Recently I have been re watching the X-files on television. It is a drama of its' time reflecting the ridicule one might have experienced if you believed in aliens or government conspiracy. The extreme things, things that involved a little bit of faith without an awful lot of evidence. What evidence there is, is often hidden, incomplete or vague. Special Agent Fox Mulder is ridiculed, laughed at, isolated, shoved in the basement and given a scientist to rationalise his wild theories. However his scientist began to see the glimmering truth of the subtle clues in front of her.
Now twenty years later it is probably more acceptable to believe in aliens than it is in God. Alien life forms of some sort are at least a statistical possibility. There is science to back this up and we have even started to go out and look for them with probes on Mars. Such a short time but how the world has changed and how it has not. We are still inclined to ridicule those who believe things we feel are a bit quirky and out there. We marginalise those we do not understand, those who are different. We stand in judgement on those who are too fat, too thin, too brain, to dumb, to rich, to poor, to hard working or too lazy. There is no pleasing everyone or indeed anyone. We all have a clear idea of what we want from society and society has conditioned us to expect what we want to be delivered to us on a plate. If it is not we feel that we should have, we complain and get compensation for anything.
We are never responsible for what goes wrong. It is always someone else. Our own actions can not possibly be contributing to all that is going wrong. We are right, they are wrong. The tolerance we give is only to those who believe the same as us, everyone else is wrong and must be eliminated. The small matter that this is in fact the reverse of what tolerance means is just ignored.
We can not go on like this. We have to learn to embrace our differences. Society requires each and everyone of us warts and all. We all make society work. Just because we disagree, does not mean we have to turn in on each other and create a loathing of each other which in turn causes us to dislike ourselves. It is a vicious cycle, that will tear society at its' very fabric. Community is based on a love of one another, a gaining of knowledge of each others beliefs, faiths and ideals and learning to share those in a tolerant society to the benefit of all involved. To compromise and accept involves sacrifice. It involves allowing ourselves to become vulnerable and open to hurt and maybe even death. Each human being that walks this planet is worth the same as every other one. None of us are better, though we maybe inclined to think we are. Seeing our own worth and allowing ourselves to value the contribution to society we make, allows us to see the small contributions others make. Slowly step by step we begin to understand the value of community again.
