Why It is Dangerous to See Race as the Primary Social Grouping for Human Beings
Humans are social animals, and social animals have a tendency to put themselves into social groups to define who they are. And if humans are to use social groups to define respective individual identity based on belonging to certain groups, then it becomes necessarily the case that they define what are the differences among different groups that they belong to and they do not. By distinguishing the major contracts between the groups that they belong to vis-a-vis those that they are excluded or voluntarily exclude themselves from, humans can, in turn, make sense of who they are and who they are not.
Defining those social groups can often be a haphazard activity, not based on what is most rational but what is most visibly different in the eyes of the majority of people. Male or female, young or old, tall or short...these are quite obvious biological markers that people can use to place themselves. But such biological markers do not help explain how people think and behave relative to others. Who humans are, not as physiological beings, but as mental beings, require more complex group identification, in ways that can be accepted by most people as consensus, but also specific enough to allow for real social meaning.
For most people, the first possible grouping that comes to mind is the concept of race. Black, white, yellow, brown, and red are not simply visible biological markers, but also correlate with supposedly cultural differences, as people of different color, until what can only be considered the most recent times in human history, tend to live in relative segregation in different geographies, separated by natural and political barriers. They grow up in relative isolation under different sociocultural systems and economic realities, giving them different mentalities and worldviews that can sometimes be quite obviously different.
The coincidental correlation between the difference in skin color and cultural backgrounds, then, has led to an overemphasis in ethnicity as the go-to, default social grouping for people to understand who they are as mental beings. In tandem, the emphasis on difference across different ethnicities also led to a corresponding emphasis on the similarities within each ethnicity, in which all members of the social group must share certain social values in order to even belong to the group in the first place. The use of physiological traits in biological groupings is extended blindly to behavioral and mental traits in social groupings.
While such social groupings do help people orient themselves at a young age by providing an initial anchor to understand human civilization, as one begins to deepen one's understanding of human society on a global scale, the oversimplified dichotomies provided by groupings like race only detracts from more complex comprehension. If one continues to fall back on race as one's primary identity, one cannot formulate more nuanced arguments about individual behavior. The assumption that those of the same race must behave similarly and those of different ones behave differently prevent further studies of individuality.
And ethnicity as a social grouping is especially unhelpful in the study of human movement on a global scale. Because skin color cannot be changed, any worldview based on racial difference is overtly deterministic and static. In other words, people who are of a certain skin color is born into a certain environment that leads to how they think and behaves in ways distinct from those of other skin colors. Such mentality neglects the possibility of people moving into different social environments where a different ethnicity is socially dominant so that one acquires the supposedly fixed mentality of a different social group.
Indeed, for a country that is perceived to be racially homogenous, the first step toward diversity lies in recognizing the possibility that humans at the individual level can shift their identities by moving into different social groups not associated with their own race. Without recognizing such possibility, the idea of a person of one race claiming to possess characteristics of another race will always be jarring, no matter how long the person in question has made the transition. By the same token, they must also recognize that members of their own race can also leave the social grouping and no longer identify with it.
Humans are social animals, but too often, in the rush to make sense of their own worlds, humans forget that society is subject to constant change, driven by changes in mentality and behavior at the individual level. If people refuse to recognize that the mentality of an individual is moldable and dynamic, it is akin to them refusing to recognize lasting social changes are possible. And if human progress is marked by changes in mentality, which in turn create new institutions, philosophies, and ideologies, then belief in racial statism of social groupings is to essentially deny human progress.
Defining those social groups can often be a haphazard activity, not based on what is most rational but what is most visibly different in the eyes of the majority of people. Male or female, young or old, tall or short...these are quite obvious biological markers that people can use to place themselves. But such biological markers do not help explain how people think and behave relative to others. Who humans are, not as physiological beings, but as mental beings, require more complex group identification, in ways that can be accepted by most people as consensus, but also specific enough to allow for real social meaning.
For most people, the first possible grouping that comes to mind is the concept of race. Black, white, yellow, brown, and red are not simply visible biological markers, but also correlate with supposedly cultural differences, as people of different color, until what can only be considered the most recent times in human history, tend to live in relative segregation in different geographies, separated by natural and political barriers. They grow up in relative isolation under different sociocultural systems and economic realities, giving them different mentalities and worldviews that can sometimes be quite obviously different.
The coincidental correlation between the difference in skin color and cultural backgrounds, then, has led to an overemphasis in ethnicity as the go-to, default social grouping for people to understand who they are as mental beings. In tandem, the emphasis on difference across different ethnicities also led to a corresponding emphasis on the similarities within each ethnicity, in which all members of the social group must share certain social values in order to even belong to the group in the first place. The use of physiological traits in biological groupings is extended blindly to behavioral and mental traits in social groupings.
While such social groupings do help people orient themselves at a young age by providing an initial anchor to understand human civilization, as one begins to deepen one's understanding of human society on a global scale, the oversimplified dichotomies provided by groupings like race only detracts from more complex comprehension. If one continues to fall back on race as one's primary identity, one cannot formulate more nuanced arguments about individual behavior. The assumption that those of the same race must behave similarly and those of different ones behave differently prevent further studies of individuality.
And ethnicity as a social grouping is especially unhelpful in the study of human movement on a global scale. Because skin color cannot be changed, any worldview based on racial difference is overtly deterministic and static. In other words, people who are of a certain skin color is born into a certain environment that leads to how they think and behaves in ways distinct from those of other skin colors. Such mentality neglects the possibility of people moving into different social environments where a different ethnicity is socially dominant so that one acquires the supposedly fixed mentality of a different social group.
Indeed, for a country that is perceived to be racially homogenous, the first step toward diversity lies in recognizing the possibility that humans at the individual level can shift their identities by moving into different social groups not associated with their own race. Without recognizing such possibility, the idea of a person of one race claiming to possess characteristics of another race will always be jarring, no matter how long the person in question has made the transition. By the same token, they must also recognize that members of their own race can also leave the social grouping and no longer identify with it.
Humans are social animals, but too often, in the rush to make sense of their own worlds, humans forget that society is subject to constant change, driven by changes in mentality and behavior at the individual level. If people refuse to recognize that the mentality of an individual is moldable and dynamic, it is akin to them refusing to recognize lasting social changes are possible. And if human progress is marked by changes in mentality, which in turn create new institutions, philosophies, and ideologies, then belief in racial statism of social groupings is to essentially deny human progress.
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