Taking the Perspective of Others Seriously

Perspective is something that we try to teach our history students at Murray State.  We talk about point-of-view or the “climate of opinion” in which historians write a book or article of history.  Sometimes in our everyday lives we take for granted our own perspective, our own point-of-view.

Or we make the mistake of believing that we are always right, that we always have a clear view of things.  What if we were able to look through the eyes of others, or as the old Native American adage would have it, “walk a mile in his moccasins?”

Perhaps it would make us less self-centered, less parochial, less set in our ways.

Samuel Woodworth wrote nostalgically about his childhood, and particularly about his memories of an old oaken bucket from which he would quench his thirst:

“How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,

When fond recollections presents them to view!

The orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,

And every loved spot which my infancy knew,

The wide-spreading pond and the mill that stood by it,

he bridge and the rock where the cataract fell.

The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it,

And e’en the rude bucket that hung in the well.

That moss-covered bucket I hailed as a treasure,

For often at noon, when returned from the field,

I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.

How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,

And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell.

Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,

And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well.”

Well, you get the idea.  This poet is remembering back to his childhood to an article of delight, an old oaken bucket that came to represent for him the innocence and joy of the simple pleasures of youth.

There always has to be some crank with a different perspective, a different point-of-view.  And, sure enough, some “Unknown” poet rewrote the poem, “The Old Oaken Bucket,” with a different slant, an angle the poet said, “as censored by the Board of Health.”  Here, then, is a different version of the poem:

“With what anguish of mind I remember my childhood,

Recalled in the light of knowledge since gained,

The malarious farm, the wet, fungous-grown wildwood,

The chills then contracted that since have remained;

The scum-covered duck-pond, the pigsty close by it,

The ditch where the sour-smelling house drainage fell,

The damp, shaded dwelling, the foul barnyard nigh it—

But worse than all else was that terrible well,

And the old oaken bucket, the mold-crusted bucket,

The moss-covered bucket that hung in the well.”

Well now. The unknown parodist clearly has a different perspective.

And as much as we sometimes dislike challenges to our own points-of-view, points-of-view often clouded over with nostalgia, by taking seriously the perspectives of others, as hard and inconvenient as that might be, we can learn much about the truth of our lives, the reality of our world.