We as a species are really good at 'othering' people, or groups of them.
I was reading a thread on here where a generalisation was made 'I can see it would be a problem for a tory'. I will point out at this stage that this is not intended as an attack on the individual who made the remark. Nor is it a critique of a political position, the statement got me to thinking and is purely the example from which my thought process extrapolated.
I am as guilty as anyone else of othering people and generalising.
I'm fascinated by the idea that something as complex at the human persona can be reduced to a single (in this case four letter) word that can be used as a way to describe the entirety of someone's character. What is a Tory? Will I know one when I see them, do they all look alike? Does your voting history make you one? Is it your economic outlook? The amount of money you have in the bank? How willing you are to accept government involvement in your life? Did Tories exist by another name when we were hunter gatherers? Am I a Tory?
What is it about us as a species that can take a single attribute of an individual and seeming cease to look any further beyond that? It seems so ingrained in our make up to see and focus on the differences than to search for the similarities. Or is it that we assume similarities, and then when we come across a difference we are stopped in our tracks and cannot get back to seeing the similarities?
Is this some sort of evolutionary response developed in our past, and if so does it serve a purpose in modern society? We are the single life form in the known universe that has the ability to communicate with each other on such a large scale in such a complex manner, it seems logical that we should be able to come the mutual understandings on most topics.
I'm reluctant to pursue the political subject as I'm aware of what this my descend (or escalate) into, but it is the topic that initiated my thoughts. It seems that we (Wester(?) humans) are becoming increasingly polarised and it appears that this is largely down political lines, many times on topics that have seemingly little to do with what would have been traditionally consider Left or Right. There are a number of things that I believe that people would say are 'Right Wing' ideas or ideals, there are probably an equal number that would be considered 'Left Wing'. I have no doubt that some on here who have read things I have posted and made a decision on 'what' I am, be that political or anything else. Based off posts on an Off Topic thread on a woodworking forum, I would anticipate a significant number of us have formed opinions on others that we fail to see beyond.
It becomes increasingly interesting to me that once that point of 'othering' occurs it seems difficult to return from it to (re)discover the similarities we all share.
I can't imagine any of us are one thing in isolation, even those of us who appear consistent to our internal image of what they are. Surely we are all far more alike than we would all probably feel is comfortable to acknowledge.
Is it possible we are hamstrung by an evolutionary mechanism to other people that prevents us from looking beyond the differences to a point that will diminish our ability to progress as a civilisation, or worse lead to its downfall?
Anyway, this is what my internal monologue looks like in Ariel font 15................rambling.
Happy Tuesday fellow humans I have more in common with than not.