Problems? Here vs. There is the Only Real Problem

Charlie Accetta
Jul 10, 2017 · 5 min read
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The problem, simply put: What is wrong with the world? Why can’t its dominant species take a place inside the ecosystem and play nice among the group? The answer, simply given: It is because the world is round. At some point, the arc of the planet removes it from our sight and makes us believe everything above the horizon is ours alone.

Another problem, succinctly stated: Why does animosity exist between races, religions or even political affiliations? Another answer, blithely offered: It goes to our upbringing. In terms of the present condition, that is. The first problem is a constant reality of our being from the start. And it is related to the initial cause of the second problem. The foundation of our philosophies doesn’t just rely on the who or how we were raised. It goes initially to the where, the place, to its relative position on the globe. And to the social climate of a particular region.

We are all slaves of this planet. Most of us can’t leave. Many of us can’t paddle across a river, let alone build and man a working space vehicle. But it gets worse when we realize that everything we believe is due almost entirely to where we grew up. Our parents, our families and our neighbors taught us everything we know. They had our ears at a stage when we were most impressionable. And there is no exception to this. Even if you were raised by wolves, your mindset was permanently skewed by the dogma of the pack.

Topography has its influence, as well. Compare being raised in Cairo, at the edge of the desert, to a childhood spent along a Brazilian river’s edge in an Amazon jungle village. Both places can get oppressively hot, representing a particular environmental extreme in one sense, at least. But no one will confuse an Egyptian economist with a Mashco-Piro shaman, either in appearance or manner. They are both the products of their environment. It is a common thought that the art of survival is different everywhere, but we normally don’t allow that fact, which is a fact before nearly any other, to enter into our calculations when confronted with people from other places.

I am acquainted with a man who was born and raised in Germany. His view of his homeland is different from mine. I’m not unaware of the history. As with many nations formed out of the Holy Roman Empire, Germany traces its beginnings to the Roman penchant for far-flung conquest. From the Brandenburg territory came Prussia, elevated to Kingdom status by the Holy Roman Emperor in 1701. Through to the end of the Hapsburg reign in Vienna, which accompanied the end of Prussian preeminence in Germany after the First World War, German national borders were fluid, shrinking and expanding as a result of whatever war they happened to be fighting at the time. But the people who lived in those war-torn border territories didn’t suddenly become French or Austrian or Dutch just because they awoke one morning to find a different flag flying over the castle. What my acquaintance emphasized most about where he was from was exactly where it was regionally within Germany. Dialect in his region is different from others around Germany. The same words have entirely different meanings. The diet is different from other places in Germany. The weather is different. It is the same in Italy, France, England … it is the same everywhere. We personally identify as close to our roots as possible, while outsiders view us with a benign vagueness as members of the larger fraternity whose flag waves overhead.

Physiologically, we all started with the same parts working the same way. But where we landed and took occupancy is the controlling factor in human behavior. My parents didn’t have to warn me about giant carnivorous plants because there weren’t any in the Bronx, at least not when I was growing up there. Instead, I was taught how to safely cross a busy street. But if you lived alongside a tropical wilderness where legends of such plants are a part of the belief system, it would seem wise to teach children avoidance techniques as early as possible. A golfer in Florida is more sensitive to hitting the ball near water hazards, especially after his first gator sighting. Here in New York, a golfer’s biggest problem is goose droppings, which are hazards unto themselves. The Inuit living along Arctic coasts eat whale meat because it was plentiful in that environment when they arrived. Whale isn’t anyone’s first choice on the Earth’s menu of dining delights, but being one of the few choices in those places, hunting for it and preparing it became a large part of the daily routine.

Or we can make the full circle around the Mediterranean Sea. Start at Gibraltar and work east across the European coast to Turkey, and then south and west across North Africa. All of those people, of different races, religions, and ideas, cool off at the shoreline of this great body of water. All of them, of widely disparate beliefs and certainties, pull the fish from beneath its surface. With so much in common, it is difficult to imagine that any difference could trigger conflict. Except, the very proximity of one group to another plays a dark role. Europe’s early domination of Africa is a product of their relative positions on the Mediterranean. The sea is, and was, calm enough for crossings on the flimsiest of crafts. Exploring led to conquests and exploitation, with the results still felt today. Yet, what we interpret as racial or religious tensions today have absolutely nothing to do with race or religion and everything to do with place. The people of Africa hold a deeply-seated resentment towards the people of Europe from centuries of oppression. That it can often be boiled down to Brown or Black versus White is merely a philosophical conveyance identifying a foe by his uniform. Skin color is a genetically-transmitted environmental effect. It points to place more than any other thing.

A similar argument may be made for conflicts arising from religious differences, whether sectarian or alien in scope. When Christians speak of Muslims, or when Muslims speak of Christians, the thought behind the words is so general in nature that none of us could see ourselves in the other side’s description of us. We are not one thing. We are not of one mind. We are, however, each of us from one place and we identify most with others from that place. During the Civil War and continuing through the First World War, U.S. Army regiments were formed from the population of individual towns. And in the bigger cities, from neighborhoods within the city. After the family unit, this was, and is, the greatest influencer on who we are and what we believe. We live together and die together in this place or in defense of it. The ability to always account for this influence is the key to accord. Individual spacecraft might be someone else’s idea of a solution to the problem of world peace, except most of us wouldn’t leave, even if we could.

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