Summary of The Eleventh Tuesday, We Talk about our Culture
In the Eleventh Tuesday of tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie and Albom discuss our culture. The chapter starts off with Morrie in bed and Albom slapping his back to try are release the poison and flem from Morrie’s lungs. This process signifies Morrie’s lungs slowly dieing, and without his lungs, he will die too. Afterwards, the two talk about why people are mean only because they are threatened, and that the only reason people resort to meanness is because that is what our culture tells us to do. Morrie goes into detail about how to create your own minny culture, which should include your beliefs, how you think, and what your values are. Morrie then looks at man’s shortsightedness. “We don’t see what we could be...The problem, Mitch, is that we don’t believe we are as much alike as we are.” He speaks of how we all start with a birth, and end with death. We need each other when we are born, we need each other when we are old, and we need each other in between too. How different can we be? Albom describes a basketball game in college, everyone was chanting, “[w]e’re number one! We’re number one!” Morrie stands up and shouts “What’s wrong with being number two?” He does this in order to make the point that, culture and society are teaching us the wrong values, ones that don’t truly matter.