Today the world to a 50+ something year old is pretty complex. (Well, at least in his mind)
Traditional staunch vegetarians in India are feasting on meat & alcohol
The western world is going vegan & doing Yoga!
Women are making love to women & men to men
The most influential president & PM in the world are twitter addicts
Phones are the new umbilical cords & tablets a spectacle to the new age world.
Marriage is becoming overrated & dated.
But we still belong to some religion, some type of society which has a certain way of living, certain rules, regulations. But are we true to their ideals?
These facts clearly suggest a change in the social structure that we possess today. A society which has exponentially developed in the last 2 decades. It does not belong to a religion, a race, caste or from your place of birth. It simply originates from a unified way of living life. It is not governed by Mark Zuckerberg or Elon musk or any other influential figure, but rather an off-shoot of a lifestyle we may have always wanted to be a part of but never envisioned it back in time & had the luxury of experiencing the same.
Society has taken the longest leap in the shortest time ever in the existence of Human kind.
But sometimes it makes you wonder how & why were we always made to think, believe, view the world in a certain way. Let’s start by understating what & how a society is formed.
- A person tries to build a society, based on his style of living, his style of dressing, eating, etc.
- Over the years, people whose thinking is on similar lines, or are attracted to his way of living join him to form a larger group of free-minded individuals.
- Over time the key individual who formed the society is no more in existence.
- The rules get a little bent, changes creep into the society
- Standards are formed & are to be conformed with
- Being a part of that society becomes difficult for other people.
- Other societies are simultaneously formed against the existing one.
- Their thoughts & values are even more developed, maybe stringent.
In short, society cannot create itself, when a group of like minded people come together, a society is developed. It’s character is it’s people & the way they behave. But over the years as the society grows larger & larger, things get more complicated, the society keeps evolving as it grows & is also sometimes highly influenced by what other groups do. They look to progress & evolve & compete eventually.
In 1979 Henri Tajfel, a Polish social psychologist, best known for his pioneering work on the cognitive aspects of prejudice came up with the infamous Social Identity theory. It stated that Individuals that are a part of this society eventually make it a part of their pride, self esteem to be included in something they believe in. Be it a football team, family or a club you belong to. In order to increase our self-image we enhance the status of the group to which we belong. We can also increase our self-image by discriminating and holding prejudice views against the out group (the group we don’t belong to). Therefore, we divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e. we put people into social groups). This is known as in-group (us) and out-group (them). Social identity theory states that the in-group will discriminate against the out-group to enhance their self-image.”
Examples between in & out group
- India: Hindu and the Muslims
- Football: Liverpool and Man Utd
- Gender: Males and Females
- Social Class: Middle and Working Classes
We all since generations of time have gone through a simple 3 step process of being a part of life, or rightly said society. Categorization – Social Identification – Social Comparison\competition.
But does this all honestly apply to the kind of lives we live today?
The idea of understanding how we have developed as a society over time & formed different groups competing against each other is key to revealing the true nature of our modern selves & why religion, society, groupism is something of the past & should not impact the way we want to live our lives.
Today we roam as free souls, travel the world, make decisions our hearts feel right, start young, are tech savvy, learn from the world around us & not just confined to books & individual view-points. We are a different set of individuals who look beyond the ordinary & set regulations. A structure cannot define who we are or what we become because you have one life, one journey & you want to make sure that you do whatever your heart commands. Be it being a cartoonist, a cricketer, a yogi or whatever you feel like being! That is the true freedom that we command today, but many yet do not accept it. They hold onto their prejudices, their inhibitions, scared of not being told what to do, afraid of the unknown, to take their journey by themselves.
If a person wishes to eat a damn cow, let him. You want to worship a cow, you do it. You want to get married to the same sex do it. You want to believe in a spiritual almighty do it. You want to run naked on the dam streets do it. No one has to have the right or power to stop doing what you truly want to do in life, cause that just makes us a ‘group’ a ‘society’ where there are rules, regulations, do’s, can’t do’s. Screw all that shit & the crap that people talk & gossip about you because they’re too weak to be like you, too weak to realise the fact that they can live their lives just the way they wish to. They don’t have the guts to be you! But somehow find the power to try & bring you down.
No one person has the power to give life or take a life so then why do we let a handful of people have the power to guide our lives?
Let’s aim to change the world into one global society, a society of the world, not driven by the characteristics, not ruled by religion, caste, status, gender or even the likes – dislikes of one person, but a global platform which unifies the globe as one & not fragmented diversifications which distant us from realities around us.
No in-groups, no out-groups, JUST ONE UNIFIED WORLD GROUP!