It seems to me that most misunderstandings have their roots in broad brushes.
I wonder what would happen if we replaced the broad brush with a toothpick. What if, instead of assuming that those who are different from us are also somehow all the same, we simply left it at different?
To be sure, the assumption that everyone and everything is different brings us much closer to the truth than the assumption of sameness. It also makes for a richer, much more interesting life. And a more peaceful one, too.
In such thinking, "us and them" is replaced with "you and me" or, simply, "us."
No more "them," whoever they were.
By acknowledging the uniqueness of others, we begin to pay more attention to them. Suddenly, the tiny details become great mysteries slowly unfolding before our eyes. We begin relishing the differences, taken aback by the richness of life, rather than made hard by our obsession with sameness.
Such thinking would wreak havoc on today's political system. How do we rally people if there is no more "us and them?" Most organized religions would be rattled by it, as well, having succumbed long ago to the human inclination to build up walls, however reverently they may have been assembled.
I know my own thinking and way of being would be jolted by such a radical notion. But I also know that I am capable of learning and changing.
The odd thing about acknowledging that everything and everyone is different is that it has a funny way of bringing us all together. In many ways, I think today's teens have a much better grasp on this than us old fogies do. Their worlds seem to have no edges at all, wiped out by the borderless wonders of technology and the victories of old battles still won. Women vote. Duh. Blacks are citizens. Duh. Gays can marry in some states. Duh.
We're all different. Duh.
It's not much of a motto, but I think it's a worthwhile starting place.
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Marlo Thomas, sing it!
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