Tag: humanity

Re: Diversity

Diversity is our strength, uniformity leaves us open to disease. The backtracking currently underway in the USA regarding diversity support is creating a poisonous environment for all but the 1%. DEI is frowned upon by those who already have everything they want and need. Diversity/Equity/Inclusion policies are designed as an acknowledgement of differences within our work environment, and in our communities.

In university I learned how monocultures are unnatural in the environment. Agricultural mega companies like Monsanto bring the message that uni-crops create more yield, thereby increasing profits for farmers. This artificial system requires massive amounts of round-up chemicals and GMO seeds to produce sustainable results. This isn’t the way of Nature. In natural systems, diversity rules because every species has value, a place, and a function. Insisting on a uniform culture is damaging to a society and to global progress. I dream of world Nations being United in the common cause of Humanity. That requires all of us to foster a belief that inclusion matters. Every human has value, a place, and a function.

Social media flows by opinion and algorithms. The AI process prefers to look for commonalities. Artificial intelligence loves similarity, like a young child trying to make connections and learn what it’s like to be an adult, the child wants to see who is like who. The tricky part is that most folks don’t like being labelled. Yes there is safety in numbers, yes birds of a feather like to flock together, yes a herd can survive better when they travel as one unit, but a herd can be decimated by a single viral infection. Conformity can be dangerous.

Recent Pride parades offer up an observable example of a society’s diversity. These events encourage everyone to respect differences, while promoting the things we have in common. We have to get over our innate, natural fear of difference. We can belong to a clan without making war on the other clans. I have been happy to live in places where diversity is encouraged because options are important to me. The greater the diversification within a city or nation, the healthier the population. Citizens can decide to march to the tune of a different drummer, even decide to play their own drum, when they feel safe to do so.

Tyranny is supported by unified, singularly focussed individuals. MAGA policies are designed to exclude any outliers. Followers of trumpism have confused the need for consistency with a desire for uniformity. Communities can be consistent in their approach to any issue without being coerced into wearing a uniform that identifies intolerance towards non-believers. During these times of WWIII proportions, I am grateful for those who stand up for the values of equity and fairer treatment for the 99%. Folks like Bernie Sanders, Charlie Angus, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Beto O’Rourke, and Naomi Klein have a national and global impact. These folks speak for me.

If Humanity is to survive it will be because diversity shows the way. In Nature and in Politics variety of perspective offers a balance to the challenges of reality.

Re: Cult

Some words contain words. Cult is part of culture in more than just structure. There are elements of cultism in every culture. Citizens of a culture make the decision to embrace what is practised, or not. The essence of a country’s culture is demonstrated by how resources are allocated to promote the larger values of the collective. Sometimes these tribal desires to belong can conflict with our individual wants, wishes, or needs.

When folks agree to do similar things together a connective thread is created. I like to think of that as the art of living. Defining a culture is how societal groups are formed. Individuals in families may often repeat to each other “This is the way we do things.” Teams often bond over the wish to be united so that literal goals can be achieved. After a tragedy, a city might suggest that the way forward would be by recognizing common values. I remember, after the bombing of marathon runners in 2013, newspapers promoted solidarity by printing headlines; Boston Strong! What fascinates me is the border between a healthy culture and a restrictive cult.

Throughout history people have collected into groups for protection, efficiency, or the pursuit of a shared experience. Religions are built on this desire to belong to something greater. Few of us want to be alone in our beliefs or occupations. Unions, fraternities, and sororities have been an essential part of the workplace so we can feel like comrades of industry. Military institutions have aspects of cult conditioning within their training. When you belong to any group you have to give up a bit of yourself for the greater good.

With the fracturing of our understanding of cultural mainstays comes doubt over what is important. Factions, sects, and brotherhoods become more important when traditional ideas of the common good are muddled. Cults begin to grow, fracturing the confidence populations once had for their society’s documents of legality, equality, and fraternity. When I read of organizations having a crisis of culture it worries me that fundamental values have been twisted to suit the needs of the powerful. Most people will think of cults with a capital C as those practising life on the fringe of religiosity. The rules of belonging in a cult-like setting are very oppressive of individual freedoms. In some cases you are coerced to deny your own history in order to begin life under a new set of guidelines. Life in some 60s communes was like this, and I have concluded that being involved with any religion is cultish.

Communal systems can get complicated when group and personal needs conflict. To some degree educational institutions are designed to indoctrinate our children to the ways of the national interest. In Canada, our ten provinces and three territories have their own policies, procedures, and legislation within the framework of the larger federation. All regions have their own priorities and practises (especially Quebec, and lately Alberta) yet we all call ourselves Canadian.

Cultures must evolve to survive. I would celebrate a global culture of peace as a priority.

