Blindsight

Blindsight

Types of cultural diversity in the movie: the German woman who sets up a school for the blind in Tibet. Erik, the blind American mountaineer who volunteers to guide blind children up Everest. They are from western cultures, based on Christianity, as opposed to the traditional Tibetan culture based on Buddhism. The traditional Tibetan view that blindness is a form of divine punishment for sins committed in a previous life or incarnation, as opposed to the western desire to overcome disability, to achieve, to get to the top. The support that Erik received from his father when learning to hike, as opposed to the Tibetan woman who said ‘without eyes a man is not complete.’

Challenges people in the movie encounter: they all, in the expedition, face the physical challenge of lack of oxygen at high altitude. The blind children have the additional challenge of performing an extreme feat blind. The blind girl with 2 blind brothers and a blind father, whose mother died of a heart attack, leaving her daughter with no effective support. Erik losing both his sight and his mother at an early age.

Stereotyping/bias/prejudice/discrimination: the traditional Tibetan view of blindness; the difficulty Tashi, the street kid, had in gaining acceptance from the other children.The boy who was sent away to live with a Chinese couple and who was beaten when he failed to beg enough money, or when the money was stolen from him. Tashi hid the fact that he was Chinese, believing only Tibetan children could join the expedition.

A challenge caused by personality, rather than culture, would be the cigarette burns on Tashi's body.

Benefits because of different culture: the Tibetan girl gets a place in an English language school as a result of coming into contact with western culture. Tashi similarly finds his father and would almost certainly not have done so without western help. The bonding & sense of group belonging seemed to promote a greater mutual understanding and a greater sense of cultural diversity. The greatest conflict within the group which we saw was between the westerners, some of whom wanted to go for the summit and others who wanted to turn back together.