There is this fundamental dilemma:
We truly believe all people are equal. All races, all sexes, all beliefs, are all equal. Universal human rights. Me personally, I subscribe to equality vigorously.
Our official communications reflect this belief in equality for all. CV’s now come without a photograph or age of the job applicant. Pressure groups tell us to change our language to be less sexist. Countries pass laws to insist on more women in boardrooms. We lament salary inequality, we advance laws that give equal rights for gay couples to marry etc. The list is endless.
I support that unequivocally.
Then there is the other side:
In conversations I have privately with individuals, I occasionally sense racism, homophobia, sexism, classism, xenophobia. The private jokes and statements people make often completely contradict the ‘public discourse’.
In corporations, leaders verbally support the latest policy of the highest bosses and privately ridicule the same since the new hype does not convince them either.
I guess it is culture. The rules say, do not fart, do not discriminate, treat everybody equally.
But cave man and cave woman instinctively DO distinguish between ‘us’ and ‘them’. Us are guys when guys talk about women. Us are straights when we talk about gays. Us are whites when we talk about foreigners. Off the record. Them are the ones not in our village square. We discriminate against them in private.
Only in public we obey the politically correct narrative.
That is a bit stressful, yet, hopefully, helps to further modern views of equality in which we intellectually believe but instinctively question.
How do you deal with this dilemma?