Change of Perspective

The development of agriculture transformed human culture thousands of years ago. The ability to manage our food supply allowed for larger populations and a more stable and complex cultural model. How we produce and gather our food has colored language, art and religion longer than history is able to remember. The very idea of a nation of people was built on a group’s common diet. Different groups having contact with each other was rare and often resulted in violence and fear. This model of human behavior played out relatively unchanged until the most recent of times. The First World War became one of the first to be fought using these old ideas of nationalism and the new tools of the industrial age. The last century was made one of the most violent in history thanks to this dangerous combination.
The human perspective changed the day we saw the Earth through the eyes of Neil Armstrong landing on the moon. On July 21, 1969 we were shown the small boat that carries us all from a vantage point unprecedented in the history of the world. Now we have moved into the information age. Coming into contact with people different than us is all but impossible to avoid. Eliminating cultures and people is no longer seen as a moral or realistic goal. Live in peace or not at all have come to be our only options. The challenge today is finding a way to maintain our own identity while accepting and integrating others with strange and different values. Differences are easy to notice as we look at our neighbors. What we have in common takes more time to draw out and see. Muslims have been a focus of our national attention since 9/11. 5 years after those attacks what do we really know about the 22 percent of the human population that call themselves Islamic? Muslims, Christians and Jews all claim a cultural heritage back to Abraham. Liberals and Conservatives both point to the Constitution as the source of their political conviction. What else do these groups have in common? Sometimes finding out is as simple as asking. We set ourselves to battle over which culture has the better worldview without looking to see what views we share. In our mobile and connected society we are bumping into one another more and more. The old way of seeing those on the inside of a community as good and those on the outside as bad will not work anymore. The future depends on finding a new way of seeing ourselves. Perhaps the best place to start is from the perspective of the moon.