Oscar Wilde made an enigmatic claim, ” Most people are other people.”
We are indeed influenced to an amazing extend by people with whom we identify.
Many of the conflicts and barbarities in the world are sustained through the illusion of a unique and choiceless identity.
A major source of potential conflict in the contemporary world is the presumption that people can be uniquely categorized based on religion or culture.
A unique divisive view goes not only against the old-fashioned believe that all human beings are much the same but also against the less discussed but much more plausible understanding that we are diversely different.
The world is frequently taken to be a collection of religions or cultures, ignoring the other identity that people have and values, involving class, gender, profession, language, science, morals, and politics.
This unique divisiveness is much more confrontational than the universe of plural and diverse classifications that shape the world in which we actually live.