Looking back at the last two to three generations, and all the things those people lived through, you might ask yourself if our time is really that significant. We do not live through big revolutionary novelties. Electricity has been invented, we have phones, TV and radio and set our first steps in exploring the galaxy around us. What’s left for us is extensions. Black and white TV made the evolution to colour and flat screen. Rotary dial telephones saw the introduction of touch tones and eventually cell phones. All we can say of our time is that it is digital. The era of the Internet. But when you think about it, isn’t that amazing?
Internet seems to have reduced our globe to a sphere the size of a marble. Nothing has been left undiscovered and everything is available for everyone. With a few commands you can travel to the most exotic place on Earth or learn everything you always wanted to know about everything you can possibly think of. But with all that knowledge in hand reach, we tend to forget something very important. Something that probably really defines us as a species. Our cultural differences. No matter how small the world has become, we are still roughly 6,8 billion individual persons living here, and we all have our own opinions and values, fed by our cultural, political and religious upbringing and driven by different mentalities. For some tattoos are fashionable body decorations, for others they have deep religious meanings or separate men from boys. For many of us, the male body is a beautiful thing that we are quite accustomed to. But it is probably safe to say a majority of the world population has not yet embraced the ides of male nudity.
In the near future we will take bigger steps into our exploration of the space around our Earth. We will find ways to travel larger distances and eventually we will – doubtless – find other life forms. That will probably be one of the biggest shock for our relatively small rational brains, something that will turn all our opinions and values up side down. I don’t expect this to happen in my lifetime though, but I do hope and count on the fact that we will be openminded to whatever we will discover about possible new cultures, and less judgmental as we currently are. No matter how smart we are in our digital development, we are still throwing stones at each other. With everything the Internet and our digital era has to offer, we still have a lot to learn about humanity. –B-
R&Y | BEAUTIFULMAG
Internet seems to have reduced our globe to a sphere the size of a marble. Nothing has been left undiscovered and everything is available for everyone. With a few commands you can travel to the most exotic place on Earth or learn everything you always wanted to know about everything you can possibly think of. But with all that knowledge in hand reach, we tend to forget something very important. Something that probably really defines us as a species. Our cultural differences. No matter how small the world has become, we are still roughly 6,8 billion individual persons living here, and we all have our own opinions and values, fed by our cultural, political and religious upbringing and driven by different mentalities. For some tattoos are fashionable body decorations, for others they have deep religious meanings or separate men from boys. For many of us, the male body is a beautiful thing that we are quite accustomed to. But it is probably safe to say a majority of the world population has not yet embraced the ides of male nudity.
In the near future we will take bigger steps into our exploration of the space around our Earth. We will find ways to travel larger distances and eventually we will – doubtless – find other life forms. That will probably be one of the biggest shock for our relatively small rational brains, something that will turn all our opinions and values up side down. I don’t expect this to happen in my lifetime though, but I do hope and count on the fact that we will be openminded to whatever we will discover about possible new cultures, and less judgmental as we currently are. No matter how smart we are in our digital development, we are still throwing stones at each other. With everything the Internet and our digital era has to offer, we still have a lot to learn about humanity. –B-
R&Y | BEAUTIFULMAG
In a remarkable address to the United Nations while he was U.S. President, Ronald Reagan spoke of how petty and small the differences among our cultures here on Earth would seem if we were faced with a threat from a civilization from elsewhere in the Universe.
All the stupid little things we worry about now would shrivel into insignificance if we had to unite our forces to defeat a hostile alien invasion. Unfortunately, that is probably what it may take to force us to get along with eachother here on this tiny little marble we call Earth.
Let us be less concerned about our differences and what we may not like about one another, but rather embrace our diversity and recognize that is what makes life interesting and worth living. In the wise words of the authors of BeautifulMag, let us stop throwing stones at one another.
Life is too short and beautiful to waste time with such a foolish activity.
Posted by: Steve | April 18, 2010 at 07:43 AM
I am only too happy to throw stones at the
world's countless homophobes, negrophobes,
gynophobes, anti-semites, ad infin.
They swarm over the planet like flies and
only God knows what it will take to swat
them. I strongly doubt that kind words
will do the job.
Posted by: redbaron01 | April 25, 2010 at 08:22 AM