I thought that Edward Said made some very valid points in his book “Orientalism”. In particular what interested me was his ideas on political knowledge versus pure knowledge. I think that as humans we have a tendency to take everything we read on the internet or hear on TV to be true, and we hardly ever do any more research on the subject. I think that this leads to an extreme lack of actual knowledge or at the very least unbiased knowledge. However, I don’t think that pure knowledge is so easily acquired. Pure knowledge to me can only be gained through a real understanding and immersion into a culture. Traveling, while informative and interesting, does not lead itself to truly understanding the culture because people spend so little time in one place while traveling. Living somewhere, going to school, finding a job, and building a life, to me is the only true way to gain pure, unbiased knowledge of an area.