Henry David Thoreau
Observe the people around you or apply these questions to yourself. Are they/you perfect? Are they/you happy with the way they/you look? Do you think their/your race is better than others? Or, do they/you think their/your community is better than others’?
Well, when I pose these questions directly at you, I am sure your responses would be rationale. However, when answering for others, your responses will be more populist. That is:
- Most people feel that they are better than others (close to perfect), hence continue to gripe about others’ decisions, appearance, clothing, or whatever they want to
- Most people are not happy with their appearance. They may all wish to have looks like Tom Cruise or Marilyn Monroe, or whichever externally appealing individual they may know
- Majority trust people from their own, race, community, or whatever link that originates from made-up and geographically co-incidental origins. Most races, communities, and religions in the world are a result of geographic incidences – thanks to the mother nature
If you are different enough to not comply with any of the three above points, tell me how do you achieve this.
On Human Nature and Beauty
We all are similar in most sense, but it is an inconvenient truth.
- If you don’t like a person’s behavior in office, you go straight to your close associate and gripe. Even the person about whom you gripe, may moan your behavior with others.
- If you are given a chance to see questions that will appear in your interview test, you are very likely to take a peep.
I can list many more instances wherein I could predict your behavior. However, such as we are, we believe we are different and moan about almost every aspect of our life; or, as a matter of fact - we gripe as long as we live.
When we decide our initial level of trust in another individual, here is the order in which we (human) are likely to set our preferences:
- Same color
- Same religion
- Same community
- Same region
- Same country
You may feel the order is wrong or discard the list as it gives a very critical scrutiny of the human nature. But, I bet it is very near to the truth.
You may differ on the order, but just sit back and do some soul searching – were you ever new to a place and were relieved to meet a person from your place of origin, religion, community, or race? We all seem to use these points, may be unconsciously, to set initial level of trust in new people we meet.
Let’s play a game in which you are allowed to keep the right answer to yourself and there are no prizes to be won (sorry to take out an incentive before the game starts.) Bonus: There are no buttons to click :-).
Question: If you win an Astin Martin in some stupid game show and are given a model that happens to be black, will you return it? Note that you cannot change the car color.
- a. Yes
- b. No
Now, you don’t need to give me any prize to guess your answer, which is – b.
Why didn’t the color influence your decision?
I guess it was because: how the hell can the color of an Aston Martin matter? An Aston Martin is an Astan Martin. Its mechanics, speed, looks, everything are a killer. The difference between the engine, injection, piston, or whatever crap that goes inside all Aston Martins is basically – ZERO. So how can color matter? Darn the color. What say?
Yeah, you are right. Darn the color for a lifeless output of mechanics, which is produced and sold at a price that can support an entire city/town/village, which is facing serious humanitarian crisis like famine or the recent quake in Haiti.Why does the color matter so much when it relates to human? We human, despite differences in skin appearance, are same from the inside. I am sure there is no need to get into the bio-demographic segmentation of humanity. The internal machinery that operates inside us is bloody similar. Just like an Aston Martin, even our machinery expires and experiences change in appearance with age.
An Aston Martin may satisfy the self esteem need of an individual, but is it worth the value of human lives - whose numbers may go in billions? Refer to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to read about self esteem needs.
Consider us, human. Are we really beautiful? We look at a spider, toad, lizard, or a cockroach and may exclaim – YUCK.
Just for a moment imagine that these wonderful creatures can speak and think. Will they not exclaim – yuck or their version of DEMON on seeing us? If they make such statements, they are justified as most of human race is slowly turning filthy, destructive, and thoughtless and is living like creatures with no brains. We just follow what others do in the name of fashion, trend, or blindly follow marketing gimmicks.
Just another uncomfortable fact – we hold and emit more poo than any of these creatures may in their lives. So, who is filthier in real sense?
I am sure many animals call us DEMONS in their own mode of communication. Thankfully we have not yet decrypted their communication. Otherwise, poor fellows would have been under more human threat as they could have been caught calling names and curses. And that too cursing the most brainy and beautiful, yet destructive and divided, race of living thing on the plant.:-)
It is in human nature to show anything that originates from a different place to be asymmetric and hence ugly. For example, all alien artworks are slimy. We unconsciously see beauty comparatively. And, we compare it with ourselves, our race, community, country, religion, or whatever we can think of. Hardly any views are neutral.
