I HAVE

Here's a little ditty I wrote freshman year of college about the book A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Reading it now, I have no idea what I meant, but maybe you guys can make some sense of it. I made a point not to proof it before hand, because I'm assuming the odd punctation and word choice had the upmost significance at the time. So without further ado:

The American Perception is greatly altered, transpired by the philosophies of an American youth. Freedom drives company establishments. But freedom, the false pretense, drives greed, hatred and stereotypes. It’s funny how our established position influences our beliefs on various insignificant issues. Such can be said about the world.

However, other cultures offer variant views, or extinctions if you will, of the same basic human evolutionary need. Now of course that means we make more out of it than it really is. We add it emotion, we add it humanity: because without the brotherhood we see no other real purpose for life. It is the need for brotherhood that drives nations to power, yet soon after attained, they begin to deteriorate: as is the case in America.

This is why we see humanity more in subcultures. Microcosms bring everything closer together, as is their definition nature. This is why America is commonly stereotyped as segregated. So many subcultures form bonds, not destructing overall cultural bonds, but strengthening themselves to a point that they lie more noticed than the overall social acceptability. It’s not that Americans have lost out sense of togetherness, it’s just that we are focusing on separating ourselves.

This social tendency is interesting in the fact that it seems to reach across vast differences in cultural paradigms. Something powerful can be said about such observations. Insight on this particular issue could reveal the very veins of humanity, possibly providing foundation for strong, charitable hope. Though it may seem quixotic, it has been demonstrated. Ishmael Beah stands as living proof to that.

Living in Sierra Leone is not like living in most other places in the world. What would be a communal, patriarchal place has morphed in to something completely different. Page 16 of Beah’s memoir gives a strong indication as to what Sierra Leonean culture would be like if not manipulated by war. Conflict amplifies some human tendencies, and diminishes others. Cultures stricken with large groups of parasympathetic “survivors” cannot possibly parallel to more affluent areas of the world. We as Americans can only empathize with the very basic extensions of their humanity, not the parts created by the evils of war.