A while back I watched a TedTalk from a science teacher explaining how his students have a hard time being excited to learn because of the difficult language of science. He proceeded to explain how language is often something that can be a barrier, making certain aspects of education inaccessible. This got me thinking about the power of education and also the need for our society to segregate everything. In our day and age, education is supposed to be something that liberates, equips, and empowers people. What an idyllic fantasy of what we desire our society to be. Unfortunately, in our current reality, our society is complacent to how education and housing are sectioned off into neat little compartments that are bound by the lines of racism, classism, and other arbitrary barriers we artificially craft. Yes, this is not a new revelation. (side diversion/disclaimer to all 3 people who read this: this blog is not designed to introduce novelty ideas into the world. Rather, I am writing out my own perspectives on topics that are already known. In fact, these topics probably have extensive research with published papers. ha. In the rare incident that a novel idea is produced, I will be pleasantly surprised). So why do we as a collective society stand by, as the government continues to draw lines and segregate people into neat little boxes?
I personally believe it is because that is what we want as well. Honestly, in this political day and age, we love to point our fingers to others and place the entire them on someone else. However, I am proposing that you, me, we are the problem. We stand by and let it happen, because we don’t mind it. We are comfortable, and who in their right minds wants to introduce discomfort into their lives willingly? If we want to change education boundaries to make things more accessible, we have to go out and protest. Then we have to create our own ideas to propose a better plan for how our society should be organized. Then we have to actually try and implement change. Wow, just the thought of all the change that is required is tiring. Aside from the energy that is needed to invest into this change, I think society naturally segregates. It is human tendency. To circle back to the science teacher who is appalled by the scientific language that is seemingly unnecessary, we can answer his question. Why do we have so much scientific jargon? Well, did not the people in that field create the language and words? Is that not how linguistics works? We create words based off of the need to describe something that is commonly seen in our society. They (people from some documentary I watched) say that in certain indigenous tribes in Alaska, there are several words for snow. They have multiple words for snow because there are so many different textures and types that the need to classify snow into more than one word was pressing. It is most likely that the scientists in their respective fields designed all of their own names for anatomy, organic chemistry, biology, etc. So then, who made science linguistically inaccessible? Scientists. Why? Because they want to be exclusive and make a little world for themselves. They enjoy living in a world where they can say “oh the patient has megaloblastic anemia due to a congenital selective malabsorption in their intestinal lining” instead of simply saying things in lay terms. Yes, sometimes specificity is needed. But overall, the words create a world that is also designed to separate us vs them.
Here’s my second piece of evidence that suggests the desire to be sectioned off: when people from certain cities feel a connection to their town, they do not want others to come. New York City can be an example. There is a certain pride to people who say, “Well I was born and raised in New York City, I’m a proper New Yorker.” This “proper” term is drawing an invisible line between the newly transported New Yorker to the one who has been born and raised. Or if a town starts to become more popular like Austin, TX or Seattle, WA, the people who lived there prior to the popularity draw a distinction. There is a line drawn again between us vs. them. People inherently like to live in bubbles because they become palaces of comfort. When others try and enter the bubble, people like to cast them away saying that the bubble is full.
This brings me to my concluding thought. To all of those liberally aligned people who are appalled at the Republicans for shoving out the immigrants from our country, what do you do to include the “outsiders” in your town/bubble/occupation? Are you really inclusive? Or do you just point your finger at those who are not. I think it’s time for us all in this country to take a moment to see why we are pointing our fingers. Pointing doesn’t take us anywhere. As redundant as this phrase has been tossed around in our culture, change can only start with us. Why is this? Because you have absolutely no control of others. So pick up the ball and get it rolling. Put your finger down and stop blaming Republicans. Look into the mirror and ask yourself what you are doing to slowly try and remove the arbitrary barriers of classism, racism, sexism in our society. Then go out and do it! Don’t be lazy now.
life as i see it 