From: uri@watson.ibm.com (Uri Blumenthal)
Subject: Re: Human Kind (was: Re: IF_OUR_PARENTS_TAUGHT_US_DIFFERENTLY)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 16:42:14 GMT
Reply-To: uri@watson.ibm.com
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: Waterfront

In article <1992Aug24.071240.3184@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au>, eda816a@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au (H. Nguyen) writes:
|> 
|> I have heard of the death of the Vietnamese student, Luyen' as the result of 
|> racial discrimination. I feel so disgrace as a human being myself.


Definitely agree.

|> According to sociology and psychology, we human beings tend to interprete the 
|> world and react under certain circumstances accordingly to our experiences. 

Again true.

|> 		IF ONLY OUR PARENTS TAUGHT US DIFFERENTLY !!!!!
|>  "If only our parents taught us differrently", that is my subject of this 
|> little article. If only our parents taught us differrently so that we could be
|> friends, so that we could all be friends. Instead, our parents taught us 
|> wrongly. 

Hmm, according to you, our parents "program" us, and then 
we're sort of "released" to the world to act and react
automatically (a-la robots)?!  Come on...
Besides, I always thought that 
humans are supposed to
learn, all the time.      [Yeah, I know it's wrong :-]


|> They taught us to be differrent from each other -therefore the cause 
|> of racism, and that goes with my parents as well, I have to admit. That 's 
|> what happens to all of us ever since of the foundation of civilisations.

Again, I think this is terribly wrong. We are "taught" to be 
different? But open your eyes - we ARE different! Just look
at you and me: we have MUCH more differences, than 
common things! Be it on physical level, or
spiritual!

Now - who says that being different has to mean that one
is "better" than the other? And who says that deceiving
ourselves that those differences don't exist, we enter
a better life?  Here lies the problem: from quite 
correct observation that people are different,
an absolutely wrong conclusion is made,  that
some are "better" than others, and therefore
can be treated worse... See my point?

I'd guess the only real common between us is that 
we're people and we ALL deserve respect...


|> All the open-minded understand this things. Any way my 
|> point is that, we should teach our chidren that we are of the same kind. 

Well, maybe we should teach them that destroying/bfreaking/hurting 
something is always bad, even if it's different? Is it bad to kill
your neighbor just because he's of the same race?  Or because he's
human? Or maybe just because it's bad?

|> The only different between us is our cultures. Which means our ways 
|> of thinking and seeing things that are different. These differrences 
|> is the result of the nature of the environments we 're in. 

I strongly disagree. [Well, first - you're skipping the most visible
physical differences between people of one race, and much more
obvious and visible defferences between people of different
races. I won't dwell on those either.] 

I think that the way person thinks is SOMEWHAT effected by
his "environment", but still there's a lot of genetic
"programming". You can teach person to be violent
or peaceful (though some people will have
shorter temper - biology!), but you 
can't "teach" me to think like
Japanese, for example. Though
of course you can teach me 
to understand a lot about
Japanese culture... The
differences still will
be. Unless we learn
to live with them, 
and respect each
other, not in
spite of the
differences, but
BECAUSE of the differences,
then we probably could reach a
better society... Don't you think so?


--
Regards,
Uri.		uri@watson.ibm.com
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