"Prejudices are what fools use for reason." -- Voltaire
Our society is in trouble. The news is infiltrated with shootings, hateful proclamations made by politicians, and violence and discrimination upon violence and discrimination. We live in a society that has lost its way with people clinging to twisted mindsets and hateful generalizations. This corrupt view of humanity is causing people to act out in malicious and evil ways. Our society is further divided, compartmentalized and functioning through means of fear and hate instead of love and acceptance.
"Prejudice is a learned trait. You are not born prejudice, you are taught it." -- Anonymous
When we are born into this world we have no preconceptions about anyone. We are pure, clean slates that embody no judgments and love freely. As we grow and gain experience in this world, our slate may become tarnished and tainted by our own individual encounters, upbringing, culture and society -- ingrained with the tainted perceptions and judgments about others. Not only have we developed varied perceptions about people, they too, have prejudices towards us. These observations are the first pieces of information used to form opinions of who you are, often known as "labels." Labels have become so specialized and particular and range in vast categories like race, gender, sexuality, heritage, height and weight, clothing and even personality. Often this label is based upon outer appearance only. Any minute characteristic about yourself that makes you unique is fair game for people to criticize and make judgments about you. This is such an artificial way to view the world and this creates a confined, small-minded culture. There is so much more to a person than their appearance ("labels"), what lies within a person is so much more than the discernment made about them.
We use these "labels" to determine where we are on the social ladder. Based on our perceptions of people we determine if we are "better" than them. It's the elitist mindset. When people believe they are superior they distance themselves and look down on others. An elitist mindset causes division and tension. It's always an "us vs. them" situation with people trying to outdo each other, often targeting a misconstrued common enemy. My question is why? Why do we have to have a common enemy or be superior over others? All that ideology is doing is tearing people down and apart from others causing conflict and division.
"These labels that will forever blind us from seeing a person for who they are, but instead seeing them through the judgmental, prejudicial, artificial filters of who we think they are. And when you let an artificial label define yourself then you have chosen smallness over greatness and minimized yourself, confined and divided yourself from others." -- Prince EA -- attached video.
Elitism causes tension, tension causes conflict and conflict results in violence, war and even death-- an issue quite prevalent in our society today. Next week, I will discuss the dark shadow of violence and hatred that has cloaked our great nation and how together with love and understanding, and dialogue between the perceived "us vs. them" attitudes, looking past appearances, we might just be able to bring some light into the darkness.
Please watch this eye-opening video about our society and labels:
"Without labels we would be one, we would be together." -- Prince EA
