Diversity and Power:

Dialectic
AFA 1003-03

Halle Williams
7/21/2014




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There is a motive behind everything that is done. Your thought of reasoning behind a certain
things is based on your opinion of the truth of a situation. This is all grouped with the term
Dialectic; its the way you are able to look at things. Dialectics has four main ideas; Reality as
motion, reality as contradiction, motion that is energized by contradiction, and quantitative
change producing qualitative change. In the movie Crash it was clear that many events occurred
through the concept of reality as motion and reality as contradiction.
Reality as motion argues that the level of appearance is what something is. How something
appears to be, is what they appear to be at that moment. For instance when the Hispanic
locksmiths was fixing the locks at the white couples home the wife suspected that he was a
gangster and was going to take the extra key and sell it. She thought the worst of him due to how
he appeared; with tattoos, a muscular physique, and a Hispanic background. In the end, once he
was done with his tasks he returned both sets of keys to the family and left. She made an
assumption based on the appearance of him at that moment. The Hispanic locksmith is a great
example of reality as motion. In another incident, he was called to fix a lock on a door at a store.
Once done he tried to tell the owner that it was not the lock but it was the door instead. Due to
the fact that the owner didnt understand English that well he didnt understand. The Hispanic
locksmith didnt want to argue so he didnt charge the owner anything for the work he did. The
next morning the owner found his store broken into and instantly thought that the locksmith did
it. His train of thought was motioned by the way things looked at the moment and the events that
happened lasted night. He suspected him because of his appearance and for the fact of the
misunderstanding that they had with one another. It is the reality as motion which is contradicted
by appearance. How things are looked at is by the way of reason. The store owner needed to
figure out what happened so his reasoning reflected on the Hispanic locksmith. The wife got
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robbed once that night and thought it may happened again if she didnt act on her instinct. Her
instinct reflected on the Hispanic locksmith. It all plays a role on the concept that the level of
appearance is what something could be at that moment.
The concept of reality as contradiction is really dealing with reality as an opposite. It is better
visualized as, the truth is not is or that the truth is this and that. Take the black couple that was
pulled over by the cops for instance. That night one of the police officers sexually harassed the
black wife, her husband didnt want to react on situation due to the mindset he had. He thought
that being of the other race would produce some tension if he spoke out of tongue (this). His wife
saw it as her husband not wanting to get a bad look from his job (that). The husband didnt want
to admit that his wife was correct but the truth behind his actions was this and that. That incident
scared her so much that when she got in a car accident, the cop that sexually harassed her was the
only cop that could help her and she didnt want him to touch her. This was all due to the
mindset that he would sexually harm her once again. But no matter how she felt, he had to do his
job. The truth was that he sexually harassed her but the truth was that he also had a job to
perform. Another example would be when the store owner and daughter bought the gun for the
protection of the store. However, when the store got robbed and the owner had a suspicion on
who did it he wanted to retaliate. He went to the locksmiths house and fired the gun but nothing
happened. He shot the gun but the daughter bought blank bullets to go inside of it so nothing
really fired out of the gun. It is the unit of opposites. Some ranging in consequences, which are
the negative, while, others in essence, this is the positive. The black couple dealt with the
consequences of their situation, while the store owner dealt with the essence if his.
How things are looked at and perceived could only be determined by the way things are looked
at and the logic one gets from it. The movie Crash covers all points of Dialects. However, it was
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clear that many events occurred through the concept of reality as motion and reality as
contradiction. Showcasing the argument that the level of appearance is that of something is.
What appears to be is what it appears to be at that moment. Also explaining that the truth is this
and that not just this or that. Dialectic explained by Aristotle can be defined as logic being split
in two. It is the way one looks at things compared to what they really are.

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Bibliography
Haggis, P. (Director). (2005). Crash [Motion Picture].