Gentile Divide

After a long session of privacy and surveillance, the segway into last week’s topic was an eye-opening lesson of discrimination online. For generations before us, the world had solidified the idea of social profiling. It’s been instilled into our instincts from day one. From figuring out our place on the food pyramid, to learning our basic foundations, it is part of our mentality to decide where we fit. It’s a sad realization that who we are as a society compartmentalize our place in the world.

While the world progresses and we develop, we not only find ways to improve our lives, but we never find ways to eliminate the solid lines that divide culture. As time progresses we see that society is starting to find acceptance in differences but while these solid lines are starting to blur, there are still distinctive divides.

So the questions we can ask ourselves: “Are new inventions deepening the depth of discrimination? Are we ever going to eliminate divides? and How can we improve?”

The Internet was invented to connect. It is generations worth of thought and improvisations that conglomerated itself into what is now our daily bread. After the inventions of the printing press, from the telegraph, into telephone lines, which turned into television sets, our generation thrives on the birth of everything combined.

From times before any technology had been invented, the world was already divided. Society has found different ways to define each other and use these divisions as ways of separation. From fighting wars, to widening territorial lines, to singling women out as weaker individuals, the world has divided itself.

As we’ve read last week in the articles provided, we find that discrimination has translated itself onto the internet. What we’ve invented as a means to connect, has deepened our limitations of acceptance. In its own way we see that the world has already formulated outside technology and the use of the Internet only highlights these differences.

While we choose to connect, we’ve also disconnected. The Internet has provided for us an open playground to see the world up close while the information we have remains far away. We’ve seen cities we’ve never been to, relive histories from the tips of our fingers, and communicate across continents just because we can.

But what we’ve found is that there is discrimination on the internet and whether or not this just tempers the subject even more, is up for the future to pave its way on its own. We’ve tried to connect, but what these new technologies have done for us is show the world that only specific people can use these inventions.

The internet has public for anyone with access to use. So who is allowed this access? It is not everyone, it is not for everyone.

There are countries who still are figuring their sewage problem and countries who are trying to decide how fast the internet can go. These are what sets the more advanced countries apart from others and this is the underlying divide. Who is able to access the internet and at what lengths do we go to attain these luxuries?

We were nearly powerless in comparison to the rest of the world before the internet. We were isolated within the confines of our cities. We were only able to imagine the world from what we read in magazines, or what we watched on television. The internet broke that sacred silence into one that relies on constant interaction.

Before we were able to interact, we only watched. But even then we were already experiencing the lines being drawn deeper. But what we see being done on the internet is unparalleled to what the world has experienced before.

We are now provided with the tools to help us achieve power without the hard work. While we use the internet, we have access to all the information the world has ever produced. Of course there are websites that are password protected, or websites some of us will never visit in our lifetime, it all boils down to the idea that the internet is a playing field in which we cannot fathom.

But what we can define are the lines we’ve drawn to upkeep the information. We are not only stuck in the confines of our cities, but are more confined to relying on our hands to do the talking. We rely on the computer’s ability to speak for us and the words that we want to say are etched into a computer that we hope will be received not just by our own eyes but by someone else on the receiving end.

We ourselves are dividing these lines by showing how isolated we are by speaking without moving our lips. We have access to all the information and information just seeps and we’ve become numb to what we intake. We are only interested in what we want to be interested in by selective exposure.

So how did all of this information all of a sudden get blown up in our faces and define the way we see the world?

We see that the internet has connected the world in so many ways. We are able to fine tune and extract the information and to create larger problems than what they are already. By seeing how gender and race have come into play on the internet is important to understand how discrimination is defined on the internet.

It is easier to discriminate someone from afar than to do it up close and personal. And that is exactly what the internet provides for us. We see how society has now turned to social media as their main means of communication.

If you are interested in one specific topic, you will follow them on your feed. Foodies will follow other foodies, fashionistas will form herds, and music lovers will associate themselves with fellow music lovers.

These are the divides that conquer the internet and we are only seeing how far people will go to create these boundaries.

It’s the sad reality that we are going to have to accept because this is our culture, and we can live our whole lives to separate ourselves from attaching to the norm or we can just be ourselves and whatever the world wants to define us as, it’s them defining who you are and you are just living your life.

I think there’s something to be said when others try to put limitations on what is cultural and what is sexist. To separate yourself in becoming the norm does not make you a hero, nor does it make you stand out amongst those that tend to follow others.

The styles we choose to wear or the way we decide to parent is what makes an individual who they are. Although sometimes we can be threatened by the idea that what is acceptable in our society is what will determine how we live our life, it is just its own way of being as shallow as those who live carelessly. There is not a wrong way to dress your child because the definition of being a girl is pink and being a boy is blue.

It’s where we find weakness in ourselves is when we start to isolate the ideas that hopefully our child doesn’t turn out to be some kind of pink-loving freak who dances to latest Kid Bop! It’s the fact we need to move beyond the ideas that society will put forth and instill in our children who we want them to be because the only person who will determine the way your child develops is yourself.

There’s something to be said about what the internet provides for our society. We keep developing and advancing and we are no longer focused on what makes the meaning of man. It’s funny to see how fast we are progressing and how slow we are accepting. We are developing even bigger ideas of acceptance and we are losing the quality of life.

While men are assumed to be more authoritative and credible online, it still does not justify their strength and ability among women. It’s sad to see that disparities are reflected on the Internet and this is written by Astra Taylor in her article, “How the Cult of Internet Openness Enables Misogyny.”

Discrimination is mirrored online and there is nothing that we can do but wait it out and voice our opinions out if we are concerned. We are not limited by what the internet provides for us. We have to learn how to cope with new ideas and new technologies. While time goes on it is our duty to progress and not depend on technologies to teach us how to be peaceful, forgiving, nonjudgmental beings. Though it could take us years to overcome the effect of the internet, we can never get rid of the separation.

It is what separates us from others that make us who we are. Equality is met with who you are in your life and the standards you set for yourself.