Ants. Little tiny insects known for being hard workers, co-living in colonies, and most likely to organize themselves in a monarchy. A social organization that, as far as it might be from how most human societies systematize themselves today; as humans, we feel the same pressure and stress for productivity. We aim to work for something even bigger than ourselves. Perhaps not for a Queen (or several of them), but to eternalize a gear-like system: the productivity chain.
We too feel the burden of having to work hard to fit in. To be able to buy food or feed our children, to get some stock. To pay rent and inevitable bills. We are forced to produce to live, often leaving behind those who aren't able to, or that have shown to produce less. Produce, produce, produce. Produce or die, just like little ants.
We all are little ants in a wide and immense productivity gear. As those little insects, we fear being left behind. But as we know, this only happens when we aren't able to fulfill what's expected from us. And in order to identify who's worth it, labels come. As if it is human nature to name things: "lazy people", "homeless", "idle", "crazy", "disabled"... We point out the difference as if labeling was something likewise innate. And in our way, we forget that our configuration is diverse. We always did. Why does the 'normal' entail such hard standards?
The productivity terminology encodes not only getting things done but doing them at all costs. When in an ant colony one of the workers dies, it is commonly considered to be for a "Greater Good". For the survival of their society. One death for productivity. Just like when we strip off entire families of their houses because they simply couldn't keep up with what was expected of them on the scale of productivity. Because regardless they had a job or not, they didn't manage to make enough money to pay rent or bills. So, in the landlord mindset, we replace the un-productive with someone who can produce. Someone who makes more. Someone who will give us more. One small sacrifice for the common good, right?
In ancient times, women were not part of what we called "public life" because they were considered to have fewer capacities than men to work, think and discuss. The main excuse was productivity: they worked 'better' in the kitchen than in offices. Or that's what they thought. White supremacy also titled black people as less, daring to enslave and massacre millions. Colonialist societies (because colonization is another similitude we have with ants) thought those who looked different also had different capacities, which entitled them to rob and rape all communities encountered in expedition. And when the de-colonial feminist and anti-racist revolutions finally came at a glimpse, there was a gap left for all these roles historically assigned as socially less.
People from the LGTBQA+ community came first, but as the revolution added the rainbow flag, the burden fell on neurodiverse and functionally diverse people. Because in order for our social engine to work, there's always the quest for power. And as modernity claimed, power was being able to produce and reproduce. The more one was able to do, the greater its power was.
The pursuit of perfection has always been our goal. As ants do, we created an impossible-to-reach model that defines what a proper and good human being should be like. And in this process, we classified all differences as our enemies. At first, it was science that told us so: those with "good genetics", able to produce, would also be able to procreate.
For a long time in our history, the restriction of reproduction among certain groups of people, particularly amongst people historically considered feeble-minded and disabled, was the norm. These were the so-called eugenics programs, where "race, gender, class, language, ability, character, and intelligence were major factors that determined whether an individual might or not, be subjected to sexual sterilization" –as the Eugenics Archive explains.
With eugenics, science moved faster than human moral. And the same thing happened when we configurated production markets or the capitalistic system. And as time passed by, within the pressure to survive, and the burden to keep up with what was expected from us, we forgot to polish our engine. In this fast-spinning world where productivity is a must, we forgot to take care our ourselves and our mental health. We forgot to put love in the first place. And upon here relies our biggest problem, dear reader, because, unlike ants, love is our engine.
The impact of this unequal distribution of productivity and the imperative work on our mental health and our perception of self is way wider than we ever thought. Not for any reason, specialists are already naming it a 'mental health pandemic'. If you are one of the vast majority of people who battled at some point for wellbeing, you probably strumbled your life out between hard and unprecedented feelings, all while trying to pass unnoticed. Because when the struggle is hidden, normality becomes the new tag, and within, diversity is erased.
If you are one of the few lucky ones that never had issues with mental health, you probably never even had to bother into playing it safe (or also, you're presumably a monk). But if you're in of the extended majority of humans trying to preserve what we call sanity, you may also feel identified with ants. Not only because of the burden of the work-hard-to-live motto, but also to become part of something. To fit in. To perform normality. To fight for the "Greater Good", as everyone else does, despite the consequences. Despite forgetting diversity in our way. Despite the lack of love and care, and the obvious detriment to mental health.
Ants work without love or care for mental health or diversity. That's why they don't mind losing some lives behind or suddenly starting territorial wars to exterminate their enemies. Thousands of years of war and social conflict brought us to misery and despair, yet we still didn't figure out how to put life in the center. Why isn't every living being on Earth as valuable and equal? Why does it seem so much easier to step on top of a little ant to finish its life with the excuse we found it crossing our kitchen floor? Because we resent, these tiny six-foot insects don't fight with our biggest struggle: the lack of love and the detriment of mental health.
You'd probably disagree with me if you are well aware of social movements fighting for equality all around the globe. Of course, ants can't plan strikes, and if they only have one Queen, they will probably never chop off her head to start a proletarian revolution. And on the other hand, we encounter the paradox of tolerance: should intolerance be tolerated too?
In today's society, especially in those considered as 'developed' and 'progressive'; we "could" say feminism and anti-racism (as well as anti-capacitism and other social fights) are taking their place in the social gear, and so, transforming our beliefs and culture systems. But even if feminism or antiracism is, indeed, being added to modern policies, politics, and discourses, inequality is still, the main cause for today's social fight.
Now, how do we fight inequality in a system that perpetuates it? Not a single revolution has ever grown within the system, but rather, all of them aimed to change the status quo. However big the transformation needed is, even if we are well aware of it, there is a generalized reticence to change anything at all. Because power is addictive, and in order to preserve order in a chaotic world, labels are still needed.
What we can (and must) do is change the way we look at each other. Transform the way we speak about each other to jointly evolve. We are worthless as individuals, just like ants. But we have proven that, when cooperating and working alongside, we can do enormous things.
Words change as reality does. Sometimes it implies a change of meaning, other times the word simply changes to assign the same concept. But modifying words doesn't make a real difference, rather, language evolution answers to a change of mentality and worldview. That means that we change our words to change our way of perceiving reality; our will to express it differently; our desire to contribute to an evolutive and transformative mentality change that conceives diversity, love, and care in the first place.
A change of words, then, implies a change of meaning. And in this fast-spinning world, where productivity, power, and insecurity rule, a shift of meaning is precisely what's needed. Rather than this eternal –and impossible– seek of perfection, we should aim for the acceptance of innate variety. Cause, what is more natural than diversity? As ants come in all shapes and colors –yes, you dumbhead, there are bigger and smaller ants, black, brown, red…– so does human capacity (and appearance).
Being like little ants worked for us –badly, but it kinda did–, leading us to where we are today: a "progressed and developed society". However, there is no place for intolerance anymore. If we claim to be these superior beings amongst all animal kingdoms, why don't we try to show it off, like we are so used to doing with so many other things? Life is in itself a gift, and in order to recognize it, the acknowledgment of diversity and all differences is, and will always be, imperative.
This article was illustrated by Graphic Storyteller Gil Bosmans.
Go check his incredible work on Instagram @gil.bosmans
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