Communication and appreciation is the key to a rainbow vision

Red-tinted glasses are simply glasses that have red lens, that filters any other colour but red, so when one wears them, they would see exactly the same thing as everyone else but in different shades of red such as pink and crimson. The shades of red represent the way in how we as an individual precept our surrounding, and therefore no one will have the same shade or colour as anyone else. The colour and shade of everyone’s ‘glasses’ depends on how they were brought up through beliefs, culture, environment, and experiences they’ve have had in their lives.

The extended metaphor in chapter 25 “Kant” of “red-tinted glasses” allows us to understand how every individual perceives things differently in their own way and how we limit or affect our thoughts to the interpretation of our senses. No one will clearly understand or experience how another person perceives things, no matter how close their relationship is. We can’t ‘swap’ our glasses to experience how another person feels as it’s inbuilt in oneself. However, we are able to ‘change the colour or shade’ of our glasses through communication or experiences as we gain more knowledge and understanding of the world. We could, however interpret colours into our glasses to extend and widen our vision and therefore accept others’ perception. I will describe this in more detail later on.

In the novel “Sophie’s World”, Sophie puts these red-tinted glasses on and “everything was exactly the same, except all red”; it clearly shows us what Knox is trying to prove: although everything we see and gain knowledge of such as facts and figures is the same compared to the rest of their world, each person holds their own point of view and is therefore biased and restricted to the culture and condition we live in. There are many things that Sophie couldn’t see through these red glasses as they’re limiting her senses, for example, if she was to cross the road by looking at the traffic lights, how would she know when to cross when both of the lights are red? Does that mean she should stop at that spot forever? Sophie would never know when it’s right to cross, or when it’s wrong to cross as she wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, this exemplifies how we would never know how other religions are practiced without studying, asking or acknowledging them. Therefore, she would never understand how a person wearing green glasses would perceive his/her surroundings unless she has been informed about it.

In the novel, Sophie discovers that Kant is the mediator of the rationalists and the empiricists; he’s able to see both sides of the argument. The rationalists believed that "the basis for all human knowledge lies in the mind" whilst on the other hand the empiricists believed that “all knowledge of the world proceeded from the senses". Kant believed that neither of them could explain the one reason of how people perceived things; he believed that people’s perception comes from two factors: sensory perception and reason. This means that even a blind person would be able to perceive everything in the world, though they’d be using different sensory organs and their minds to think and interpret.

Now relating this to our day to day life, there are always two sides to everything, and not everyone is able to see this as their perception are limited by many reasons such as beliefs, culture, environment, and experiences they have had in their lives; these are the filters represented by the ‘red-tinted glasses’. However one can easily accept another colour into their glasses by accepting another person’s perception. Even if one may not agree with another, one has taken notice of another’s argument and reasons then the shade of their glasses will lighten, even if just a little. For example, when one person argues with another about global warming, the one who is against it would be wearing red glasses and will only see the disadvantages of global warming, whilst the person who’s in favour of global warming, would be wearing blue glasses where he only sees the advantages and possible economic opportunities of global warming. If neither of them were willing to express themselves, their coloured glasses would stay the same and might turn a darker shade, resulting in a really one-sided perception. However, if both sides were willing to speak up and express their ideas and thoughts, they might both understand and appreciate the values that each side are holding, resulting in a lighter shade in their glasses. So now, they’ve another perception of global warming they’ve never seen or thought of before.

Many times, I’ve experienced conflict or misunderstanding between two different cultures due to the difference in cultural beliefs, in other words different perspectives due to the different coloured glasses we’re wearing. For example, me being a Chinese would find it perfectly normal to have a steamed chicken (including the head and feet) as a dish for dinner, whilst people living in England for instance would find it horrifying and refuse to eat that dish, without even trying it. This shows how different culture causes us to wear ‘different coloured glasses’, and because of this, we should communicate with other people to acknowledge their culture and beliefs to widen our perspective and also lighten the shade of our ‘glasses’. If we don’t attempt to learn about others’ beliefs, culture, environment and experiences, the shade of our coloured glasses would, in result turn into a darker shade and we’d only be restricted to that one colour and perspective for our whole lives. I believe that our aim in life is to expand our knowledge and understand other people’s perspective and therefore gain a ‘rainbow vision’.

To conclude, I believe this experiment shows us clearly that we’re all wearing coloured glasses, despite us being aware or not. There is no way to take it off or swap with other people, it’s our own will to lighten the shade of our lens in order to appreciate and discover more than what our sensory organs and mind are limiting us to. As time pass, the colour of our glasses would change, darken or lighten, it doesn’t matter; but in the end what we’ve got is what we should appreciate, as this is the final colour of our own perception of life.