Re: Cage

One of my first memories of childhood was my dad taking me to the Riverdale Zoo, near the Don Valley in Toronto. It was an old style animal park built in 1894. I remember there were lots of cages and barred enclosures. Another time we went to a private zoo in Maine and I fed peanuts to a curiously charming caged chimpanzee. Much later, as an adult, I was shocked to see the very same primate; fingers grasping rusty bars, woefully swinging back and forth. Penning animals is controversial these days. Back when I was a kid humans had to be protected from the ferocious beasts. Nowadays it would be more appropriate if we kept the flora and fauna sheltered from our influences.

Oh we can be a barbarous species! How terrible is man who imagines two people fighting it out; last man standing. One on one sports like Boxing and UFC are signs of man’s depravity, packaged as entertainment. Being a peace loving fellow, I don’t see getting enjoyment from watching humans bloody one another while literally confined in a cage or ring. Crowds shout encouragement. We bet on a winner. We get trapped in a form of collective mass hysteria. We all lose.

Even the meekest among us can build our own personal enclosures. At their best these are places where we find comfort or security.  If we are lucky we can decorate our homes to our choosing. We can make our private spaces reflect our personality while containing the things we need to survive or flourish. For those with less means, life itself can be confining. Through circumstance or plain bad luck some exist only in a place to escape from. We can sometimes feel trapped in the cages of our own minds. Temple Grandin famously built a hug machine contraption to find reassurance in a confounding world. What others saw as confinement, she found that the device gave her control within her unique autistic world.

It may be a zoo out there and we must learn to share it. There are occasions when misbehaving children are given a time out to think about their transgressions. My sons got used to the limits of a set of stairs until they realized the error of their ways. Older mis-deeders in our society go to prison, often for the wrong reasons and usually without positive outcomes. We can’t hope to correct the penal system until prisons become creative way-stations to a better life rather than models of going nowhere fast.

Having suffered from episodes of depression and anxiety, I can relate to those who find themselves in cages not of their own design. The experience of mental illness is a tiny world where the smallest things need to be protected, where others are to be feared. I admire those who find ways to free themselves of the constraints of conventional life. Folks who climb mountains, both real and metaphorical, have pushed against their personal boundaries. These adventurers have found space to breathe, to create and to live large.

Re: Prime

Any Star Trek fan will tell you that The Prime Directive is the primary consideration whenever contact is made with another life. I’m priming the metaphorical pump here, when I suggest that this fictional Star Fleet Regulation is relevant to current discussions surrounding colonialism. In our real world of the late 15th century, explorers were faced with similar moral dilemmas yet were emboldened by The Doctrine of Discovery to claim whatever land was found for God and Crown. Aboriginal land was considered prime real estate by powerful naval nations. The expectation was to expand the Empire, fully sanctioned by the powers of the day. Living things, including fellow humans, were either considered in the way or resources to be used by the conquerors. Settlement and extraction of wealth was the prime directive. Throughout the world there is currently a renewed accounting of the results of this maniacal arrogance.

It’s enough to make anyone want to give a Primal Scream. Countless millions of lives lost like so much prime beef: Disregarding, dismissing and debasing fellow humans by renaming them as Primitive. Disgusting! Impossible to escape from the reality of man’s inhumanity to man. Seemingly impossible to reconcile the idea of human progress with all that degradation. Information we were fed in schools is sanitized through the lens of the victor. In my experience, public schools in the 1950s and sixties did not promote diverse historical viewpoints. In the countries affiliated with the British Empire, the pink area on old maps, we were taught to honour the establishment of the colonies. We traced maps and learned of benevolent conquest. We wrote essays about the captains of tiny ships who sailed through impossibly vast seas. Between the lines researchers can reveal grasping power hungry individuals, corrupt systems, antithetical religions and evil societies. The injustice has always been there and new evidence of it is being brought to light everyday. Truth is being spoken. Secrets are being exposed. Lies are being challenged. Apologies are being made. There is a demand to have these errors acknowledged by current governments.

And still the primal patterns of power and racism continue.

I dream of a world where we are united by discovery and share what we find. Our planet suffers due to our selfishness. As shepherds of the Earth we are failing to unite around a common healthy cause. Primarily we seek to serve our own needs regardless of the consequence to others. It seems a grim reality, an inconvenient truth even, that our primary function is to satisfy our urges. I’d like to believe that science has the answer: a Unified Theory of Everything as envisioned by the likes of Stephen Hawking. I wonder if there is a place of thought where it’s understood that individuals are like prime numbers sometimes and composite numbers at other times. Yet it’s impossible to dream up an appropriate metaphor for what it means to be human. We don’t fit into Number Theory. We have names. We are far from being mathematically perfect. We are all united by life.