Film Festival

I recently attended many films at the 12th annual Green Mountain Film Festival put on by the Savoy Theater, Montpelier's arthouse movie theater. There were some really great, interesting, and thought provoking films - all of which were obscure, and would have been missed without this great film festival. I am really a sucker for documentaries, and one in particular, a movie called Examined Life (based off the Plato quote "An unexamined life is not worth living") really got me thinking. The movie consists entirely of philosophers talking about things that stimulate them.

While this post may seem a bit abstract, I think the movie relates directly to media literacy and social issues. First of all, the main subject is "thinking critically", and what that really is. the movie itself tries to be thinking critically by making itself as objective as possible, but in reality everything has an agenda, so how do you get around this? The movie, despite being bare bones in the sense that all it is is philosophers talking, still MUST have a message. A lot of the stuff that was talked about in the film was about you are thinking critically when you see everything around you, think about what it is, what its message is, what the consequence of it existing are, and so on. This is when you truly have critical thinking, and as a result media literacy. I would agree with this, but then again, I am getting this from a movie, which as I said before, MUST be biased, MUST have an agenda. So, am I really thinking about media literacy critically with even my definition of thinking critically is based on something else? Am I really thinking about all aspects of media literacy, and viewing it from totally my own prespective? It is hard to say.

I think if you go with my definition from the previous paragraph of thinking critically, this can be applied to dealing with social conflicts such as the Azerbaijani - Armenian conflict. I believe that everyone must be analyzing the situation TOTALLY BY THEMSELVES for a perfect solution to the conflict to be reached. I think this is also why it is so important to for youth to be involved, because with experience comes knowledge, but also unconsious biases and agendas. The youth more than most, can look at an issue critically.

This film was very provocative for me. It got me thinking about what level of thinking is critical, and what it takes to get to that level. When do you know you are there. These are very difficult questions, and I think I have thought about them enough to have an answer that satisfys me, but is far from complete. Even without a complete answer, and even though many of the ideas brought up in the film I am unsure about, the film still inspired me. I realized that people can work out these conflicts. As long as some level of critical thinking is reached these imense issues can be solved, and I feel the youth are best suited for the task. Just knowing that it can be done inspired me.


Just now, as I am writing this, another revelation just crossed my mind. I suddenly realized that what I was so inspired about, the possibility of issues being solved through critical thinking, was reached through none other than critical thinking. Me analzing the movie and how it applies to social issues reached a level of critical thinking that allowed be to see that these issues can be solved, and now I have proof. What I wrote in the above paragraph has just been proved. Critical thinking can lead to inspiration, and inspiration leads to solutions.

This post might seem somewhat like a rant now, but that is just because I am amazed with my own process of thinking. In just the last half-hour that I have written this, I have answered my own tough questions, that I was wondering about a couple paragraphs above. I now know what thinking critically is.

Also of note: I found Cornel West to be the one person in the movie that fascinated me the most, especially on this topic. Here is his link and picture. http://www.cornelwest.com/