101. People are different

One noted anthropologist of the High Atlas reported that, in some communities at least, families (including the parents) do not grieve the loss of infants who die before the age of two. When reporting this observation, the anthropologist was invariably met by, first, disbelief and, second, the question “why?”. A question that could only sensibly be met with the response “people are different”.
The recognition that people are different is one of the great consolations in a time of anger and outrage. Also at any time when family members come together in a relatively small space.

It’s important to remember that, to be used effectively in any conversation, the maxim must be given the same weight as was once given to the dictated words: “Full stop. New paragraph.” In other words, it’s a means of closing down fruitless speculation about why other people think, love, speak, behave and relate in the incomprehensible ways that they do.

However, one thing that becomes increasingly apparent in a globalised and digital age is that people are, in many ways, less different than ever before. People living on opposite sides of a mountain were once differentiated by language, agricultural practices, political systems, religious beliefs, dress, marriage codes, music, folklore and social mores of all sorts. Now, Shein, Tik-Tok, Spotify, Aldi, Google Translate and other platforms and retailers — along with the perennial desire of young adults to conform — have created levels of cultural homogenisation unimaginable two generations ago.

This threatens to put anthropologists out of business or, at least, to drive them into a single-channelled speculation about how the twin viruses of difference [woke and anti-woke] are spread and transmitted.
So maybe people are not so different after all. Or only different in limited ways. Or perhaps history will record that people briefly stopped being different in the three decades before the Second Cold War broke the Global Rule of Law, the Internet and the Neoliberal Hegemony.

But still, perhaps the mantra ‘people are different’ can offer some consolation as we hurtle into the maelstrom of 2025. (Here below is AI’s surprisingly indifferent response to “Please create an image to represent the idea that people are different”.)

people are [apparently not so] different [ed]

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