Social Background and Friendship
Should our friends come from the same social background as we do? Currently, it is common to find people who do not want to relate to people with different social backgrounds. On the other hand, others try to be inclusive by involving all kinds of people in their lives. I think that every human being has the same value. This value should be considered before excluding people from being our friends.
Every human being is more important than what he does, owns, or knows. This statement is not a fantastical idea without any foundation and there are sources of information that confirm this statement. Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations) states that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. It is important to highlight that this article is outside the religious contexts. However, we can touch upon this point. Christians, Muslims and Jews usually think that the source of human dignity is divine. For example, the Catholic Church expresses that human life is sacred and all people have equal dignity that comes from God. It is interesting to notice how human dignity is not only related to a religious topic but also to a declaration which was proposed by representatives with different legal and cultural contexts from around the world. Since we have the same dignity, it is not a good idea to have only friends from one’s own social background. We have to be careful because the idea of equal dignity can be affected not only by misconceptions but also by different factors such as selfishness and material goods.
Selfishness has grown to such a great level that many people forget to treat people like people. They are more interested in achieving their goals than in helping others. Selfish people usually want to use a human being as an object in order to meet their needs. Their selfishness leads them to think that they are of more value than many people. Proof of this is in the fact that we treat according to appearance. If they are elegant and well dressed, we are nice to them. However, if their appearance is bad, we reject them. This treatment has to do also with money.
Money does not place real value on human life. It’s only a tool to reach certain material things. Actually, when this tool is regarded as the most important thing, we are not able to accept people from different social classes. What is more, we can even kill someone else in order to get money, which is something we see all too often today. For example, in Mexico, drug dealers have killed thousands in order to obtain more power and money through drug dealing.
In my opinion, although it can be a rich experience to have friends who come from the same social background as we do, we need to have friends who are not of the same social, ethnic, religious or geographical background to learn from them and to make us more human. The less exclusive we are, the closer we are to real friendship. Finally, I believe that if you find real friendship, you are truly rich.
Works Cited
United Nations. 6 Feb. 2016 < http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights>.
