3 - Humanism and culture: balancing particularity and universalism among the world's religions

Summary

I grew up as the product of global capitalism and the amazing diversity it has recently spawned in certain parts of the world. I spent my young boyhood in Flushing Queens, New York City, an area that has been radically transformed by the 1960s US immigration reforms. My friends were primarily recent refugees or the children of immigrants from a myriad of nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. My street boasted a Pakistani pizzeria, a Korean barbershop, a Dominican market; it was rare to see English-language signs or billboards in certain areas. I loved my neighborhood's different food and music, its many temples and traditions, languages, histories, and myths. Even more, I loved the fact that we, the children growing up in such a unique setting, formed boundary-transcending friendships so easily and harmoniously – most of the time.

Of course there were flare-ups; we were young boys. One of the worst involved a number of us from various backgrounds “overcoming” our differences for the unfortunate purpose of verbally harassing a Sikh classmate, Puneet, because of his dastaar, or turban. It was an obvious physical marker differentiating him from the rest of us, and I am ashamed to admit today that we had difficulty seeing beyond it, and used to give him a cruelly hard time about it. Fortunately Puneet's parents had the wisdom to encourage him to fight back, but not with fists.