Lumping everything together

Man’s tendency to lump everything together is a major impediment to our evolution. Tribal man sees the world in black and white. You are either a friend or you are an enemy, nothing exists in between. This survival strategy was embedded in our fearful brain thousands of years ago. Our primitive fear is very difficult to let go of because it is mostly unconscious.

You see someone different from what you are used to and immediately experience a resistance within yourself. This is a natural reaction from your subconscious mind. When you have become sufficiently aware, then you can put the unconscious fear into perspective and let it go. But being able to is different from wanting to. Do you also want to let go of that resistance or are you more comfortable if that stranger remains an enemy?

Lumping everyone together happens when we treat whole groups the same. All people of a certain color or all people of a certain faith. With racism, we lump everyone in a specific group together. All Muslims. All Jews. All Russians. All white people. All Westerners. All Invalids. All the elderly. They are all friend or they are all enemy; it is a form of racism.

The tricky part is that it is persistently part of all of us. You may deny it and think you don’t discriminate, but it is somehow however small in all of us. Don’t you ever catch yourself just thinking a thought where you have put another into a category that you have some resistance to?

Civilization is to let your consciousness be stronger than your emotions and even your instincts. What emerges from your primary and primitive thinking you can (learn to) see it for what it is and distance yourself from it. In fact, this is also the case with the male principle that naturally seeks to impregnate women. When men do not consciously release their unconscious desires, you get abuse and rape.

We glue our experiences to our expectations. When we have a good or bad experience with a redhead, we expect the same experience with other redheads. If we have a few negative experiences with someone, then that person can do little good. We are quick to judge and tend to hold on to our judgment forever.

In elections (if there are any), we vote for a political party that best suits our preferences. It is difficult then to point out the points where that party does not actually suit us at all; we prefer to ignore that discomfort. Other parties are wrong by definition and cannot do anything right at all. In (Western) politics, you completely stop listening to the opposition, which is the enemy in everything.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrants all seem to be fortune seekers who all want to profit without contributing anything. When man feels threatened in his base, man is capable of anything. The problem is that there is no more nuance and so everyone is lumped together. For some, all farmers are just good, even those who are not so concerned about animal welfare.

You choose left or right, and so then that other side is the enemy, in everything. The other side does that too, is your defense. All these others put people in boxes, so you can do the same. All these others don’t listen to you, so why should you listen to them. Your opinion is already fixed, right, or don’t you think so? Can you let go of all the other person’s negative and name one positive point?

Now don’t think you have to do this for another person, because it’s not about others at all. It is about you. There is no need to improve the world; that is a hopeless task anyway. The only one you can really influence is yourself. What do you want? Do you want to nuance or is your opinion already fixed? Are you free or are you bound? Can you go back and forth, are you free to move?

Strong personalities are often less free. Smart people are more often bound. Smooth talkers are convinced of their own rightness. Who dares to doubt openly? Surely it is much easier to lump everything together. But when you categorize a group, you have also pigeonholed yourself. The funny thing about feminism is that by doing so, women set themselves apart.

Sticking to a tradition means intransigence against change. While the whole world is just moving and constantly changing. People change. You are changing. Everything is in motion, nothing stands still. Become fluid. Become volatile. Be free. Let go of everything. Start over and over again. Know yourself. Don’t lump everything together. Don’t lump people together. Every person has good and bad sides.

By Nico Cost, for GlobalSouth.co