Another Choice

The world and us

The capacity to accept difference and to respect the other no matter the degree of otherness, is not spontaneous to our ordinary physical consciousness.

We even need to make an effort in order to serve generosity, welcoming hospitality, harmony for all.

To rise above all rifts, all interests and preferences, to disengage from our habitual responses, is not “natural” to us.

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Today we say “globalization”.

We say: “humanity is one”.

Yet neither territorial instincts nor discriminations have gone away.

The borders drawn on our geographical maps are perhaps more relative, or else have been modified somewhat here and there, but the internal terms and boundaries of our various collective identities remain active and are even exacerbated at times by the threat of a loss of markers.

Human, most of us need the security of a rallying model of the group identity to which we belong, mainly through birth but sometimes too through choice in varying circumstances.

We need this shared image from which we may derive some support so as to situate ourselves in too complex a world.

We have need of an interpretation, of a reading of humanity that allows us to position ourselves, to keep infinity and boundlessness at bay.

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