Infinate Diverity in Infinate Combinations (IDIC)

 From the age of 8 onwards, after we had moved to the "big city" and discovered the magic of cable television, back during Christmas School break in 1971, I found this wonderful program called Star Trek.

If you have been reading me for a while then you know that I wrote about that in an earlier post.

After the show I discovered that there were books, written by real authors, set in this Universe and expanding on the Universe of Star Trek.

I LOVED this!!!

And one of the many ideas that they spoke about was Delight in the Other. Instead of Fearing people and beings that were not like yourself take Delight in them. Be curious about them. Explore with them while sharing yourself with them.

In a place online I found this which I think really does represent what this means. It is as follows:

"Infinate Diversity in Infinate Combinations represents a Vulcan belief that beauty, growth, and progress---all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, much as discord, requires the presence of at least two different notes. The brotherhood of man is an ideal based on learning to delight in our essential differences as well as learning to recognize our similarities. The IDIC is a union of circle, and triangle, uniting to produce the gemstone in the middle. The circle can represent infinity, nature, woman, etc; the triangle can represent the finite, art, man, etc"                                                                                 (Found at https://surak.audreykinlok.website/idic.php)

And I have a History Textbook, and anyone that knows me will tell you that I have been, independently and not in school, studying History since I was very young, which is called "The History of the Human Community".

In this book one of the main ideas that it explores is how someone would come up with an idea for a thing. And others would learn of this thing. Then they would take this thing and applying knowledge of things they had, which may or may not be realted to each other, would come up with a new or better thing.

And thus Humanity evolved. Because unlike things came together from different branches of Humanity and created new ideas and stuff. In Infinate Diversity came Infinate Combinations thus advancing Humanity to evolve, both in the outer world, food stuffs and tools etc, but also genetically. As science is discovering, the past branches of Humanity did not die out. They joined together with the new branches and created new and stronger, more adaptable, Humanity.

In this process we developed Group Identities as well. Which could sometimes be not so wonderful. For it is in this place that we began to really develope Fear of the Other.

And sometimes what happened was one Group Identity would become powerful and subsume the other Group Identity, the other Tribe/Clan/Family etc.

And sometimes one Tribe would conquer another and not destroy the other. And over time the conquered one would lose it's identity until it just became the conquering Tribe and no one remembered that they had been different.

And sometimes one Tribe would conquer the other Tribe and not destroy them. And they would learn to live with each other and in many cases, over time, become one Tribe stronger than had been the two before.

And, not very often, one Tribe would conquer and not destroy the other and the conquered one would retain it's identity and eventually regain it's rights as a seperate Tribe/Nation.

In all of these is a Fear of the Other and a Reaction to that Fear.

When our Tribal Identity is threatened in a lot of cases we become insular. In that is born the seeds of Nationalism.

Not Patriotism, Nationalism. Different things.

And when we are in a Tribe which is feeling it's Identity threatened it is about impossible to Delight in the Other. For the other that one has are the ones threatening ones Tribal/National Identity.

And Yes, different Tribal Identity's can exist within the same National Identity. And that Tribal Identity can become Greater than the National Identity.

Today I look around me and I see Tribal Identities that want to become the National Identities, by hook and by crook and with force, all over the place.

Especially here at Home in these United States.

So the first place that I will talk about Tribal Nationalism is in Israel. The nation of Israel is at "War" with a terrorist group called Hamas. Because of the ascendency of the Tribal Nationalist Zionist Faction in their Political Sphere. They have colonized and subjugated what is supposed to be Territory of the Palistinian People and the rest of the world has, for the most part, abbetted this.

And the Terrorist/Freedom Fighters of Hamas have tried to deliver punishment for this. Their Tribal Identity is threatened and they are fighting back.

Thus we have a "War" where the losers are the Civilians on Both sides.

Because of Tribal Nationalism.

Next we look at Britain. A faction within the nation recently convinced themselves that their Tribal Identity/National Identity was being threatened by being members of the European Union. So they did Brexit, a referendum to leave the Union. In the seven years since the vote, which the leavers won by a narrow margin, the Economic situation has gotten dire and the political situation has gotten chaotic.

The Nation of Britain shot itself in it's Financial foot because of Tribal/National identity feelings of being threatened by a minority. And it's Political situation has deteriorated because of that.

And now, for our own US of A. A very well funded and powerful group of entities has been pushing the idea that the Tribe called Conservative and the Tribe called Christian are under threat. That their Identity will be wiped out unless they fight back.

And thus we have the rise of Christian Nationalism.

Nationalism is an insidious and seductive dis-ease of the public body. It is easy to hate in it's name and to make less than Human the objects of it's Fear.

For that is what it is. Fear.

And when you add in a very well funded and directed arm, or arms, of Propaganda, Radio, Television, and Internet, then you have a very insular group that feels like it is surrounded by enemies. Not fellow Human Beings.

And all this is happening because we have been conditioned since birth by those around us, and our society in general, to see The Other, in whatever guise they are in for the moment, as enemies to be Feared rather than people to take Delight in. We are taught to Fear the Differences rather than Celebrate them. We are taught to ignore, and even deny, our similarities rather than take comfort in them.

Rather than Celebrate Infinate Diversity in Infinate Combinations we are taght that we must not mix things that are different. That we must stay true to out Tribe and not go outside of it. That anything different is to be Feared rather than Celebrated.

And thus, all forward motion is stopped. For if we do not mix in all ways we can no longer develope. Niether new ideas, ways of being, attitudes, behaviors, nothing can be made stronger and better.

For it is in Community, growing, interacting with other communities, mingling ideas and genes, that we are made stronger, smarter, and better. By becoming closed in and insular we become weaker and less able to adapt to the world around us.

It is in the mingling of different notes that symphonies are created. It is in the mingling of different ideas that genious is born. It is in the mingling of genomes that Humanity becomes something Greater than it already is.

For, in the end, we are One. And we must Celebrate our Uniqueness that makes us One. We must become the Tribe of Humanity in every aspect. For we are One.

Infinate Diversity in Infinate Combination, Celebrating our differences and our similarities, those are the ways of salvation for us ALL.

We must Love each other or die.

We must Love each other. It is the only Rational act.

Or, as Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together or we will most certainly all hang seperately".

We must all walk thru our Fear of the Other until we can see and Celebrate the Uniqueness that is this marvelous creature before us.

Or we are all doomed.