One refreshing piece of art that deviates from the stereotype is the movie: Monster Inc. The movie starts off with a typical portrayal of monsters, which is they are scary and ugly. However, the movie ends with the message that love and happiness are very powerful and a living object that looks different from a particular race is also capable of making people smile. :-)
Dark is beautiful, small noses look cute, small eyes are a killer, small lips are pretty, brown is the bridge between white and black, and white glows when all fades. They are all beautiful in every sense. Don’t these lines justify the beauty of all ‘skin’ races? Then why the differences when logic easily advocates unity and love? Why does a market exist for fairness and other crappy creams?
On More Divisions – A case of Indian Unity/Diversity
The easiest way to get close to someone is to moan about an individual who, coincidentally, may be hated by you and the person with whom you talk. In other words, you can easily get close to someone by griping about an individual who is an object of your common hatred. You will have exceptions when an individual may be against back-biting against others. However, in most cases, you will succeed. In addition, while assessing people, we tend to overlook their positive behavior and concentrate on their shortfalls. This tendency to overlook the positive, or nice behavior, is one of the most exploited and vulnerable human weaknesses.
As I said before, unconsciously, we tend to let our perspectives be driven by a person’s ethnicity, religion, or race. So, will this be left unexploited when someone wants you on their side? Surely not. From politicians and terrorists to marketers, all look to exploit this weakness at a grand level, and your friends or associates at a lower level. Your friends or associates’ influence may cause you to hate an individual or community, but even their rationale will be, in some way, inspired from a leader – the leader may be a politician, goon, terror marketer, or some historic personality.
For example, let’s consider the differences in the Indian Social setup. The traditional setup of the Indian society encouraged division of work based on a person’s family and sect. The society was divided into three main sections:
- Kshatriyas, rulers entrusted with the responsibility to govern the society
- Bramhins, responsible to oversee the religious rituals and worshiping
- Shudras, maintain hygiene and maintenance of the environment
The aim of such a system was to let the society function smoothly. With all due respect to the creators of the system and without doubting their intentions, I opine that they overlooked the human weakness to look down on others. I hope that the creators had learned Edward De Bono’s six thinking hats, or psychology, so that they could have used the hats to analyze the, possible, negative impacts of the system. J But unfortunately, they didn’t have such scientific tools of decision making. Everything was driven by gut, myth, and the decision makers’ will to safeguard themselves and their community. Consequently, we had the Shudra being oppressed by the Bramhins and Kshatriyas for centuries.
Refer to the Human Map below. It depicts the segregation of the Indian society into innumerable divisions. It may be humanly and timely impossible for a working class person like me to give a detailed map of differences. However, the image below surely gives a glimpse at the microscopic level of the way our society is divided. If you think this map is cluttered, just imagine the mess in a diagram that maps the world's communities and races?
The marketers and politicos exploit the human tendency to focus on the differences and cons of other communities or races. As you may perceive from the diagram, they have innumerable target points to divide us and benefit from our weakness.
There may be innumerable vulnerable points, but the solitary and most powerful unifying theme – humanity.
The first religion we should follow and preach is humanity. All religions are derived from humanity. However, over the years, they may have been tweaked by few people for their self interest. There have been true prophets of religions.
However, few may have been corrupt. It is these corrupt individuals who have tweaked religions to serve their self interest. So, will it not make sense to practice humanity rather than follow someone else’s word? I don’t advocate dropping your present practices. But, I do advocate critically reviewing them and following only those that are in sync with nature, humanity, and betterment of the world. For instance, it is a Hindu practice to disperse holy stuff, used in worship, in water. I have stopped my family from doing it as this practice pollutes water. The most recent examples of tweaking religion and race are terrorism, reservation in various organizations or institutions, etc. So, like you do in money matters, use your grey matter and conscience.
Never say no to your conscience. It always shows you the right path. You just need to wait, take a deep breath, smile, and listen…
Disclaimer: The post does not aim to demean any religion, race, or community. My apologies if it does and do let me know if you feel that any part of the post demeans any sect.
