps even need to know the name and family circumstances of the cashier behind the counter. We just move on living in a familiar world.

This is why we hear some people say: “change your way of looking at things” or “see things differently” or “step out of the box” or “go further and know more”. Why say these things? Maybe because we have been so “at home” with our daily lives of “common sense” that we fail to notice other important matters—matters that need attention. But to try and “go further” does not just happen anytime.

Let us consider being “disappointed” with our experiences. We accept our daily experiences and we live flowing with everybody else. But then maybe we face experiences that disappoint us. We keep on buying the same product everyday without looking into details. Later we realize it causes cancer. Ah, we are “disappointed”. What we have been accepting everyday “disappoints” us. Just look back at the different moments in life when we were disappointed. There may have been small disappointments and there may have been big and serious disappointments. The small disappointments may not have required major adjustments. But big disappointments may have affected us deeply.

(We say disappointment but of course there are also pleasantly surprising experiences, like falling in love. Somehow the routine of daily life may have been shaken too by the pleasantly surprising experiences. But let us focus on disappointments).

Now when we are disappointed we take a position. We cannot just go on as if nothing is happening. We cannot pretend that all is still in the routine flow of life. Now we start looking further and deeper into our experiences. What we before simply accepted without questions now require that we raise questions; we want to penetrate the horizons that we have not previously looked into.

Now, look at how we have been living in the everyday life of “common sense”. Why do we get disappointed? This is because daily life has its “charm”. We are so “at home” in it that it “charms” us. We want to maintain it, sustain it, cultivate it. We do not want to “rock the boat”, so to speak. We cannot accept to live a life in which we are always troubled and disturbed. We do not want to be always on the look-out. Precisely, daily life is “home” for us.  We let our experiences stay as valid as possible and everyone more or less inter-acts smoothly. We do not quite explore the possibility of other ways of living. Maybe the term “comfort zone” can also help us here. Our daily life is a “comfort zone” in which we fit snugly.

Language is an important area of solidifying the validity of daily life. Language has a social force. Remember that we name things and we identify experiences with the function of language. We set daily life permanently with the use of language. Everyone in the social group speaks the same language; everyone communicates with the same language—the same way of naming things and same way of identifying things, telling us what is true, real, and approved. Our “comfort” in daily life is facilitated by language. We “read” our surrounding world in the same way as everybody else in society. Remember that when we name things we just do not make sounds we also suppose a defined way of dealing with things. When we see a dog we just do not stay with the word “dog”. In that word many things are implicated like “pet”, “it has an owner”, “it can bite”, “I will not harm it because it does not belong to me”, etc. Our language is not just a set of words like empty cans. Language puts to order our surrounding world. This includes putting to order also our actions and inter-actions. This includes how we orient to our surrounding world, how we relate, how we interpret and act. Language has a strong social force. (One of the high points in the use of language is "ideology", a topic for another essay).

This tells us the importance of being “well-informed”. In the ordinary flow of daily life we just accept things as they are, we “take for granted” our experiences. Can we not go further and deepen our views of the horizons? This is what it means to be “well-informed”. It means that we want to know more, see more, understand more….more than just what is “common sense”. It may especially be important to investigate further those social areas that have power over us. To be well-informed is to see where there is power at work dictating to us how we should conduct our lives. We buy things and we do not know the complex economics behind that act. Can we not try to be a bit more informed then? We eat and drink products without knowing all the ingredients there. Can we not try to be a bit more informed? We pay taxes without knowing where exactly our taxes go. Can we not try to be more informed?

To be well-informed is not just knowing more, however. It is also trying to see a possible redefinition of daily life. We might need to redefine the surrounding world in a way that is different from “common sense” definition. To be well-informed is to also redefine identities and relationships. In other words, we need to look into our “idea of humanity”.

Basic to our “idea of humanity” is the recognition that the human, unlike the cow, for example, can reflect and discern. The human can slow down, for example, and not just be always dictated upon by the beliefs of “common sense”. The human is also capable of the uncertainty. Daily life common sense thinking is “at home” with all its beliefs. Uncertainty is not easy to live with. The human, however, can be “disappointed” and even “disenchanted” and can raise questions, criticize and look for changes. This is basic to “being-human” and to be well-informed is also to seek for how to exercise “being-human”.

Consider what is happening in the news today. People talk of the BBL, for example. We read about views coming from the government and views from critics. We might be led by our emotions to take an uncritical stand. Or we might stay indifferent. But here is one area where we can see the importance of being "well-informed".
Consider the issue of the PCOS machines during the last two elections. Some statements from COMELEC and its critics were quite technical. We can be easily swayed if we are not well informed. 
Consider environmental damage. Our everyday actions may be contributing to the damage, like our purchase of plastic products. How well-informed are we regarding the impact of our choices and actions?
Common sense living might be comfortable but we need to keep in mind that the forces affecting us are not simply "natural forces". A lot of things in our daily lives are effects of motives and powers. We are also made to "trust" those powers and accept the status quo. (How? Through ideology....a discussion for another essay.)   
Common sense living may actually be, to a large extent, piloted by particular powers, both economic and political. We need a certain amount of being well-informed. Maybe we cannot be experts in politics, economics or environment management. But can we at least be better informed and not just be "nakanganga"?