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The Counterintuitive Motto
The Matrix is a movie that defines self-worth. You have to believe you are the one. The future will be determined by the number of people who believe in you. There's another blog post in that statement, I'm sure.
Let’s begin with exploring exclusion. Why would we do that? Why is that important? In a nutshell, if we explore exclusion, we define what diversity should be. One cannot exist without the other. Try this, “the treasure you seek lies in the cave you fear to enter.” The thing you’re most afraid of is actually the thing you exclude, right? Until we explore exclusion, nothing will change.
Let’s start with the Matrix movie. Neo is looking for something outside the social norm. As it turns out, his social model is compounded when he learns that his entire life is mundanity to the maximum. There’s a secret war going on. Ultimately, Neo learns that believing in himself makes him a master of this universe. No, not a master, a god. Neo becomes a god in his universe because he believes. How does this apply to exclusion? The Matrix, as a social environment, excludes conformity. It stresses uniformity, thereby, in fact, promoting revolution. It is a subtle by-product that hinges on the entire storyline, but it proves the point. When Neo explores that which the Matrix excludes, he generates diversity. That’s something to think about. The Matrix is just a movie. What’s the exclusion in our society?
One search turns up this phrase, “social exclusion exists when certain groups are denied the same access to education as the rest of society.” It makes me wonder, how does our society value education? On top of that, how do we present education to our society? These two questions are linked. They have to be. The way we present education is determined by the way we value it. What you love becomes your everyday focus. Does our society, American society, truly focus on education? Education above all? Which society does?
The above article will reference “Roma people,” Upon reading it, I wondered what Roma people are. Are they people from Rome? The popular term is gypsies. This is a derogatory term, and it is in this search we’ve discovered proper exclusion. The history of the Roma people dates back a thousand years. They’ve endured persecution as recently as the Holocaust, among others. In fact, Roma people have suffered from all types of persecution. They are outsiders, nomads. It begs the question, why are the Roma people so excluded? This video may not answer the question, but it does introduce who they are.
We fear the cave, which is the unknown, and if the unknown isn't explained, we will reject the cave. Why is this metaphor so poignant? It is difficult to define and explore our fears. Sorry, it is monumentally difficult to define and analyze our concerns. We lock into a routine that works and can tune out everything else. Tune out like excluding, filtering out the confusion. We are human; we avoid it if we don't understand it.
The cave. It vibrates in my mind. Why? The cave will make you stronger, but that’s not always good. World history has taught us might doesn’t always make right; Nazi Germany, Ku Klux Klan. We don’t want to make things worse.
This search (and I apologize in advance) now leads to a Russian writer. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist famous for promoting Soviet dissidents. There’s plenty of literature on his life, but I just want to pluck out an observation. As a critic of his own society, he was excluded and persecuted until later, when his community decided to change, Solzhenitsyn was accepted and celebrated. His writings disrupted a country so much that he had to leave and take exclusion before his revolutionary and Nobel prize-winning work could make that society stronger. The more we avoid the cave, the more the fear grows. We need a community comprised of metaphorical spelunkers.
“Promoting diversity, exploring exclusion,” I’ll do my best to write this way, although it is counterintuitive. However, I must say, writing is a counterintuitive act. Why can’t we just talk face to face?
Daniel Micko, 770 Publishing
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