Weekly Technetic #10: Shared humanity
We are all human. This should not be a point of contention to any rational person. The only ones who would deny it are the true racists who see other peoples as so inferior that they can only be subhuman, or conspiracy theorists who believe that the governments of the world are controlled by reptilian beings. Besides these two fringe minorities, however, we can and should agree that every one of us is human.
From this simple axiom, everything else follows. Most notably for our purposes this week, being human means something. It identifies us as members of the dominant species of Earth, the most advanced organisms—in both mental and technological senses---to ever inhabit our planet. We are all human, and thus we all have a share in humanity's fortunes.
But this also implies that each of us has something in common with everyone else. Every person alive today is related, in this most basic, most fundamental sense. And we are related to every other person who ever lived throughout history.
What I mean by "related" is not a genetic relation, though this is also true. No, I use this word to point out the cultural and social aspects of our shared heritage. For some 75,000 years, humans have been exploring the globe, learning and gaining knowledge about their environment so that they might better adapt it to their needs. Our ancestors domesticated plants and animals, bending nature itself to their will. They created civilization, technology, schools of thought and schools of faith that have endured throughout the ages. We are all their heirs.
The technetic view is that we should take this triumphant statement literally: every single one of us has inherited what it means to be human. Every man is our brother, every woman our sister. Too often, we ignore that fact. We look at those different from ourselves in a negative light, seeing them as lesser because they are different. Instead, we must embrace those differences, seeing them as they are, as individual contrasts painted on the backdrop of our shared humanity.
You are a human being. You may be a man or a woman. You may be genetically descended from any of the seven major races of the world, or a mix of them. Your individualities will extend far beyond these high-level concerns, to everything from eye color to political beliefs. No matter where you fall along any spectrum, you will always be human. No amount of surgery, hormone replacement, or brainwashing can ever change that fact.
Being human means you have been born into the greatest species this world has ever seen, but you are not alone. You share that world with nearly eight billion others. Some of them are a lot like you, and it's perfectly natural to feel an instinctive attraction to them. Many, many others are less similar. And more than you realize are so completely unlike you that they might seem utterly alien.
But they are not. They, like you, are leaves on that tree of life, the tips of branches that stretch all the way back into prehistory. Treat them as humans, because that is what they are. Do not look down on them as inferior in their humanity—of all the reasons to hate, this is the only one that has no validity whatsoever.
What we have in common will always outweigh what distinguishes us. As I write this, Russians and Ukrainians are fighting each other over bits of land, and the mainstream media of America is showing the foes in completely different lights. Vladimir Putin is universally portrayed by them as the second coming of Hitler, if not worse. He is, in this account, power-hungry and maniacal, lacking even a shred of humanity. On the other side, the Ukrainians are held up as icons of heroism, defenders of democracy.
As a technetic, I see through these lies. What *really* separates a man from Moscow and one from Kiev? I don't mean the land or the society, but the deeper levels. They're both humans, both men. They both have Slavic heritage. They're most likely both Orthodox Christians. Neither wants to die in battle. All that is the same. The major parts of who they are match in at least the broad strokes. Yet we in the West are told that the Kiev man is good, and the one in Moscow is bad, solely because of where they live.
We must reject that line of thinking. Judge your fellow human beings by their actions, not their superficial differences. Because those differences mean nothing when compared to what we all share.