On Facebook today I came across some really affirmative conversations. My friends there are wise and intelligent and I am moved by their posts.
One is by Fred Guerin who writes fluently articulated comments that cause me to think deeply about the human condition.
He questions the labels of gender identification "Is this not a plea for personhood rather than for the multiplication of gender identities? Unfortunately, by naming a gender and wholly identifying someone with it we, delimit, sediment and circumscribe persons who may not really fit into any given identity category. We then turn them into celebrities, martyrs or simulacrum rather than simply honouring their freedom to be whoever they wish to be." Fred Guerin, Facebook March 13, 2021.
There has long been a tendency to weaponize humanity with terms like normal, different, friends or enemy's and to make our relationships focus on conflict.
While conflict is important it seems to have been taken to 'possession' colonizing the land and all that is in it. Us and them. We are okay but once a difference has been established, 'they' become the problem. It's not us it's them. Lo and behold enemies are established.
One response to a previous article I wrote was 'we should get rid of religion'. My guess is that identity begets fear which then begets abusive practices on its members and outright hate towards those who are not members.
Take billionaires for example. There may not be a religion named for them but neoliberal capitalist teachings create an upper caste and the disposable masses.
Have you noticed how poverty creates blacks, 'indians', feminists, gays and disabled. I am using words that have been assigned to those not often chosen for CEO positions and who rarely appear in the clubs promoted for the "upper class" while pubs are for the "working class".
How did inequality happen? By the 'haves' creating walls to keep out the 'others'.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi's used these weapons to the most brutal extent while the British dehumanized the 'natives' of 'discovered' lands in the most cunning and devastating way.
Labels are weapons applied consistently. Once an identification is successfully broadcast, soon after comes the propaganda. Welfare Queens, Fags, Witches, Hags, Monsters, Natives, Commoners, Tarts.
Blame is applicable whenever money can buy the promotion. The blood libel used against Jews was also used against Witches: innocent men, women and children were burnt at the stake or in gas chambers.
But who does all this work? Clerics? Religions? Fascists? Psychopaths? Billionaires? Nations? Or just people who have been raised to hate and organize hate?
A minority with money and power manages to create fear and get most, if not all of us, to see people as protestants or catholics, rather than people we don't know. Which convinces us we know a lot when we don't.
Meanwhile great wealth is built on how we use our hate. We are not great.
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