A recitation of the 20th century would include the horrors
of the two World Wars and the Holocaust as given by one
name, Auschwitz. We have the Great Depression and the long
lasting cold war and we have Hiroshima……… and the question
must be asked, Where was god?
Now some might say, that the horrors of the 20th century occurred because
we didn’t listen to god, but I say unto you, the 20 century came about because
we did listen to god. Religion has always been about us vs them. You have
the believers and you have the non-believers. But isn’t Auschwitz a monument
of believers who acted against non-believers and wasn’t the two World Wars fought
between two rival factions of believers. It isn’t any one ism or ideology or
faith that created the schism that has consumed the 20th century.
It is the us vs them idea that has created the massive death toll of the last
century.
It is the faith inherent in the believers that cause all that death and all that
destruction. And the evil of our times, it is about us vs them. To tear children
away from their parents is evil by every standard and yet it is condoned because
the believers believe and victims are always easy to find when one is a believer.
Us vs them……………
all the evil in the world has come about because of the, us vs them, understanding
of the world. If you are not us, you are the enemy. You are object of hatred
and persecution and violence… why, because you are not us…………
So much hate and violence because people see only two possible
outcomes, us……. them……….those are the choices. what a small and
narrow way to see the world… If I am not us, I am outside of the pale.
if I am not us, I am suspected and demonized and terrorized… even if I look
like you and sound like you and behave like you, I am not part of us and thus
I am the enemy and treated with violence and hatred and anger.
The point of toleration is to eliminate this narrow viewpoint of, us vs them.
If I engage in toleration, I no longer see people in such narrow and violent
terms of, us vs them. I see people as people and people the world over
look like me and act like me and talk like me. We both want to love and be loved,
and we both want respect and honor and an opportunity, a chance to become
something and that is true the world over…….
but if I engage in the age old game of, us vs them, I summarily dismiss
you, I engage in violence against you and all because I have classified
you as being different, them. If I am tolerant, everybody becomes us.
There are no outsiders and no one to be violent against and no one to hate.
but some of us are really comfortable with our hate and anger and greed and lust
and to change would mean we would have to no longer see the world as, us vs them.
and change is hard and a whole lot of scary. but who is brave enough, courageous
enough to see beyond the old failed classification of, us vs them. Who is willing
to be human enough to accept all, to look beyond our minimal difference and
see the vast similarities that is the human race. How can I truly dismiss anyone
because they have the accidental trait of birth, color, race, speech, disability or
gender. Am I so wise as to proclaim myself the arbiter of what is right and normal
in human beings? NO, no I am not so beyond everyone else that I can proclaim
what is us and what is them.
Auschwitz and Hiroshima and the long cold war all demand an answer from us.
the question is simple, must we continue with our understanding of the world
as simply nothing more then, us vs them? Or, or do we engage in the process
of expanding our idea of a human being as to be everyone, not just, us vs them.
the truth of the matter is, we cannot as human being begin our process to
become something more until we begin to understand human beings as us.
there is not such thing as them. and once we learn this, we can become who we are.
us.
Kropotkin