Two Types of People

There are many ways in which the world divides into two types of people. My most recent observation of the phenomenon is the difference between those who are aware of their surroundings and those who are not. You can find the latter type blocking two aisles simultaneously in the supermarket with a trolley whilst they search for something. Avoiding inconvenience to others is simply not on their agenda. Such a person will not register someone coming in the other direction until after they have looked at the view/tied their shoelace/finished their conversation.

One of the ways we now learn that the world does not consist of two types of people is in gender terms. We now understand the old male/female distinctions as being inadequate. There is spectrum, not a division. That said the world does divide into those who are prepared to grapple with the necessary learning and change in order to understand and try to use pronouns properly and those who stick with the old ways.

The danger, if that is the right word, is to identify all these two-nesses as right and wrong. That way lies divide and rule, the top line of the would-be dictator's play book. In this world anyone who says 'Hang on a moment, what about this minority who will suffer when you do that' is dismissed as woke. Or wokey-woke, the insult of choice now being used by the raving right round here. I felt the enemies of the loony left needed a name. And of course there are two kinds of people. Those who feel that woke is an insult and those who would gladly pick it up and wear it as a crown (that thought ⓒ West Wing Season 7 - presidential debate episode).

Our current UK Government is made up of two types of people - those who thought Brexit would be a good idea and those who didn't but were prepared to ignore that for a cabinet post. They are now discovering that more is needed from a government than to allow themselves to be used by Russia to destabilise Europe.

Me or you? Us or them? Maybe the world divides into two types of people - those who like dividing the world into two types of people and those who do not. Perhaps we should all be a bit slower to run to one side or the other.