Utopia of tomorrow

In a healthy society many things have to function, but one thing especially, a reflex which hops in when encountered by foreigners. This reflex could be described as a certain way of seeing your environment: one focuses on the similarities instead of what differs you from another person. You do not empathise within your perception that your opponent is Christian if yourself believe in reincarnation. Instead you focus firstly on the things you have in common. Having said this, prejudices do not have the chances to dominate your viewpoint. Instead you can find out more about the things you may not share, after you have settled a good communicational foundation.

The same reflex can also come to action while observing a person in need. One helps this person because one had a sensation of empathy (sympathy describes the sensation of pity and sorrow for others misfortune, empathy in contrary is the ability of understanding and sharing feelings of another person₁). Another relates to the other human being as an equal because there are some things which connect all people around the world: the need for affection, besides the other requirements listed in “Maslow's Hierarchy of needs”. Acting on the premise that there might be core things which connect me with every other being out there, leads to a behaviour coined by solidarity. People look after each other instead of needing a reason (as money or benefiting directly through this action oneself) to help another person.

When the trigger for the sensation of empathy towards a stranger cannot be found in a deja-vu of a specific experience but in the core similarity (humanity), than it can be spoken of solidarity. Through understanding the environment in which we live as a positive one, solidarity can flourish.

Solidarity is a mindset which would be the tool for creating a sustainable society from a group of foreigners. During this journey, from strangers to a group of people who understand themselves as a society, all involved people enrich their knowledge and generally their life. This development happens due to communication and cooperation.

So, if everyone's knee would jerk up when hit with a situation encountering foreign, we would have a world community founded on respect, empathy and the willingness to constantly broaden one's horizon. An openness to learn new things and to see the world from a different angle would be possible, because of the starting point of every perception: the opponent is just as valuable as I am. At the bottom of all we are equals and should treat each other as those.

Throughout human history there have been many phenomena as the euthanasia, segregation and mistreatment due to the appearance (for example the skin colour), beliefs and geographical origins. Distinguishing between oneself and the others as well as thinking in an hierarchy where ones group is having the right to oppress others as a result of ethnic superiority, was often the result of Xenophobia. Missing communication led to prejudices, to an acting on the belief of hierarchies. All those phenomena did not bring joy, they did not benefit the world. In contrary they were creating an illusion.

But why did not Solidarity as a value establish itself? In the opposite: nowadays a new populism hype effectively works against the utopia of a world community living in solidarity.Hopefully one day the world will receive the approving nod which indicates: Yep, you are healthy! However, at the end an utopia is defined therefore that it can not be put into reality.Finally, it is a question wether it is a reflex we still have to learn or if it is already somewhere in us in the synaptic maze and we have to find our way to it again. Though what I have experienced for sure is that solidarity makes strangers to equals in mind, to friends.

₁source: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/empathy