People are so much more than cogs

[rpearce]

"I point out to you […] a lesson learned from past over-machined societies which you appear not to have learned. The devices themselves condition the users to employ each other the way they employ machines."

— Leto II, God Emperor of Dune

I'm re-reading the Dune series for the nth time, and this time, I'm doing it with a group via the excellent Gom Jabbar podcast. There are some seriously problematic themes in God Emperor of Dune, but the quote above has stuck with me for weeks and has illuminated life for me in a way I haven't experienced in years.

This quote helped me wrap my head around ways we might inadvertantly dehumanize one another by assigning those around us rigid roles in the context of our daily lives and businesses. Like removing extra dough around a cookie cutter baking shape, we may discard from others that wealth of life and creativity that makes us human, leaving behind only the shapes we expect to see, and this limits and devalues ourselves and everyone around us.

Machines are everywhere and, depending on where you live, are involved in nearly everything we do. We give them commands, and they do something. When a part is broken, we replace that part. When they no longer suit our needs or are broken enough, we discard them. If we are exposed to this thinking every day for most of our lives, how does that affect how we treat and interact with people around us? Through force of habit, do we unintentionally treat others similarly to how we treat machines? Have we always done this, but our current technology makes this more ingrained since it is all-engrossing and demands our constant attention?

Much could be written on this subject, but let's keep this short.

The next time you find yourself eliminating someone's "role" at work and laying them off, ignoring someone bagging your groceries, growing impatient with your music teacher's stories, or disregarding someone's ideas because of their station, try to stop and remember that the person before you is a vibrant, autonomous, wonderful being that brings their entire lifetime of valuable experiences before you and exists far outside the box you and/or society might have put them in.