Equals, equal to, equal to what?
To the challenges we face.
Equality, Commonality, Uniformity and Conformity. What do these words bring to your mind?
Bland, featureless, tasteless and mindless come to mine.
Difference, Rebellion, Freedom and Choice bring to life every individuals voice.
Long has mankind battled and suffered, demons within and demons without. Demons of their own creation sometimes in the name of war, sometimes in the name of recreation, sometimes by an insatiable lust for power and other times for wealth, men or women. How can this list exclude battles for honour? Indeed it cannot. It does not. Demons unleashed by forces beyond our comprehenshion, storms that rip apart a mans life and storms that decimate the collective life of mankind.
I have spoken of war now in a generic sense, for I wish to deal with the specific, in the context of the generic. Long are the hours that I have spent decrying that mankinds fundamental nature is evil and chaotic and yet my heart tells me to keep faith that mankind is true and good. Reality often lies between the extremes of our rosiest dreams and our worst nightmares. And so again, has human nature continued to remain fickle and dynamic, eluding all attempts to classify it as good or bad. Indeed, now an attempt for such a classification seems naive.
But I digress. I return to the topic at hand, equality. Since time immemorial, man has been afraid of differences, of change, of deviations from the norm. He does not respect nature and considers animals inferior, for they are different from him. Little does he understand, that in his arrogance, he has failed to see what those differences have to offer. This discrimination has been more violent, if anything, when it came to fellow man.If a man were not to conform to an acceptable, usually socially decreed form of behaviour, woe betide, he would be an outcast, just because he dared to listen to his conscience and reason.
When the world was explored, many exotic creatures and cultures were found. Many of them more tolerant and adaptable than those of the first explorers. The men and women of these cultures were different in customs, behaviour, speech and appearance, and hence became candidates for brutal discrimination. Man against man perpetrated the most inhuman of all crimes.
Then arose a cry for equality, from men and women courageous enough to stand up to their oppressors. And then began a battle without. This battle was of little consequence until men and women of all types could set aside their differences and accept their humanity as their first identity, their equality as a matter of course. Slowly, the tides turned. People became more tolerant. And yet the battle was not won. It is not won.
Often, equality has been confused with bland conformity, which resulted in socialist and marxist movements. Noble were their ideals and yet, as history has shown, they were doomed to fall. In hindsight, this is obvious, because every man and woman seeks to be different, to stand out from the crowd, to achieve a higher station in society, to be appreciated. At the same time, man strives for acceptance among his peers and in comes the necessity for conforming to social norms. In my opinion, neither extreme is likely to succeed.
We humans need to learn to be less tolerant of evil and more tolerant of differences. Yet, as history has shown time and time again, this may just be a pipe dream. Still, while I live, I cannot give up hope in the greater good, the better nature of humankind.
Our hope lies in coming to gether as one, as humans, as living beings. Our hope lies in knowing, no in feeling that bond of commonality that runs through us and in remembering that just because we share something in common does not mean that we have to share everything in common. Our hope! It lies in respecting and recognizing differences, not in demeaning each other because of them, not in giving them secondary importance. Differences are to be treasured, they make us who we are and so they make others who they are and there is everything positive in that, for in sharing a bond of commonality, we can harvest the best of our different capabilities.
Equals
A pipe dream?
A reality?
A sign or word on paper?
No it is a state of mind. It is a belief. It is a way of life. It is a battle fought by us, within ourselves. It is that which grows as more people practice it. A few freak racistss notwithstanding, let us attain our goal, let us continue to be equals.
A/N: This post is in response to mithblogsin’s post.
