Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end in themselves.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals
People like to be treated as ultimate particulars—unique, valued, and essential in themselves. However, in the modern world, science, economics, and politics reduce individuals to statistical profiles or generalized stereotypes. They are categorized or made into avatars of the ‘other’. The transformation of full, complex humans into a caricature of the ‘other’ facilitates the process of demonizing the ‘other’.
Some recent historical examples of demonization are in the same vein as the more benign anti-intellectualism that permeates the American cultural landscape nowadays. Extreme examples are the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia who purged intellects or people who just looked like an ‘intellect’ (eg wore prescription glasses etc.) during their reign of terror. Or the Red Guards of China who humiliated and incarcerated intellectuals during their days of control focusing on ‘elites’ who did not fit into their ‘people’s revolution’.
Interestingly, a campaign against ‘elites’—defined in this case as those with college degrees—has emerged as a consequence in part of the polarizing national elections in the United States. A conservative writer for the New York Times and the Atlantic, David Brooks, has written and lectured on the negative impacts of the ‘elites’ on the welfare of the ‘working-class’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/13/opinion/united-states-education-divide.html? showTranscript=1
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/opinion/identity-groups-politics.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/opinion/trump-elites-working-class.html
This is an apt example of the demonization of an ‘other’ — an effective one. In this case, there is no attempt to clarify how the possession of a college degree on its own determines dire consequences for the ‘working-class’. But such simplifications work to forge a quick and easy path to anger or loathing for the ‘other’. Many successful, skilled, and intelligent people engage in significant work without college degrees — musicians, artists, authors, and artisans. They can be considered to be members of the working class because they work but they do not seem to fit the stereotype of ‘working-class’.
There are also many types of ‘college degrees’ which share little in common. They do not share a category of similarities. Some degrees are professional, some scientific, some humanistic while some can be considered ad hoc. There are levels of degrees as well as qualities of degrees. There are also certificates and credentials issued for achievements in skill levels and competencies in trades and other areas of work that signify vocational abilities. The concept of a degree requires a complex, nuanced understanding, not simplistic declarations. But that defeats the purpose of turning people holding college degrees into ‘the other’ as targets.
A college degree alone does not define who or what a person is. But like prescription glasses, they can be used as a superficial identifier of a class of individuals with similar traits — candidates for hostile, biased regard. It also does not define the benefits vs detriments of a degree and, by implication, formal education itself.
There is little discussion in Brooks’ condemnation of what is meant by ‘working-class’ in his framework describing the alienation of the working-class from the educated-class. It is assumed that everyone understands what the term denotes. Beyond its embedded assumptions, it is a politicized label that has worked well to incite negative reactions very, very quickly, and intensely in individuals who prefer to bond around quick-and-easy reactions rather than reflective considerations. It is an effective means for demonizing those who are deemed outside of the commonly held boundaries or beliefs of the injured class, which can be used to exclude or scapegoat others, as is occurring between liberal and conservative social factions in the US for example.
There are systemic approaches to inquiry that avoid reactive and reductive approaches to inquiry for action – for relating to others – that is well worth consideration even though it is in opposition to the simplistic and superficial stances and approaches that work for those who are not interested in treating people as ends in themselves.
It needs to be acknowledged that not everyone is interested in improving the nature of human relationships. Many enjoy being outraged and the efficiency and effectiveness of creating convenient scapegoats as the justification for outrage is compelling. But for those who are interested in improving human relationships, systemic design approaches are more compelling and accessible.
An example (see below) of a systemic approach to seeing people as unique individuals while also sharing abstract collective identities is an approach to inquiry defining analog relationships — ‘smooth’ — rather than discontinuous and fragmentary ones. The rules of relationship in-between individuals or in-between individuals and collectives are too often oppositional or tensional in nature.
smooth curve between simple & complex
The graphic shows an example of a ‘smooth’ fluid systemic relationship in-between a unique individual and their inclusive nature as a human being — rather than disconnected and broken links as occurs often in relationships between individuals or between groups — not systemic but reductive in nature. ‘Smooth’ relationships can occur in scale, space, or in time. The milestones that occur are emergent rather than sequential steps.
Seeing or creating smooth relationships takes time and attention but the results are well worth it unless, of course, the intention is to be efficient and effective in creating discord.
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