Dwarfs In Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha

At a young age, my mother presented me what some people considered to be offensive terms. Growing up, I would watch Asian game shows with my mother which are pretty absurd but enjoyable to watch. The shows are good-humored, not undignifying, and allow underprivileged people to compete against one another to earn some money and prizes for their families. A game that was on one of the shows involved dwarves, really short people, doing obstacle courses and many other tasks in hopes of earning some money. I kid not that I just learned last month that the word “dwarf” is an offensive term in America. In Asia, everyone says “dwarf” all the time! Growing up, my mother would refer to short people she saw as dwarfs but due to her accent, she pronounces …show more content…
But one thing that many people cannot wrap their heads around is the fact that everyone is entitled to talk about his or her own opinion freely. Siddhartha knew this first hand and even said that opinions do not mean anything. Opinions “may be beautiful or ugly, clever or foolish, anyone can embrace them or reject them” (33). Siddhartha really lived by this throughout the entire book. Even within the first couple chapters, he knew that his practice to discover spiritual enlightenment was only being done because that is what others before him have tried to do. It was their opinion on how to find spiritual enlightenment by finding Nirvana. Siddhartha really wanted to find facts to never second guess his life’s path to only discover that he had been so far from Nirvana even after all of his dedicated practice. He concluded that opinions, even his religious father’s opinion, did not equate to facts or absolute statements everyone can agree on. They are judgements formed from those facts. If something was a fact, it would be called a fact and not an opinion. Opinions can only affect someone if the person hearing the opinion allows it …show more content…
Charlie Hebdo, a famous French magazine, allowed their own opinions to make decisions for how they approach global topics. There is a common stereotype that Europeans are either “overly religious” or uninterested in religious activities completely. Perhaps the editors of Charlie Hebdo were the latter because that is the only logical explanation why they would attack the ideas of many religions including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism to name a few. Many groups have lashed out and protested against Charlie Hebdo especially Muslim and Islamist extremists after the magazine released an obscene, magazine cover photo of Muhammad. Charlie Hebdo has not apologized to any religious group they have offended stating that they should not apologize for expressing their opinions on issues. This, overall, relates to Siddhartha’s opinions on opinions because Charlie Hebdo’s photo of Mohammed was not based on facts. It was based off of the opinions of the people in charge of the magazine. Although my religion was targeted by Charlie Hebdo, I did not let the magazine’s opinion on my religion affect me because being affected by an opinion is different than being affected by a