Circle of Life

Are we born to commit savagery on others? To cause other people pain and misery? Or are we raised that way? Is it nature or nurture? I’ve been thinking: what’s the difference? Humans aren’t born in a “vacuum.” Use your imagination: if people sprouted out of the ground- like flowers- and there was not any other human for miles, to the point where no two humans would ever interact. We’d be quite different, huh? In reality we’re born to parents, families, neighborhoods, communities, towns, provinces, countries. From the day we’re born, we are held to certain expectations. We learn to follow certain rules. Among other things, we’re expected to have allegiances. We are asked…, no, conditioned to be loyal to our parents. Loyal to our schools. Loyal to our creeds/religions. Loyal to our races and ethnicities. Loyal to our president and country. Loyal To Barack Obama and the U.S. of A. To Stephen Harper and Canada. To Saddam Hussein. To Stalin, Hitler, McDonald’s, NIU, and the Chicago Bulls.

 No matter what your allegiance, the very nature of it creates boundaries. And sometimes people become very invested in these boundaries. They may come to benefit from them and depend on these divisions. Some become so invested in the lines between people, that they will kill to preserve them. They will convince others to kill with them. For them. Germans will kill and torture Jews. Russians will kill and torture Germans. U.S. Americans will kill and torture Native Americans. Even Manchester United fans will beat the everliving shit out of Arsenal fans.  

Sure there will be those within the boundaries who see all of this happening and maybe perceive the pointlessness in all this suffering. Some of them will even act, and some of the ones who act may even succeed. People like Oscar Schindler or Paul Rusesbagina will even make a mark. But, they’re more like umbrellas against the rain of misery and destruction; streets will still be wet, though. Others will fail, like the many who hid Jewish refugees in their attics. Many more others will just sit passively and watch it all happen.

It’s truly getting old. It’s really the same scenario playing out over and over again. What would it take for it to stop happening? I don’t think it would be possible to change humanity on such a fundamental level, as to not value anything. To not create borders around what is “our” and “theirs.” Would we even be human at that point? Would we have transcended our humanity, or something weirdly metaphysical like that? But maybe that’s what it would take, to truly be rid of suffering. Though maybe we wouldn’t have to go that far. The world is more global than ever. Geography, while slowly, is mattering less and less. Boundaries may even be getting blurrier as we speak, and maybe soon we would minimize things like mass murder. We couldn’t remove it, obviously, there would always be outliers. Or maybe, we just create a boundary around humanity, rather than within it. It almost seems too simple. Though, maybe we encounter some other civilization and then it would just be another intergroup divide.

But then, maybe nothing will be done. And there will be a class a hundred, or a thousand years from now, studying the same shit we’re studying, with just the names changed. Because we’re only human, and we might not even all agree on what our problem is. How can you fix a problem, if you think it doesn’t exist?

Hope this wasn’t too weird a read! 

Russian nationalims accusing Ukraine of nationalism as an excuse for military action: typical 
(http://vestnikkavkaza.net/articles/politics/52065.html) 
(P.S. I'm a Ukrainian immigrant from Crimea, AMA)

Literally every group has racists
(http://anythingbuttheist.blogspot.com/2012/02/what-makes-jews-so-racist.html) 
(P.S. I'm also a Jew)