"Travel is fatal to prejudice," Mark Twain once said (Cahill xvi). Cahill explains that travel writers help to bring about a better understanding of humanity among the world's peoples, or at least they attempt to do so. When you can read a story about traveling, according to Cahill, you experience it more personally than a factual account of a foreign place. Cahill jokes, "the fact that cultures are still in mortal conflict and that world peace is yet a fantasy suggests that either we are dead wrong, or that we still have a lot of work to do" (xvi-xvii). Either travel writing does not help to foster understanding and communion between different cultures, or travel writers have much left to do. I believe that travel writing can be used as an instrument for social change. We read Gaudium et Spes in a travel writing class because the Church, through papal encyclical and other statements, attempts to affect this social change. By traveling, one can recognize the commonality of all humans, and the dignity inherent in each person that the Church continues to assert, decade after decade.
In this section of Gaudium, athiesm in all its forms is condemned; however, the Church helps to remove prejudices between athiests and believers by declaring that believers are part of the problem of athiesm. Whenever believers "neglect their own training in the faith, or teach erroneous doctrine, or are deficient in their religious, moral, or social life, they must be said to conceal rather than reveal the authentic face of God and religion" (Gaudium et Spes, 19, paragraph 3). We cannot continue to condem nonbelievers, especially in the sense that believers are part of the problem. Just as travel kills prejudices, and breaks down barriers between people, the Church hopes to break down barriers in the area of athiesm.
Countless other papal encyclicals break down these barriers between humans in almost every other sector of life. To cite a recent example, Caritas in Veritate from Pope Benedict XVI speaks of solidarity with the poor and the elimination of world hunger, along with the establishment of peace within peoples and interfaith dialogue. All of these are areas in which barriers need to be broken down between people. Without travel, we can't discover the people that we need to reach out to and what their needs are. In this way, travel writing can be used to make people aware of the social changes that should take place, as well as influencing them to truly care about people that are different from themselves.
When one comes into contact with a person, through travel writing or actual traveling, I believe it is much easier to affirm that person's humanity than simply reading facts and statistics about a given group of people. The story that Cahill extols in travel writing helps us to truly meet a person. Gaudium et Spes can be applied to a travel writing class because it shares the same mission that travel writing sometimes claims: to break down barriers between people and to promote solidarity in the world. In the area of athiesm specifically, Gaudium strives to break down barriers between believers and nonbelievers. In many other papal documents, the Church seeks to remove prejudices in other areas of life. Both travel writing and Gaudium can break down barriers between humans, allowing them to recognize their common dignity.
Using Mark Twain FTW!
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