Everything you hear, read, watch or experience from another human being has been designed by them in the shape that they want you to perceive it. According to Tad Waddington in The Lasting Contribution, this is one of the meanings of the word 'inform', which is, to give form.
Language is a formatter. Experiences are formatter. Fields of study are formatter. Each formatter creates an attitude, a perspective, an opinion, a bias because each one of them were created, mandated and sustained by people who think a specific way.
Therefore, the study of culture, just like linguistics, psychology, sociology, anthropology, design, education, politics, history, religion, are all studies into how human beings are formatted and how to control the processes.
What is bad, what is good and what is in between them are all formats from other people.
In the Arabic language, the sun is female and the moon is male while in French, the moon is female and the sun is male. In China, red is the colour of prosperity, but in America, it denotes danger.
In 2018, the awareness that we are being formatted every single day is becoming more and more important. Even neutrality is a format because the line moves depending on what you believe. There can never be true neutrality.
Even the fact that the formatting no longer needs to be true and that fake news is now just another perspective instead of being factual should shake us to our very core.
Thus, today it is more critical for me to investigate why I believe what I believe. To decide what is true based on that investigation and live in integrity with what I've accepted.
We will all disagree on something, and that is what we individually believe and accept. I pray we still love each other regardless.
