Institutional

Mainstream or banal journalism which is common in many democratic societies tends to see an issue or the world as "socio-cultural binary of "us" and "them"". I think we can agree this way of seeing the world by picking sides makes issues easier to understand, even though we equally suspect life is never black and white but consists of many colors. Over-simplification will please the crowds but it is dangerous for finding truth.

By picking a side, we choose to align ourselves with some group be it a country, team, company, family, race, religion, clique, fan club... whatever... and see anyone outside as unimportant or in opposition; it is using the binary optic to view life. If binary vision is dangerous in journalism, I think inhumanity comes from such arbitrary classifications that ignores the many possibilities that humanity could enjoy, if we dare to accept each other's "eccentricities".

The very alignments that may make life less confusing will also imprison us to the limits of such prejudices. I call all groups to which we choose to belong: institutions. They are human creations based on a similar understanding as simple as following someone to adhering to a set of written statements. Even the role of father or mother, male or female are institutions defined by social norms and ingrained presumptions. Being a parent can be very fulfilling but this role is not all that a person can be, despite the miracle of birth and growing in children.

There are of course bad parents and broken families, though evil is not what comes to mind when we become a father or mother. While it is easy to say fascism is evil, or totalitarianism or some religion or a political party... may be good or evil depending on which side we belong, if this binary view of institutions is true, it would mean perfection once we get rid of the opposition: "them". We wish life would be like a Halloween movie where the evil entity can be destroyed so the hero ("us") can live happily ever after.

But despite that fascism lost the war 70 years ago, we are still dealing with fascist elements everywhere. We call them by different names but the evil we fear continues. 

Hong Kong got it's civil awakening last year in 78 days of occupation of 3 major roads. Many are now socially and politically galvanized, calling the opposing camp evil. Everywhere, religion, race, income, opportunity, politics, nationhood and even gender continue to separate humanity into unimportant definitions when compared to the potential to which we are born.

The common denominator in humans is to create institutions to define our place in society. These contrived groupings are useful when we remember they were made by us and not some absolute law of the land. We are free to change how we live and change the parameters that define our role in relation to others, thereby redefining institutions. 

But when what we made become the object of our desire, our protection, our life instead of discovering the mystery of our unlimited potential as the human race... Therein lies evil. To be defined by something other than humanity will yield injustice, oppression, war, bitterness, unforgiveness.

No wonder the word institutionalized is negative. Yet most live according to institutional values without thinking about what it really means to be human.