Dawn and Dusk

I would argue that almost every single evil and arrogant act committed by human kind can be linked back to individuals’ beliefs that they are special. That they are somehow “different” from everyone else or “chosen” in some way or another. It may sound odd, especially when everyone tells you that everyone’s special, but just hear me out.

Now, I should really differentiate between being “special” and being “unique”. All “unique” really means is one of a kind, or not exactly like anything else. I would argue that every single person to ever live and die on this planet has been unique in one way or another, as humans and really all life forms are infinitely complex when it comes down to it. No two people have ever gone through the exact same series of events and ended up the exact same in every way. But being “special”… that’s a whole different story. “Special” means you are unique in a “better way”. It holds with it the idea that your uniqueness is better than someone else’s. And this concept’s ultimate end is endowing people with a feeling of innate superiority over others who they deem as the “ordinary people”.

The belief of being inherently better than other people is one of the most dangerous beliefs that humans can hold. The only reason racism exists is because some people truly believe that their race is superior to another for some arbitrary reason. They believe that they (and anyone else like them) are special while the other group is not, and that they are somehow above others. Slavery existed (and in many places still exists) because certain people believe that they can push down the “ordinary people” to push up what they think really matters: their “special” selves that have been “smart and clever” enough to reach the top. How about religious wars? Two sides of people killing one another because they both believe that they were endowed with the “right way” of thinking, and that their way of life was somehow “special” and “superior”.

Now, these were historic and, quite frankly, extreme examples of the dangers of believing yourself to be special… let me put this in a more modern and applicable light. Politics.

People argue, bicker, and even sometimes end friendships over political disagreements. Why? Because they believe that they are right, and if you disagree with them, then you are wrong. They believe that their view is superior. They believe that they are special in that they can understand the “right way of thinking” and the other person is just unable to see reason. And even though both sides of an argument often think this about themselves and the other, they can’t bring themselves to realize that they might be wrong.

And that’s what I’m really trying to get at here. Everyone on the planet thinks that they are right about something, and yet there are countless different beliefs about literally everything. Thinking that you are special in some way and somehow “got it all right” blinds you to the idea that you might be wrong. It teaches you not to question yourself because you believe that you and your beliefs aren’t ordinary and simple, but rather, you’re special and better than select others.

Anyway, at the end of the day these thoughts are just an opinion, and but in a world where people say “people need to be more open minded” and then proceed to shut down every opinion except their own, I felt like this was a fitting idea. This whole post by no means targets any specific person or political side, as just about everyone including me has been guilty of this and both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of believing that their beliefs and their followers are somehow “special”. We’re all different, we’re all unique, but it’s very dangerous to believe that “all people are unique, but some people are more unique than others”. Listen to others, and in turn they might listen to you.