Hello! I am Taylor Pease and in this blog I am going to be finding someone who thinks politically or ideologically differently than I do. After I find this person I am going to dive into their world and hopefully learn a lot of new things about how they think, and why they behave the way they do. I am going to be describing their life in as much detail as I can without giving out their actual identity. I am very excited to learn about someone else’s life and learn about how others think and what they believe.
I am doing something very similar to what Arlie Russel did. Arlie explains her research in her book Strangers In their Own Land and in this book she describes the steps she went through and her apprauch to learning more about the people of Louisiana. One of the first things Russel explains is the Empathy Wall. This meaning she wanted to break through the wall that is caused by empathy and learn and understand about things from the other peoples point of view. She wanted to talk, listen, and learn about their lives and their beliefs. The next thing she describes is is what she calls The Great Paradox. She explains how she wants to learn everything about their surroundings and the state they live in. Russel wanted to know everything about where they lived and what they grew up around. Another thing the she describes is how she did visits and follow around with the members of the society around the people. Not only did she want to know about one specific person, but also all the people around them and how they might influence their life. One of the last things Arlie Russel explains in the first chapter of her book was the Keyhole Issue. The Keyhole Issue is basically wanting to get a close look at their lives. She wants to know details about how they think and what they believe.
Further describing the things talked about in the book I wanted to give examples of each one so they are easier to understand. The Empathy Wall is one of the biggest part about learning about someone. Arlie does this by asking Mike Schaff to show him where he grew up and asked I’m about his family, to which he explained how he was half Canjun and half German. The Great Paradox is things like learning about the states life expectancy, school enrollment, educational degree attainment, and median personal earnings, or even reading different articles about politics in that area (of course that is if you are studying someone’s political beliefs like Arlie is). During her visits and follow around Arlie Russel followed a campaign trails of a republican candidate and his rival. By following this campaign it lead Arlie to many different places and started up a lot of conversations which other people, farthing her knowledge about the people around in the society. Over the five years of her doing follow around and visits, she accumulates 4,690 pages of transcripts from interviews. As for the Keyhole Issue, Arlie just wanted to know answers to questions such as how Mile Schaff could be so bright and warmhearted but wanted to set fire to the government, or how in a state where they are most vulnerable to volatile weather they could have such high climate denial. After being so curious about all of these questions, Arlie Russel set out to begin her journey.
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