The Border

I've been thinking alot about borders. Not just the southern border of the USA but all borders. The shifting, the allegiances, the wars, the tribalism, the keeping people out, the keeping people in, the hiding behind the borders, the hiding within the borders, the allowing of the world to ignore activities and humanitarian crises because that border tells us that it is not our issue, separation, and historical conflict.

If our species was better, if we could handle it, I see no need for borders. If our species was better, more exalted, truly advanced, we would find that borders do nothing other than separate people and prevent all humans from truly succeeding and from truly living lives of peace and harmony.

But our species is not better.
We are nearly indistinguishable from primates launching fruit at one another to frighten one tribe away from the other. Our intellect has evolved a bit, but not enough, I fear. Some have critical thinking, tools, technology. But so many of our species still lives by superstition, fear, separation, oppression, and survival of the fittest, rather than by critical thought, empathy, community building, technology.

We seem to be enormously limited by fear, tribalism, and superstition. Our primate brains may be the reason we continually draw and redraw city/state/national borders. It is why we fight to claim one property over another. It is why we attempt to take yours and make it ours. It is why we reject one people over another. It is why we have class, status, and gross economic disparity as we do.


But imagine, if you will, a world where we are all equal brothers, humans who have plenty, who support one another, brothers and sisters who don't require passports, who never know an immigrant, who build longer tables and no walls whatsoever. Equally distributed wealth and opportunities, equal pay for equal work. A single class. A single economy. A single governing body. A single people made up of an infinite number of colors, creeds, cultures. Developed peoples sharing with underdeveloped peoples. Human beings existing as they are, with no need to become a part of a melting pot or of a metaphorical soup. No group superior. No people inferior. A movement toward inclusivity and cooperation. A world without borders.

It is not an impossible concept because, the truth is, borders are completely made by men. They exist only as long as we respect their existence. 

It is less than possible, however, because of our species' strong, innate tendency to draw lines, to label, to abdicate personal power and knowledge for easy solutions, to look for similar others, and to get away with as much ineqality as possible, to give in to ambition, to be led by greed, to oppress others, to allow belief systems and history or mythology to tell us who truly belongs, and to hold on to grudges of the past. Our species is addicted to grabs for power.

Is a global society possible? 
I don't know, it might actually be inevitable.
But I'd be proud to see our species recognize the underlying barriers to this utopian idea and maybe, just maybe, embrace the idea of world peace and complete brotherhood and not just give it lip service as so many ideologies do.

What would it take to raise a generation of global humans who choose, at the same time, to humanely and willingly create a society such as this?

Oh, I know, I know! I'm freakishly liberal. Tell me something I don't know.

From space, says astronaut Anne McClain, you can’t see borders. What you see is this lonely planet. Here we all are on it, so angry at one another. I wish more people could step back and see how small Earth is, and how reliant we are on one another.