Is there a chance that a single defining moment can bring us all together? Would contact with an alien species be enough to fully unite humanity once and for all? Would it cause all of us to put aside our differences and bitter disagreements and come together as one?
Here is what I believe
Humans have a single culture and this culture has many various sub-cultures with many different variations depending on where we live, how we were brought up, and influenced by the people and events in our lives. As humans, we associate ourselves with whatever closely matches or benefits the sub culture we live our lives by. I think this separation ultimately holds us back from truly becoming a unified species. We are in essence, a threat to ourselves.
In the US, aside from cultural differences between other countries and politics, race has always been a topic of controversy and discussion. Even though the world is a lot better place today then it was, incidents regarding race have constantly come up as a driving point for conflicts.
As a human being and a citizen of the world, I believe that if one day, we were to discover an alien species, not necessarily be attacked by one, but just locate and identify one. It would peak our interest as a species, but not necessarily unify us. It would ignite our passion and curiosity to work together to learn more and advance our study of the species, but would not extinguish our differences.
Bill Clinton himself said "It may be the only way to unite this increasingly divided world of ours … think about all the differences among people of Earth would seem small if we feel threatened by a space invader." Ronald Reagan made a similar comment where he said “I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside of this world.” This however, is assuming we were attacked though, by an alien race. In my belief an incident such as this would only unite us temporarily. We would come together to eliminate a single threat to our existence, but if we were to rise above and defeat them, we ourselves would eventually divide again and focus on that which benefits us individually.
This is not to say that unity among our people doesn't exist or won't happen at all. Everyday there are amazing examples of humanities ability to unite. Pockets of us, such as myself, cherish the idea of a unified world. The Steemit community is an example itself of this belief. We as a whole, have a unified outlook and support each other across borders, religions, beliefs, and cultures - This makes me believe it could happen one day.
I look forward to the day where we don't designate ourselves by the color of our skin, the flag that we live under, or the religion we believe in. Black, white, yellow, or brown we are all the same inside - we are all human.
Please let me know what you think in the comments below
Most likely it won't. humans will unite with the aliens to fight other humans.
That's sad. I was hoping for the scenario more like "Independence Day". I'd think @cloh76 will have seen that too but I've not watch the 2nd movie.
Yup like in Independence Day, however it only led to more advances and people were still not fully united afterwards - small spoiler. The 1st movie was better then the 2nd.
I haven't watched it either
@billykeed - I fear you are right!
The necessity to survive - this is what unites humans. Perhaps, I'm too optimistic, but I think an independent and mixed colony on another planet will give us a united human society. And religions must be strictly prohibited there.
I think humans would identify as being human rather than alien but we would still divide ourselves along arbitrary divisions like skin colour, religion or language. Much as citizens different countries identify as citizens of that nation as part of their hierarchy of self-identification, yet still further subdivide themselves in groups within the country. The discovery of aliens would merely add another level of identification.
An example of such a hierarchy as it moves from larger more general to smaller more specific (not all inclusive nor strictly linear):
Country-province-city-neighbourhood-family-individual.
Just add "Human" to the start of the list.
I think that as the former American Presidents in your post stated it would need to be an attack on all humans because they are human in order to erase all of our 'differences'.
Though how I do so wish, we could all just live as one human species.
Yes, John Lennon's "Imagine" is a great song.
Great article.