Privilege, Power, Pride and Prejudice
Pride and Prejudice is a novel written by Jane Austin published in 1813. It deals with conflict and love between the classes in the 19th century. It also names what is going on throughout human history including our own times. We see on every front that those with privilege and power are proud and prejudiced and dominate and harm those without privilege and power.
Men are prideful, prejudiced against, dominate and harm women. The majority or favored race is proud, prejudiced against, dominates and harms minority races. The rich are prideful, prejudiced against, dominate and harm the poor. Ethnic majorities or elites are proud, prejudiced against, dominate and harm ethnic minorities. Religious majorities are prideful, prejudiced against and dominate and harm religious minorities. Straight people are proud, prejudiced against, dominate and harm gay people.
Our names for the above are misogyny, racism, class-ism, ethnic demonizing, religious fundamentalism and homophobia. But the common denominator in all of them is that those with privilege and power tend to be prideful and prejudiced and dominate and do harm to those with less privilege and power.
What can we do to wake up from this nightmare and create societies of universal equality, justice, participation, tolerance and sustainability? We must change our mindsets, behaviors, cultures and systems from exclusion to inclusion, from pride to compassion, from prejudice to respect, from domination to collaboration and from doing harm to acts of kindness.
And how to do that? We must create and offer new education, spiritual teaching and meditation, new leadership, motivation and incentives, new symbols, rituals and stories and new policies, institutions and projects. And how to do that? We must change our political, economic, social, cultural and environmental systems. And how to do that? We must stop what we are doing and reinvent the human enterprise itself, based on values of universal compassion and wisdom. And how to do that? We must each practice, practice, practice new ways of thinking, doing and being moment by moment for the rest of our lives.
May it be so.