Imagine (for the sake of argument) we someday reach a point where intolerance of all forms (racism, homophobia, sectarianism, etc.) is vanquished, where no groups or individuals are oppressed or persecuted, where the equality that activists of all sorts have fought to achieve is realized. Further imagine that it's not merely an ostensible tolerance where people were merely better at camouflaging their hatred but where everyone quite literally was accepting of everyone else in a sincere way. We'd remember that it used to be bad, of course, but know that it wasn't that way anymore.
In that seemingly utopian scenario, do you suppose we would (perhaps ashamedly) romanticize the "bad ol' days" when we were made to feel ashamed? Do we have an inherent unconscious need to draw some satisfaction from feeling like outcasts that would lead us to have nostalgia for that if it were no longer around?
What's that? You cannot even imagine such a thing, perhaps because you think the need to divide ourselves into "us" and "them" (and the "them" is always keeping down the "us" in some way) is an inherent aspect of human nature? You refuse to allow me to have participation in this rumination of a hypothetical situation that makes me feel shunned?
Ah, that's the stuff. Now tell me how stupid I am. There's the comments box below...
In that seemingly utopian scenario, do you suppose we would (perhaps ashamedly) romanticize the "bad ol' days" when we were made to feel ashamed? Do we have an inherent unconscious need to draw some satisfaction from feeling like outcasts that would lead us to have nostalgia for that if it were no longer around?
What's that? You cannot even imagine such a thing, perhaps because you think the need to divide ourselves into "us" and "them" (and the "them" is always keeping down the "us" in some way) is an inherent aspect of human nature? You refuse to allow me to have participation in this rumination of a hypothetical situation that makes me feel shunned?
Ah, that's the stuff. Now tell me how stupid I am. There's the comments box below...
No, you won't long for the "bad old days" because you'll be programmed not to.
ReplyDeleteThe only way humans will be united in anything is if their very existence is threatened by an outside force. And even then, they will fight and squabble among themselves, to the detriment of the survival of the race. It's part of the genome, and it cannot be undone without reducing humans to hive-mind insects.
Then again, insects are far more successful, as a life form, than humans. They will survive when humans won't. I'm betting on the insects. ;-)