Monday, February 27, 2017

Perceptions

So I am torn. Once again, yes, I know. And scared. Which is new. Why? Well.. it's because people have different perceptions and believe things that they want to and ignore everything else. Let me explain.


It is one of my pet peeves how society decides what is right and what is wrong. While I know and have deduced in a logic earlier how societal rules are needed for a functioning society, I still believe that people should not care about what others are doing as long as it is not harming anybody. So when I say that I advocate for an open society, I am not advocating for a lawless society. Just one where people are more accepting of differences and personal choices.


For eg. - and invoking a sensitive topic here just to be different than what I wrote earlier - LGBT people. Russia and a lot of other countries strictly prohibit people from being LGBT because it may seem to be detrimental to the society. What would the kids think if a man is seen kissing another man. Or a woman is kissing another woman. Or if a man is dressed as a woman. We've already come to terms with women being dressed as a man though. Why? Feminism.

In fact women kissing other women was already ok for men as long as they are watching it in private. But what about men kissing men. That is a taboo. Men are expected to the "right" thing. We still have a lot of rules on men. You can argue that a lot of women are still repressed, but men have a lot of rules imposed on them too. And most of them simply because it is not an approved way of the society.


In one of my previous blogs I had argued how society treats people that challenge their beliefs by being/thinking different. Classical and my favorite examples of Copernicus and Galileo. Add to that Alan Turing who is very suitable as an example in this scenario. Convicted of indecency, he died poisoned and a broken man. Before that, however, he helped the government push back against Germans in World War II. He was one of the heroes and an exceptionally brilliant man whose work is still referenced when it comes to computing. He is the father of modern computers. So, what happened? How did the recognition of brilliance and heroism fade because he had relationship with a man? I can tell you - perception. Everything else fades away when it comes to something that the society dictates is a taboo. And being gay was definitely top of the list then.


More recently holding different political beliefs has become a factor in people distancing themselves from others. Everywhere you look around there are factors where people are becoming divisive instead of accepting of others beliefs. Religion has been another factor. So has been caste, creed, color, gender etc at different points in history and some still are. So, why is it that the society is slow to accept even when we know there is precedence and history repeats itself. In the future there is going to be a day when the society would pretend to be more accepting (sometimes you just can't accept but have to pretend. Even today we pretend to publically ignore caste, color, gender but then talk about the differences in private). And then one day, the inner currents would be so divisive that the society would crumble under it's own pressure.


I dread that day.

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