Essay on Diversity Awareness and Global Perspectives
People are all different, when considering their differences we can often find that these differences can be due to separate experiences, and how their personality responds to these situations. In an ever growing world where humans are more connected than ever before. You can understand why some people would want to be even more different.
With social media you can see the best part of everyone’s life, the things that they want you to see because it makes them look good. Looking special among everyone can make people feel better about being insecure, or help them cope when they feel as if they aren't worth much. Along with this comes a downside, due to social media defining their personal worth. Difference is celebrated in today’s society, this is demonstrated by race, and the LGBTQ community being a big conversation in today’s political scene.
There are parades, protests, celebrations, for all of these differences. People are trying to express their differences and be disassociated from a big group. It's considered cool to be different, let me explain. Have you ever had something that you enjoyed, then someone decided it wasn't cool anymore? For example, Fortnite. This game was very popular for months on end. Then suddenly, you would find people on the internet, calling it a “child's game” or mocking anyone who played it. Furthermore created controversy, and ended up making people feel bad about playing it. People wanted to seem cool,so they hopped on the bandwagon of hate.
The different idea: disliking the popular thing, became the cool trend. Slowly, but surely this dislike for the game spread. Currently, if you say you play Fortnite you would be ridiculed and called immature. This is the effect of needless criticism and wanting to be “cool” due to their controversial beliefs. Celebrities are based on their uniqueness, you can’t be famous if you don’t stand out in any shape or form. You wouldn't care for a singer that sounds like every other singer. You want something different, something new. To be unique is striving for, yet in all honesty, it is the opposite of what we need.
Being special is something everyone wishes for, why wouldn't you? Who wants to be an average Joe that isn’t significant in any way? Yet the lines have now blurred, people have combined uniqueness with diversity. Diversity is the state of being a large variety of things. To have lots of different races would be to have a diverse country. Uniqueness is to be unlike any other, or be one of a kind. To have a unique country would be to be unlike any other. So why are people combining these two for extra “points”? In many countries, people are creating several different groups based off of your physical or mental features. People with the same ideals coming together to stand as one.
Being unique, as a group. This does not sound bad whatsoever, but there is a downside. Whenever these groups meet anyone outside of their group, outside of their own ideals it becomes a problem. Considering they’re not used to dealing with people outside of their own ideals, no one can handle an actual discussion. People argue instead of having a conversation, this concludes to getting us humans nowhere. There is an epidemic of people fighting to be right, instead of actually solving the situation. We are divided, and when we are divided we are weak. Imagine the speed of growth we would experience as a world together. All humans working together for humanity, united and strong. This is something that has never really been accomplished, due to the diversity of humans alike.
When you meet somebody what is the first thing you do? You may make your first impression of them, perhaps consider how they carry themselves? How they dress, talk, or what their personality is like. Humans notice things, we are observant. In addition to this, we can find differences from ourselves quite easily. To completely comprehend this point you must ask yourself. How much easier is it for you to be different than someone that is like them? Most likely it’s easier to be different then be the same. We are individuals at heart, we don’t belong to one specific grouping. Diversity will grow as our population, as well as beliefs, as people change.
There is a large sense of division in the world currently. BBC conducted a survey in multiple countries and asked the question “Do you believe that your country is more, or less divided than it was 10 years ago?” With the USA at 67% believing in the greater division, we have an actual problem on our hands. (Bobby Duffy, 1) “United we stand, divided we fall” is an often used quote throughout history. Without a doubt, the reason it is so consistently referred to is due to the indisputable truth inside.
With no connection to our fellow people we cannot grow as humans. By trying to grow our diversity we are limiting how much we can work together. In addition to that, this theory can even be proved with science. “Entropy is the general trend of the universe toward death and disorder.” - James R. Newman. Entropy increases as disorder also increases, for instance. If you move around your room, disorder increases. Change happens, and entropy is increased. As the disorder of something increases, the entropy increases.
Your room becomes more messy due to the constant change of things moving, unless you use energy to counter the entropy. E.g. cleaning up your room, the room will slowly become more and more disorderly unless you actively expel energy to stop the effect of entropy. This is comparable to our society today, as our people grow more diverse. We have more conflicting views, morals, ideals, and what we believe. As technology has advanced, we now have the internet as a constant luxury.
95% of Americans own a cellphone, in like manner 77% of Americans own a smartphone. This has increased diversity, people can share ideas faster than ever. There is an unimaginable amount of content on the internet, as a result there are many, many, ideas and opinions out there. This even relates to recent boom of conflict in the past several years. People disagree on more political subjects due to the ease of access to new ideas and controversial topics. Earlier I referred the percentile of Americans believing in greater disagreement in America over the last 10 years. At 67%, we can agree on the need to fix the problem.
Although growing in diversity can lead to greater disorder, it isn’t always bad. We can use our growing diversity to help our society to understand new ideas and concepts. Although there are steps we must first take before we begin this process. First, we must seek to understand others instead of find the fault in their argument. Entropy increases with diversity, but this does not mean it is inevitable. We can prevent this by putting energy into the prevention of conflict, then furthermore not getting upset. Look at both sides of an argument, consider the intention behind the actions.
This will help us understand each other as humans, not some monster who wants to do things for pure self gain. Conscious effort to be civilized and kind to others will help you feel better about yourself. Due to you applying yourself into being a human, people will be kind back to you. If they aren’t, then they lose, simple. Who are people going to listen to? Someone yelling, who is angry. Or a level headed figure who is willing to endure the other sides upset tantrums. Together, we can advance as people to the future. Exclude the quick to anger, decide to become better. Accept others, even if you disagree with them. Just because you coexist doesn't mean you have to agree. Diversity isn't going to decrease, it will only expand more and more. If we cannot handle ourselves now, we will fall into hatred into the future. We are all human, this we must always remember.
