Lately I've been pondering the thinking of people who disagree with me, which by last count was approximately 30% of ratskep and 90% of the United States, not to mention 95% of Texas.

And I came up with something I wonder if anyone would agree with.

It seems the ultimate evil, short of using actual violence, is the idea that everyone is just like me/us or should be just like me/us.

This leads to racism "those people over there aren't like me and are scary", hatred of other beliefs "atheists aren't like me, how can they get along without god?", hatred of gays "I don't understand the gay lifestyle", hatred of other political beliefs "those stupid conservatives", and most of all these days complete and utter contempt for anyone different "those people should just get a job", usually followed by a description of why the poster was able to make it easy in his or her life so far.

The problem with this thinking, all of it, is that it assumes that everyone is wired the same way. Even beyond obvious disabilities such as chronic diseases, missing limbs, below-average intelligence, etc. people are wired differently. I know I could never be a mathematician and have no desire to humiliate myself trying. I bet I could line up the first 10 people I find and they couldn't do your job, whatever that job might be.

Some people can't do physical labor. Some people can't travel every day. Some people aren't going to make it in college. Some people can't work at a desk all day. Some people can't work outside all day. Some people can't work with their hands. Some people can't work for 10 hours at a time. Some people can't lose weight that easily. Some people need a crutch of theism or other woo. Some people don't want to have sex. Some people don't want to have heterosexual sex. Some people don't want to have homosexual sex. Some people want both. Some people can't drive a car.

And so on.

And the idea that everyone should be like me, that everyone should conform to my life and life choices, that the world would be better if everyone was white, straight, religious, middle class, and worked in IT is particularly pernicious (and you could just as easily substitute Muslim, straight, Egyptian or atheist, gay, liberal).

Now, having said that, some philosophies are decidedly more tolerant than others. And it's tolerance of others' differences, not only when it comes to race, color, belief, gender, sexual orientation, etc. that societies need to strive for. At the same time, one does not and should not tolerate intolerant people. Hardcore racists, hatemongers, sexists, homophobes, etc. really have no place in a modern civilized society.

Thoughts?

We are mere humans, with all the faults that come with being human.

Personally, I fear most the "the end justifies the means" line of thinking, but the thinking in the OP seems a reasonable second.

It's no great secret that different groups are often antagonistic towards one another. Nor that tolerance makes for harmony.

NineOneFour wrote:
And I came up with something I wonder if anyone would agree with.

It seems the ultimate evil, short of using actual violence, is the idea that everyone is just like me/us or should be just like me/us.

While I agree with most of what you say here, I would argue that the ultimate evil comes from those who don't even recognise other humans as people, let alone people who ought to be exactly like themselves.

It's hard to imagine such a mind-set, but I understand that it is thought to exist. In the mind of a solipsist, for example, or a sociopath.

NineOneFour wrote:
It seems the ultimate evil, short of using actual violence, is the idea that everyone is just like me/us or should be just like me/us.

It's no wonder that ideologies which base their world-views on a good/evil, for/against and 'converting-others-to-my-religion-is-good' kind of mindset tend to have very short tempers.

We're share common ancestry with chimpanzees. Chimpanzees are highly territorial, tribal, hierarchial and they both rape & murder their own kind. Sound like any other species you know?

Hitch hit the nail right on the head when he said "The problem is that our frontal lobes are too small and our adrenal glands too large." Thinking is sometimes blamed/used to justify egregious behavior that is largely innate.

There's something in what you say, 914. Certainly society functions more harmoniously when people are prepared to accept each others' differences and not get cross about them. I constantly have to remind myself not to get cross when other people say or do things that I think are silly.

But not the 'ultimate evil'. Superlatives are rarely if ever accurate.

Doubtdispelled makes a good point that failing to recognise how similar others are to yourself, and hence treating them as 'other', or indeed mistreating them, is another very unfortunate phenomenon. But again I'd stop short of calling it 'the Ultimate Evil', as all right-thinking people know that the Ultimate Evil is audibly slurping one's coffee.

replying to the OP: It might, I don't know.

I personally think that if everyone was just like me, the world would be in an even greater mess than it is now, nothing would ever get done.
Living in a world were everybody would be just like me also seems like a nightmare, where would the stimulation of exchanging ideas be?

But I suppose I might be an expection.