Before getting any further into this rant, let me first state once more that I work in retail. Needless to say, this involves interacting with the faceless masses of humanity every time I walk into work. As I stand there on the job, being berated by the latest in a long, long lineup of customers for a situation completely out of my control, I often find myself thinking of the immense contradictions present at every level of society. This observation was confirmed for me at Thanksgiving dinner this year when I took part in a debate with my relatives on the subject of members of other cultures and how they should behave when here in Canada. They, of course, took the conservative stance of adopting a way of life more in line with the majority, and I was disgusted upon hearing it!
Think about it; on the one hand, we live in a part of the world that claims to value human diversity, and yet people still clamor for others to assimilate and become “good Canadians.” The irony in this statement is obvious, considering that Canada is a nation made up of the descendants of refugees and dissenters who came here to escape oppression in their home countries generations ago. Given this fact, how can we argue for the ideal of adopting a “Canadian” way of life when this so-called “Canadian Way” is representative of a multicultural ideal? One that should shun assimilationist policies? Listening to this argument, I can’t help but think, “okay, so you want me to assimilate into an ideal that shuns assimilation and promotes acceptance of other cultures? Shouldn’t that just mean that I keep doing things the way I did them in the old country and let others do the same?” As you can see, the hypocrisy and contradictions are undeniable.
The thing is, this kind of thing is not merely limited to the higher levels of power in society; chances are, you’ve experienced it yourself in your personal life. What am I talking about, you ask? Well, boiled down to its simplest form, my rant here is all about people saying one thing and doing another, or giving one impression but meaning something else entirely. We’ve all experienced this: the co-worker who takes on a task with the assurance that he’ll finish it, only to leave it incomplete, or the friend who keeps telling you that you’ll hang out someday, while never really intending to follow through with it. I’m not pretending I’ve never been guilty of this, as I’m sure have many of you, but all of this has led me to a conclusion. As far as I can figure, the main problem with the human race rests in these contradictions and hypocrisy. If only people meant what they said when they went on about “loving thy neighbor,” for example, there’d be less hate crimes fueled by intolerance. If only the United States didn’t use their beliefs in freedom and democracy to justify invading another country and oppressing the people there, we’d have less international incidents and more friendly relations with the other people of the world. It’s all about practicing what you preach, because after all, in the unfathomable vastness of the cosmos, there are only about six billion human beings. That’s not even a visible speck when you consider the sheer size of the universe, so wouldn’t we be better off getting along and making something of ourselves as a species rather than destroying ourselves from within? Just a thought.
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