[Opinion] The End: Division of Humanity
Fossil evidence suggests that humanity has existed for around 200,000 years now. Ever since our emergence so long ago, we made our mark on this planet. We were born together, we grew together, we advanced together, and we even outlasted potential extinction together. We became the head of the food chain, and the arguable defenders and “owners”, for lack of better words, of this planet. Together is a key word in this paragraph. Together, we lived. Together, we survived. But, as humanity continues to grow, and as the things we need continue to become easier to obtain, we start to witness something: the race of creatures that once came together for something as simple as assured survival, is now dividing and splintering over things as small as what types of food we eat.
But why? Why do we divide? Why do we seek to split ourselves apart, and establish ourselves as the group that’s “right”? This is something that one would think would be eliminated when humanity advances. Humanity itself seems to have a fetish of feeling weak or oppressed. We let everything offend us, we let everything oppress us, and we fight battles that are nonexistent for no reason other than it helps us fit in. Even those that don’t fit in look for others that don’t fit in, so that they may fit in. As riddle-esque as that sounds.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, absolutely. But really think about what you’re saying there, when you spout that. Free opinions. When someone normally mentions that “everyone is entitled to their own opinions”, what they usually mean is “everyone is entitled to their own opinions as long as they agree with my own”. We live in a society nowadays, where disagreeing with someone can be perceived as oppressing them.
Take the anti-vaccination movement for example. Recently, Disneyland was the site of an infection of a disease that, not too long ago, was completely eradicated in the United States: Measles. But why? How could this happen? The answer is simple: people aren’t vaccinating their kids. They feel that vaccinations aren’t safe. That they’re all scams and conspiracies. Hundreds of years of medical science and advances are being denied and tossed aside, for no reason other than someone read an article on the internet. Said articles are almost always crafted by someone who is completely unqualified to call themselves a doctor.
Now, the anti-vaccination movement has taken offense to having the outbreak blamed on them. They accuse those critical of them of hate speech, even though their unvaccinated, measles infected child was present at Disneyland. They have taken offense to anyone even mildly suspecting that this could be their fault, and this thought is carried among most groups of humans that band together when criticized.
Another example would be Christianity. Atheist billboards, printed with the statement, “Don’t believe in God? You are not alone” have recently been posted across the US, with an extremely violent response to follow. A statement that simply contradicts, and not even directly, with the beliefs of Christians has been met with an insane reaction. There has yet to be an outcry about the hundreds of Christian agenda billboards.
In short, when something contradicts what we believe, even slightly, we seem to lose our minds. Our response seems completely insane and unwarranted, sometimes bordering on psychopathic. The claims that some of these groups make, from anti-GMO to anti-vaccination, also seem to be outright ludicrous, making the outside world truly question their movement. Do we desire to be apart of something so badly, that we find ways to defend it around every corner, or use it to justify our every response to every action?
Two teens were recently murdered by a drug dealer. Read that sentence again. It sounds morally wrong, and it is. However, when that sentence is changed to what the media portrays it: “Two white teens murdered by black drug dealer”, you then incite a battle between many different groups of people. The murderer himself even cited the “Black Lives Matter” movement as a justification for the murder, and people support him for it. They throw out the fact that two teenagers were murdered simply because of race, which wasn’t apart of anything until he made it that way. Isn’t that racism? Isn’t that what we fight to absolve? How can we come together, and give each other the respect that we deserve, if we cannot unite to stamp out such demons?
On the same topic, police officers are also the target of disdain from many people. People like to claim that they hate police officers because they’re all corrupt, or racist, or any combination of the two. But, isn’t it prejudice to have some preconceived notion of a group of people, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, or occupation? You wouldn’t assume that every stripper is promiscuous, and you wouldn’t assume that every officer worker you meet is dull and boring, so why assume that every officer of the law is evil? That’s arguably just as bad as prejudice itself.
We live in a world where, if you hold a door for a female, that can be called rape. We live in a world where, if you’re disagreed with in a conversation, they can claim that you’re paid off, and that can be a completely acceptable end to a scientific debate. We live in a world where we claim to want to unity, and then we turn around and divide ourselves as thoroughly as we can. We claim that we want to come together, and end all of the silliness, so that we can finally be happy and free, and then we turn around, and find things to split ourselves up with.
Why? Do we desire to be apart of something so badly, that we completely throw our own thoughts out of the window? Do we seek to be unique, and in that process we end up becoming a carbon copy of the others that support the same things we do? Doesn’t that make being unique moot? Are we so absorbed in our movements and in ourselves that we are completely oblivious to the hypocritical speech that spills from us? Do we even care about these movements? Or do we just seek to impress those around us, and drop our support for things the moment they move out of public eye, to continue following and barking about the latest trends in the news?
Take the Black Lives Matter movement. Racism is still alive and well in America, and in the world for that matter. But how many people still follow it? There is, indeed, a group of people very passionate about the movement, and they should be commended. They’ve found something they believe in, and have stuck to it. But how many people were “outraged” over the things that spawned this movement, and no longer speak of the death of Mike Brown, simply because it’s no longer in the news? Many. The same thing can be observed with the Trayvon Martin case. The majority of the same crowd that claimed to be outraged over his death have moved on to be outraged and offended by something else. It would seem that, rather than try to unite and stamp out the things that cause these deaths; we seem to prefer to continue to find things to be offended about. We seem to want to feel weak, and oppressed.
On the other side of the coin, we have those that distrust everything that government ever says or does, so much so, that they completely avoid doctors, for example. We have people denying cancer treatments, and dying, for no reason other than misinformation. And then they are praised as martyrs. There are groups out there that are convinced that the 90 million people around the world involved in the medical profession are in on some vast conspiracy to force vaccinations on the public for profit. Why? Why believe something so silly? The answer is again, simple.
We need conflict. As humanity evolves further, and as we continue to live our lives completely void of true conflict, the conflict of survival, we strive to create artificial conflict for ourselves. We NEED to feel weak. We NEED to feel oppressed. Something HAS to be wrong at all times. We need a vast, overarching conflict for our species to be mentally healthy. Religion, gender equality, racism, social justice, vaccinations, GMOs, conspiracies, we need something in our lives that gives us a drive to fight. We need something to fight, so that we have something to defeat, and being as we no longer have to actively fight to eat and survive, we must find something else. Anything else. Even if it’s not a true problem facing society, we’ll make it one.
I don’t believe that humanity will ever know world peace. I don’t believe that we’ll ever see the end of racism, misogyny and misandry, or bigotry. Too many people are unwilling to budge on any stance, and too many people desire the drive that these things bring on both sides of the arguments. After all, if racism, misogyny, or bigotry suddenly vanished, what would happen next? Would feminism stop existing? What if a white-pride organization succeeded in their ultimate goal, would we be so foolish to assume that they would simply disappear? Of course not.
In the end, we seek to fit in. We seek to unite. But in this uniting, we divide ourselves. And with every passing day, we continue to divide further and further. “Unity” will be the undoing of the human race. Perhaps we will eventually be able to truly unite, and truly love each other as we claim we want to do, but for now, all we can do is watch our tailspin into social chaos.
Nick with [sic] Journalism
