The Merging of the World: Using Connectivity to Understand and Promote Diversity

Over time humanity has always striven after connectivity and through this connectivity; unity, but all too often this goal becomes perverted. In connecting with others we sense an incompatibility which causes us to shy away from those sharing a different opinion. It can even lead to violence, war and destruction. When was the last time you heard of a war between two countries because they agreed about something?

The reason our quest after unity becomes perverted is simple. In our desire to be the same, we realize somewhere along the way that we are not. Most of us are passive enough to simply back away and surround ourselves with people who share our opinion. Some of us, mostly those with a philosophical or political persuasion, will attempt to engage the other in discussion and have a lively debate, perhaps trying to convince each other to re-evaluate their assessment. There are also those that are so sure that they have the truth that they move beyond lively debate to criticism, derogation, fundamentalism and general intolerance. All of these phenomena however are, as I previously mentioned, results of a single desire; a desire for unity.

Perhaps it seems ironic that a notion such as “unity”; a notion that is so commonly seen as a virtue can also be the source of so much discord. Then again maybe this does not come as a big surprise. Other more notorious phenomena can also be linked to unity, or homogeneity. Communism, ethnic-cleansing, ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism, colonization and even random violence all involve the employment of different methods of assimilation in order to convert, convince or force people to be the same.

Yet for some reason these methods do not work. They cause significant pain and suffering, but they never succeed in totally assimilation or eliminating the other race, belief or point of view. One only needs to look as far as the holocaust or the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia to see that even the most extreme political movements and violence is not strong enough to wipe out even one group of people or one ideology.

It is worth noting however that these movements to assimilate exist in forms we do not recognize on a daily basis. Trends are one of the obvious forms of social assimilation that we accept and buy into all the time; one that is especially evident among kids, but exists also among kids of all ages. Feeling pressure to get that new toy because everyone at school has it is a way of avoiding social exclusion that almost everyone has been a part of. As a kid I remember in the span of a week almost everyone in my class had a fancy new generation yo-yo and I thought, I don’t even like yo-yos, but I don’t want to be the only one without one. Another example is how over the past half-century women, at least in the Western world, have enjoyed liberation from patriarchal assimilation and sexism, but at the same time they are expected to conform in other ways that are more subtle. The pressures to be skinny, to look beautiful all the time and to be feminine are all forms of assimilation that millions of women buy into everyday. Even men feel pressure to fit into the mould of the socially acceptable “manly-man.”

What I am getting at here is that social pressure and social assimilation are more subtle, and therefore more powerful than major ideological movements. It seems that people are a lot more willing to buy into being the same as others when it does not happen on the rational level, but instead on the subliminal level defined by “social acceptability.”

This, however, is not a good thing. As we move towards a higher plane of connectedness, we are more and more surrounded by information and propaganda that we don’t even know exists. In this sense, I would suggest it is ever more important to have a clear picture of who we are and what exactly is important to us; something that is not always easy.

Connectivity and uniformity are, as I suggested in the opening paragraph, intertwined. The nature of information is of course to inform, but also convince. This is a good thing. The world would be a boring place without difference of opinion and lively discussion. This is precisely why it is so important to preserve the diversity of opinion we have and that starts right with our own individuality.

This, however, is the paradox of the age of connectivity. How are we supposed to convince other people that we are right and preserve diversity at the same time? If we truly had our way in this, everyone would be exactly the same with the same understanding of the world as we have. Of course we will never be successful in convincing everybody ourselves, but as I already discussed, the power of social pressure is huge and is only catalyzed by the immeasurable amount of information we have at our fingertips today.

Like I said before though, the answer to this paradox can really only be what we can ourselves do as individuals. We have to be able to respectfully disagree but at the same time try to understand others, and even when we cannot understand others, we can marvel at the intricacy and diversity of the world we live in. Those that try to change others and make them more like themselves really only cause anguish, no matter what their cause.

Perhaps this is a little post-modern, but finding unity in our differences is a possibility in my eyes. We, as individuals, are all linked by our uniqueness and as our connections to each other continue to grow, we should use this connectivity to explore instead of assimilate. In the end, we have to realize the possibility that someone else’s way might just be as good as ours.

Will Grassby