#human difference

Kristina Armitage in Quanta Magazine. What Happens in a Mind That Can’t ‘See’ Mental Images

Neuroscience research into people with aphantasia, who don’t experience mental imagery, is revealing how imagination works and demonstrating the sweeping variety in our subjective experiences

We (our group) have been talking about and discussing the development of human difference and the idea of knowledge and power being the influencer of human development, determining factors of human growth and how humans perceive one another. When we thought about human difference we discussed how different humans have been depicted through race, gender, linguistics all through the dictator of knowledge. But now we thought if one speaks of human difference and the distorted image (created by humans through out history) of the “ideal” human we should look at our individual understanding of human “difference” and what the “correct” human would look like. We quickly noticed that we all had similar ideas, all clinging to an idea that has been indoctrinated into us from a young age, via media, friends, family and community. All in the name of having a “healthy society”. After discussing how we have been influenced differently but somehow surprisingly similar we started to debate who is the dictator to our “correctness” our “beauty” our understanding of rite and wrong.  And this is how we came to the word “Vices”. Emphasising the social “other” not necessarily having to be based on a physical, cultural or geographical difference that Anthropology and society has already emphasised. But the vices can determine the differences within humans. Vices in a current day and age and culture determine if you are or are not in it. Example if you don’t have a smart phone you are considered “other”. 

Many societies in the ancient world did not make distinctions based on racial identity. Race today is a global concept, but it has not always been so. 

1616

Pocahontas marries John Rolfe

When the English first arrive in America, neither the colonists nor Indians think of themselves or each other in racial terms. On the contrary, Protestant England's hated rival is Catholic Spain, while Native Americans see themselves as many nations divided by language, custom and power. When the Powhatan princess Pocahontas marries colonist John Rolfe, the union causes a scandal in the British court, not because Rolfe has married an Indian, but because Pocahontas, a princess, has married a commoner. In 17th-century England, social station is more important than physical differences.

1676 Social identities fluid

In early colonial America, social identities are fluid and class distinctions trump physical ones. On Virginia plantations, European indentured servants and African slaves mix freely - they work, play, and make love together. In 1676, Bacon's Rebellion unites poor Africans and Europeans against Indians and wealthy planters. Although the rebellion is short lived, the alliance alarms the colonial elite, who realize the labor system based on indentured servitude is unstable. Coincidentally, captured Africans, perceived as stronger workers by Europeans, become more available at this time. Planters turn increasingly to African slavery for labor, while granting increased freedoms to Europeans.

Want to know more about race and racism? Not sure how you feel about this? Check out the link below:

Had a conversation with one of my students in class the other day about similar sorts of things and she looked at me in stunned exasperation and said "but that means EVERYTHING is relative!" Ayup.

I've actually received the same horrified response from colleagues more than once.

This was in regard to the cultural perception of human difference, and the way we define disability, among other things. As in, our (dominant) cultural model for viewing human difference is to measure against the concept of a "default" human being.

Adding or subtracting certain traits that our society has decided are "important" is what creates "difference". And because we see "different" as "different than the default/ideal human", we are seen as losing humanity "points". Each difference a person has is a lost "point". Hence, oppression and social inequality.

I pointed out that you could actually just compare any two humans to each other rather than against a "default" idea that no one really fits, but that serves to privilege certain individuals over others, for being closer to the "default" or "ideal". After all, neither system is inherently more accurate than the other.

It was if this concept explodes brains. I've been told that would be "too complicated", "doesn't work" and a host of other things that don't make much sense to me.