Unification: creator of peace or facilitator of war

In our society we are constantly comparing any and everything we possibly can. We group every aspect of our lives into commonalities and differences. When we attempt to find a group of people to interact with in society such as: friend groups, churches, schools, and jobs, we decide that similar interest are positive and dissimilarities are negative. This issue arose especially during the 19^th century for African Americans and White Americans in the United States. As we saw in the Exodus book we read for class, this presented many problems for American society by marginalizing white and blacks on physical differences like skin color and skull size. These studies helped justify white supremacy and further prolonged the chance for slaves to gain freedom and equality in America.  The black solution to this problem was to suggest that all Christian were the children of God. A unifying force that would bring the communities together and resolve the conversation if physical difference affected talents, intelligence and morality. This may have been a solution to this specific problem at hand, but it did not solve the lager issue that has transcended time. The issues of differences In other aspects of life.

When societies create commonalties they therefore create distinctions. Since the white and black Christians would eventually come together on the issue of faith, they therefore isolated the individuals in society who weren’t followers of christ. We see in today society as we have seen in the past the effect a unification of similar interest has on the community at large. Today many people come together now to unite as Christians regardless of being white or Black, but as we have seen with Donald’s Trumps campaign, this does not encapsulate the entire community. Muslim Americans in our society our constantly scrutinized to an even greater extent than many other demographics in the country simply because the United States has associated their faith with terrorism and difference. This joining of groups is not a new phenomenon. When you want to unite a nation or community you must find similar value or interest. Consequently, this require that someone be excluded form the group.

 In Medieval Europe. The West was in shambles. It had little literacy and minimal infrastructure. Charlemagne the leader decided he would bring his society out of the ashes, lifting them back up to the heights of Rome. An aspect that was required to create a powerful empire, was the unification of a country and people. He too also used Christianity as the basis for commonalties, since there was no political institution to bring them together. This did indeed bring power back to the West but it greatly exploited very specific groups of people. The Lepers, Jews and heretics were all lumped together as outsiders and severely persecuted. Because they were different, they were the examples in society no one wanted to be. Just as the Blacks were during slavery and the Muslims have been made out to be in contemporary America.

 Thus we must reevaluate how we unify people together. If we base our union on a similarity, there will always be someone left out due to the individuality of every human being. That is simply the nature of the beast. People will be exploited and violence will continue to persist in all walks of life. This is why we must celebrate the unique characteristics of every human being rather than just the characteristic attractive to us. We must now determine that what make us all human and what brings us all together is fact that we each have something that is distinctively different about us. If we are to erase the things we have in common, we subsequently eliminate what makes us different, putting an end to the mass amounts of violence that derive from nationality, race, gender, religion, culture. This peace tthat we receive will ultimately lead to greater progress as our entire world unites together to make where live a truly enjoyable place to live. (666 words)