| It is human nature to think in terms of "us" verses "them" and to do what will benefit us, which often means hurting "them". Look at our Christian bible, especially Levitus, and a main target for discrimation is females. The bible also tells us Hebrews can own slaves and pass them on as property to their children, but are not to be slaves, because of their special relationship with God. A Jew is circumsized to acknowledge a special converant with God that non Jews do not have. What do you do when a people's religious beliefs make this "is" verses "them" thinking the way of God?
Democracy counteracts religion, but the US stopped transmitting the culture essential to democracy in 1958, which is really a sad thing. We didn't have public education until around 1840, so that is just a little more than 100 years of education for democracy. And during this time, children were needed as laborers, and farms and industry put children to work. Also schools were not well funded and it is amazing they did as well did. People easly live past 50 years, and we had only about 100 years of education for democracy! If any of the religions stopped teaching in the first 100 years, they would be none existant! We are wrongly assuming our democracy will survive without education for it.
Democracy is rule by reason, and education for it habituates individuals to over ride their emotions with reason. Not just whatever reasoning pops into an ignorant person's head, but reasoning built on the gradual learning of increasingly complex concepts. This learning of concepts is essential to democracy, and this is no longer what our education is about, as we now producing products for industry and ignoring the education for being human.
Today what rules is our feelings, and we are poorly prepared to understand life beyond our own personal experience of it. We are not learning and living by the principles of democracy. We are no longer ruled by reason, so the worst of our nature is surfacing. |