Today's Reminder is:
"Our vision of history and historical 'truth' is
distorted and dimmed by our desire to place our civilization at the apex of
social and political evolution. The reality is that history is a myth we tell
ourselves to support an unjustified belief in our own superiority."
History is made by individuals making choices.
Social groups are made by inventing a shared history based on 'historic' individuals. Look at the cultural icons of a culture and you will find an individual or group of individuals that the culture as appropriated as their "totem".The common cultural tag line is "We are great because we are [fill in the individual's name] followers." The group takes the deeds of those individuals who made history and claim those deeds make the group superior.
You are not your culture nor your ethnicity. Your place in the world is not dependent on your ethnicity or your culture's place or status in the scheme of things nor on the actions of an iconic figure of some other time in history. Many cultures and ethnic groups emphasize the importance or place of their group with in the social milieu. They attempt to convince each member of their importance and status is derived from the group rather than the individual.
This distortion is a method of "social" survival for the cultural or ethnic group. The notion of social and personal "superiority" based on culture, ethnicity, philosophy, or religious theology is false. Those groups that insist on "social" or "moral" superiority simply because of membership need either to change that false belief or face eventual extinction.
The notion that an individuals 'place' or 'status' or 'specialness' in the world is conveyed simply by being a member of an ethnicity or a culture or religion or philosophic belief is not true. Instead it is a memetic function of the culture used to transmit and maintain a group's cultural identity and social cohesion.
To put it simply, "you" are not "black" or 'white" or "yellow" or any other shade. You are not English, Anglo-Saxon, Irish, Latin, Germanic, Gallic, Hispanic, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Bharati, Nihonic, Buddhist, Taoist, Bonist, Arabic, Turkic, Mongolian, Han, Mandarin, Korean, Zulu, Tutu, or any of the other thousands of cultural, ethnic, or religious groups.
You are you.
Certainly, you are a product of a culture and its associated memes.
Still, You are you.
Unique. Different. Special.
This is because You are You.
The proper way to look at this is: You are not your Culture or Ethnicity. Your Ethnicity or Culture is You. Now ask yourself what do you want your culture to represent? Positive ideas? or Negative? Uplifting or repressive? Freedom giving or freedom taking?
At some point some cultural and some ethnic beliefs need to be disallowed or forgotten. While others just need to be 'enlightened'. Social groups need to become self selective based on the desire to improve everyone's place in the world and not just an exclusive group. You have the power to make these changes.
You are the future of your culture. How will you shape it?
