"We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire and seduced by pleasure".

Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, no, 6

The word "baggage" has come to mean much beyond the traditional definition of luggage or that which is carried. In contemporary society, baggage has come to mean unwanted or detrimental accompaniments that people acquire during the course of their lives that hinder their mobility (upward or otherwise) and deter the progression of ideas because of their potential implications. Especially in an age of "political correctness" when it is forbidden to suggest anything that smacks of difference or uniqueness or separateness or, well, anything distinct or individual about any person or group of persons. And, in my eyes, we are all lessened by this irrational, artificial and self-defeating cautiousness.

For example, it is almost universally forbidden to talk about race and the distinctiveness of certain groups of people. And the sole reason for this attitude lies in the horrific history of civilization in which differences - actual or perceived - were used as excuses for perpetrating atrocities on the people labeled as "the others". From the scourges of the Christians by the Romans to the Catholic-led Holy Wars against the Moslems to the enslavement of Africans by the Europeans and Americans to the Holocaust of the Nazis, the history of man has been that of murder and enslavement since recorded time. The singling out of a group as being different and, by inference, "dangerous" to the status quo, has been used as excuse for those in power to unite majorities through the ages to wage war against any number of unique cultures and races.

Even when outright war was not fought, "the others" have been subjected, throughout the world, to oppression, prejudice and segregation for political or, simply, maintenance of the existing power structure. While America, the focal point of the world’s scrutiny since the early 20^th century, has famously been guilty of prejudice and suppression of black citizens, immigrants and Native Americans, she is not at all the only party to such injustices. The Chinese immigrant into Southeast Asia and East Africa, the Armenians in Turkey and the Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland have and, in some cases, continue to suffer the cruel yoke of systematic prejudice. To emphasize that racism and prejudice is not limited to any particular people, one need only review the past 40 years. The genocide of the Igbos in Nigeria, the Hutu in Rwanda and the present annihilation of the frontier tribes of Darfur by the ruling Moslems of the eastern Sudan give testament that the concept of "the other" need not be based on race. Stand the citizens of Darfur side by side with the heinous jinjaweed in the Sudan and you - even they - would be hard-pressed to pick out the lambs from the murderers. "The other" is a sociopolitical construct that is both artificial and, usually, conceived with the purpose of uniting a majority in times of national crisis. (Incidently, establishing a scapegoat in the person of "the other" can also divert attention of the citizenry from corruption, inept management and frank incompetence in the government, itself.)

It is human nature (there’s that phrase again) to perceive difference - or "non-identity" - with others in our daily lives. Whether it is at work or in our social activities or, even, when passively being entertained through any number of the available broadband mechanisms, most people constantly notice and are aware of the differences between themselves and other people. The strength of the drive to identify those like us and those not like us is immense, deeply encoded in our most primitive DNA and, regardless of how often we hear the phrase "I am not a racist!", to varying degrees and as I have proposed elsewhere, we all are. We identify with and have greater empathy for those who look, sound and act like we do. We are wary and have less sympathy with those who are perceived by us to be different. It was an essential and useful protective behavior in ancient times and, now, despite our best efforts, is too much a part of our "wiring" to overcome completely.

The unbiased, at times, cruel and unforgiving sword of human nature is double-edged. First, it allows us to have exposure to new cultures, new forms of dress and music, new languages and diverse ways of living - cultural diversity, if you will. Turning the sword over, we have an easy focus on which to blame our national problems, be they economic (unemployment, inflation, trade deficits and the like), social (drug abuse, declining morality, the ghettoization of neighborhoods. swelling welfare roles), declining educational standards (bastardization of the English language, lowering of standards for high school graduation and college admission) and national security (lax immigration protocols and the concomitant influx of potential terrorists). The social construct of "the other" has served generations in countries around the world to explain away and cast blame on all nature of cultural ills.

When examined from a scientific point of view, the concept of "the other" shrinks to insignificance. Humans share with all races and cultures 99.8% of the 100,000 or so genomes encoded on our DNA. [Interestingly, we are also 99.4% identical with chimpanzees, 95% identical with dogs and 70% genetically identical with the microscopic, primitive flatworm; it has been estimated that the 50 genomes that account for all of the variation of our DNA from chimps accounts for all the cognitive differences between man and beast.] What little actual structural variation there is - skin color, hair texture, eye shape and color, et cetera, are encompassed in that minute fraction of our DNA that is unique to each race and each person. And, yet, it is within this small variation that we attribute all the "baggage" that accompanies our personal conceptualization of "the other".

One thing is immediately clear: what tiny differences that exist between us from a genetic point of view are hardly enough to justify the crimes, passions and animosity we have hard-wired into our attitudes about "the others". Clearly, something else is at work. And that other variable is a simple one to name. To wit, we cling to our bias, prejudice and downright hatred of those we perceive as different for the most basic of human reasons: self-interest. We fear, despise, discriminate against and make every possible effort to suppress those "different" from us in order to hold onto our own self-esteem, our own power and buttress the status quo with which we are comfortable.

If a people speak differently from us, worship differently from us, live and eat differently from us or, simply, dress or wear their hair differently or enjoy music dissimilar from ours, then they are - often enough - perceived as "the others". That is to say nothing of whether their skin color, hair texture or the shape of the eyes vary from what we consider "like us". In truth, down to the most basic sub-microscopic level, there really are very insignificant physical differences between we, the Homo sapiens.

All this brings us to the story of the cichlid fish. In his book, The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond discusses the possible ways that man became the most unique member of the hominid family. Those points are beyond the scope of this discussion. He also, in making a related point, notes that the cichlid fish "differ among themselves as much as do tigers and cows. Some graze on algae, others catch other fish, and still others variously crush snails, feed on plankton, catch insects, nibble the scales off other fish or specialize in grabbing fish embryos from brooding mother fish." The relevant point? These variations in behavior are the result of infinitesimal genetic differences between the varieties of the cichlid - about 0.4% of their DNA studied. Thus, while virtually identical at their very core (their DNA), the cichlid fishes exhibit a range of behaviors as different as, well, humans who are also, at their core, "virtually identical".

From this, a number of things seem self-evident.

1. Animals - low (the cichlid fish) and high (Homo sapiens) - have minuscule differences within their species, but the behaviors within the species may vary enormously.

2. Small variants in individual genomes may combine to produce exponential variance in overt personalities (e.g. I.Q., problem-solving capabilities, work ethic, extroversion/introversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, et cetera) and other behaviors within Homo sapiens.

Thus, we have and have not a basis to establish the social construct of "the other". At the submicroscopic level - that of our DNA - we are (almost) as alike as siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Yet, at the same time, we are as different and, indeed, unique as strangers walking the streets of Calcutta, Bangkok, Hong Kong or Johannesburg. Pick any person walking the face of the earth and the building blocks of their body - the 100,000 genomes coded for in their 3 million of so nucleic acid pairs - will be 99.8% identical.

Yet, from those fractions of percent difference lies the genius of Mozart, Michelangelo, Beethoven, Di Vinci, Shakespeare and Einstein. In them also lies the murderous insanity of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and Saddam Hussein. We are all alike; we are all different. The only solution to this ageless conundrum - that we are all, at our core, virtually identical yet, at the same time, we are all "variations on a theme" - is tolerance. A human capacity so rare that it is vanishing with the speed of the polar icecap or qualified politicians, yet as essential to perpetuation of the species as air and water.

When we can recognize and come to appreciate (and not fear) the glorious diversity of our species and discard the fallacious, artificial and politically-expedient concept of "the other", only then can we approach the possibility of living together in peace.