TEXT D We come in different
colors: red, black, white, yellow and brown, have a variety of political
systems, social systems, religious views or none at all; we are different
intellectually, have different educational systems, different socio-economic
classes; psychologically we are normal, abnormal, neurotic, psychotic, we speak
different languages, and have different customs and costumes.
Studying human beings biologically and physiologically leads us to very
different conclusions about how alike or different we are from each other. Very
different indeed, every human being on the planet, all 5.3 billion of us, has
the same number of bones, of the same type, serving the same purposes; each of
us has 46 chromosomes, 23 from each parent, and these chromosomes, genes and the
DNA and RNA of which they are integral parts, are in every single human being;
every cell, every membrane, every tissue, and every organ is the same
everywhere. We all have a heart, a circulatory system, 2 lungs, a liver, 2
kidneys, a brain and nervous system, a reproductive system, digestive and
excretory systems, musculature, in short, we are the same biologically and our
bodies perform the same functions everywhere on the planet. And as we learned in
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, if you prick us, any of us, "do we not
bleed" Of course we do, and we bleed red blood no matter what the color of our
skin, or the language we speak, the clothing we wear, the gods we worship, or
our geographical home. Man is of a piece biologically; all equally effective
organisms whether Amazon Indian, Australian aborigine, Parisian artist, Greek
sailor, Chinese student, American astronaut, Russian soldier, or Palestinian
citizen. Well then, you ask, how is that so many groups of
people disparage other groups, persecute them, and claim superiority over them
Why is it that some groups of people still hunt animals, wear little or no
clothing, have little or no technology, while others are very sophisticated in
their technology, industry, transportation, communication, food gathering and
storage It is, of course, a matter of culture and the civilization that emerges
and evolves from it. Though man is man everywhere, where he lives, when he lives
there, with whom he lives there, all affect how he lives: that is, what he
believes, what he wears, his customs, his gods, his rituals, his myths and
literature, his language and his institutions. These are man-made artifacts that
each group develops over time, living together, facing the same problems,
needing and desiring the same things. They are his culture, his
identity. The interactions of two powerful forces in all human
life: nature (biology) and nurture (culture and civilization), shape us. Each
culture has its own distinctive ways of seeing, feeling, thinking, speaking,
believing, and just as no two humans are identical in all respects, so no two
cultures are identical in all respects. But, wherever humans have lived and live
today, there is culture with all of its elements embedded in a civilization that
expresses that core of thought and feeling in its language, its institutions and
other social organizations. All civilizations and the cultures that nourish them
have hierarchies, social institutions, language, art of all kinds, religion or a
system of spiritual beliefs of some kind, laws, customs, rituals (other than
religious) and ceremonies. A study of anthropology and make it
very clear that humans have created divisions and exacerbated superficial
external difference for their own ulterior purposes whether political, social,
economic or religious. The truth is that we are much more alike in very basic
ways than we are different. If you wear one type of garment and I wear another,
we both wear some kind of garment. Our culture demands it. If you speak one
language and I another, we both speak so that others will understand us; we must
communicate with each other. Nothing is gained by overemphasizing differences,
but much is lost, If we understood our differences as cultural variations of our
basic, universal humanity it could restore sanity and peace to this often
turbulent world. Muslims and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Serbs and Croats,
blacks and whites, we are all human and need the same things to survive and to
thrive. Different does not mean inferior or superior; it does
not mean better or worse; right or wrong. It means only that artificial
distinctions have been made by society, and these have denied our universal
humanity that is cell deep and incontrovertible. Differences produce variety of
thought, feeling, and action and that can be very stimulating to peaceful and
creative solutions to human problems. Can we accept our
biological brotherhood and put aside our man-made, artificial, cultural
enmities What men have made, their culture and civilizations, men can unmake,
can improve. What would be gained if we did that What would be lost The best title for this passage could be ______.
A.Every One Is Created Equal B.Culture And Civilization C.Human Differences D.Cultural Differences