HOMO SUM : HUMANI NIHIL A ME ALIENUM PUTO P' Terentius Afer

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HOMO SUM HUMANI NIHIL A ME ALIENUM PUTO(P.
Terentius Afer)?
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Identity vs. Diversity
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1. Identity
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The mind serving the body

• According to A. Damasio, the sense of individual
  identity was rewarded - and consolidated - by
  natural selection, as an extremely sophisticated
  development of the outer envelop protecting the
  bodys integrity, and its continuity throughout
  time

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Self and non-self
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2. Diversity

• Biodiversity is essential to cope with
  environmental changes
• Genes are selected, that are susceptible to
  undergo variation thus effecting biodiversity
• Slight modifications due to mutations and - in
  sexual reproduction - reshuffling of genes at
  each generation, are distributed along a
  bell-shaped curve whose extreme limits are
  determined by compatibility with survival

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What is normality?
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• Normal physical/instinctual traits cluster
  around a statistical average, selected by
  natural, social, and in humans cultural
  environmental factors
• In fact, according to M. Ridley (Nature via
  Nurture), cultural pressure can actually
  contribute to select instinctual-behavioural
  traits

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3. Group identity

• According to E. O. Wilson, troop- and tribal
  -identities (sense of belonging to the
  community), as well as -hierarchies, are selected
  as survival-enhancing instinctual adaptations
  (protecting the integrity of the collective
  envelop)?
• Hence, genes are selected that predispose their
  phenotypic envelops to the absorption of
  languages and to the sharing of tribal
  behaviours, beliefs, practices and emotional
  involvements (collective excitements, e.g.
  playing dancing singing)?

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Competing for food, territories and resources

• As a consequence, genes are selected that induce
  distrust and hostility towards any form of
  diversity
• Rejection of diversities, a selectively
  advantaged instinctual trait, is further
  magnified by cultural hyperextension (based on
  the predisposed innate biased thinking
  potential, according to E.O. Wilson)?

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Inclusion and exclusion

• Adherence to the shared biased thinking (tribal
  prejudices, taboos, commonly accepted stereotypes
  and paradigms, fashions) was rewarded by
  natural selection
• Isolation, self-exclusion and marginalization,
  all resulted instead in selective disadvantages
  (less chances to survive and reproduce for the
  carriers of those exclusion-inducing instinctive
  traits)?

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Perceived diversities converted into targets of
discrimination

• Physical diversities (different skin
  pigmentations, deformities, mutilations,
  disabilities, skin-involving diseases such as
  leprosy, plague, AIDS and other STDs)?
• Cultural diversities (religious and ideological
  unorthodox beliefs heretics, non-mainstream
  lifestyles and habits, particularly different
  sexual habits/preferences)?

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The cheering crowds
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Creating the other(demagogic use of tribal
instincts)?

• Taking advantage of the ancestral
  diversity-hostile instinctual drive to
  emotionally manipulate people and instigate them
  against
• A. external enemies (other tribes)?
• B. internal enemies (heretics, scapegoats,
  individuals who do not accept, and conform to,
  the shared beliefs, practices, habits, taboos and
  stereotypes that have been instilled into the
  rest of the population)?

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Children of another Adam (ethnocentric
viewpoint)?

• Us the European colonizers implicitly refer
  to themselves as the moral, cultural, and even
  physical reference standard (the white, upper
  class, educated adult European male), against
  which the conditions of all other peoples have to
  be measured
• The other presumed diversity is the premise
  to justify colonial and, more recently,
  neocolonial exploitation (including enslavement)?

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Plants of the devil?

• While our plants (cereals, fruit-trees) are
  freely floating in the air, their fruits are
  growing in the darkness of the soil (potatoes),
  or exhibiting the red, ball-shaped devilish
  aspect of tomatoes
• While our psychoactive drugs, which we have
  become familiar with, are accepted as part of our
  life (e.g., sensible drinking), their drugs are
  the devilish drugs we see with suspicion and
  hostility (stigma, prohibition and, as a result,
  marginalization, exclusion and discrimination)

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Between peers, exploitation is not possible

• Targeting all kinds of presumed and artificially
  created diversities, plays an extremely
  important role in producing marginalization,
  stigma or even prohibition and, ultimately, all
  kinds of discrimination of the other
• Which, in turn represents the necessary
  prerequisite for their exploitation

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Discrimination of the other to increase his/her
exploitability rate

• In fact, widespread prejudice makes the
  discriminated (ethnic minorities, immigrants,
  drug users, etc.) more vulnerable, thus offering
  the opportunity to take advantage and make more
  profits out of them (cheap labour)

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Exorcizing diversity

• Scapegoat effect exorcizing diversity that we
  feel in ourselves by criticizing and persecuting
  it in the other, who is already labeled as
  belonging to a certain diverse category (e.g.,
  homosexuality)?
• Projecting on the other ones own fears and
  taboos, thus producing a false sense of security
  (e.g., as long as you are not homosexual or drug
  addict, you should not worry about AIDS)?

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The prejudice of generalization

• Tip of the iceberg approach identifying the
  stereotyped caricature of a few members of a
  diverse category with the category as a whole

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Removing diversity

• Attempts to remove diversity can range from
  stigma, prohibition and more or less severe
  punishment to physical elimination
  (witch-hunting, persecution of heretics,
  genocides)?
• Any diversity (immigrants, ethnic minorities,
  prostitutes, homosexuals, drug users etc.), when
  stigmatized or made illegal, are driven
  underground by senses of guilt, shame, loss of
  self-esteem and fear of punishment, which is not
  only unfair to the victims, but ultimately
  retorts against the victimizers (e.g.,
  resentment, social unrest, violence, spread of
  diseases, etc.)