Sorted Society

We live in a world bombarded with lines of division. Separating ourselves by the color of our skin, the nature of our hair, our sexual orientation, political affiliations, religious views or positions on specific issues, we tirelessly look for ways we can distinguish ourselves from one another. We group ourselves based on mere proximity and draw national boundaries from which an obvious need for a dialogue on power arises - fertile grounds for more division. Within our nations we draw lines to define our ethnic differences. Then we fixate on these boundaries until we forget that we really have more commonalities than we do differences.

Is it necessary? I don't know. Nor am I in any position to speculate. But I wonder about the possible implications. In a world so hungry to divide, are we allowing these divisions to define us? Are we allowing these divisions to oversimplify who we are?

In one of the research courses I took in my final year of graduate school, our instructor had us write down a word that we felt defined us. One of the most interesting things I noticed was that we all looked to things like religion, nationality, careers, etc to define ourselves - myself included. But were we looking at who we are, or who we know the world sees us as? And which is more important? If someone is asking me to use a single word to describe myself, and I say "Ethiopian", am I merely trying to find a word that I feel will be easiest for my enquiring friend to understand? Of course the answer is accurate. I am indeed from Ethiopia; however, why not relate better to my humanity than our societal divisions? Looking back, I would have rather used a word like, "sensitive" (which is also true by the way). 

The next time you begin to engage a stranger in conversation, take notice of the things your mind first picks up on. Our minds are wired to categorize the person by the groups we understand make up our society: race, nationality, profession... The mind works fast to make the connections between what we're seeing and what we know.

When we strip away the walls that have compartmentalized our society, we are left with a much more complicated truth about our humanity. While these social divisions may very well be important to us, is the simplification of our humanity to these groups taking away from our human experience?