the Humanist view

Can we truly detach who we are from our experiences?

Can we truly neglect the impact of who we are on our experiences?

Certainly not, as is clearly implied in todays daily writing prompt: “do you thin we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?”

From a cultural anthropological perspective, I think both equally shape us.

Case in point, if our experiences shaped us more, my homeland, would not be were we are now, particularly so in our justice, law and order sector.

Our past experience as a nation state, informed the framing and promulgation of our 1995 Constitution.

Shockingly, the very generation that promulgated our 1995 Constitution are the same ones who amended it to remove all the safeguards it had, intended to avoid our nation experiencing the unfavorable status quo of our past.

And so, my generation, Gen X, dreamed that decades since our motherland attained self-government, our nation would experience peaceful transition of executive power, for the very first time in our lifetime.

Sadly, there is every indication that we still have a long wait to go, if it ever comes in our lifetime.

As a nation we have not yet reached the ideal of “feeling each others’ pain,” you see. Our hypocrisy acceptance and tolerance index is high.

Certainly, who you are in our nation shapes your experience. And this unfortunate truth often blinds many to act unjustly when they are in power.

Interestingly, when they are no longer in power, they will be the same one to cry victim, when the same treatment they meted out on others while they were in power is applied with them on the receiving end.

For more taste on hypocrisy at its best in my homeland, I invite you to CLICK HERE and read “Refusal of male partner responsibility for pregnancy.”