WHO AM I?
“What does
it mean to be human?”
The capacity to speak about humanity and to see humanity as a topic reflected in public conversation has disappeared. We have a hole in our consciousness when it comes to thinking about our humanity.
If you are
incapable of having a conversation about what it means to be human, does that
make you inhuman? After all, one of the qualities which is essential for being
a human, is to talk to one another and tell stories. Humans are the only beings
which tell stories. The richest stories which have most meaning for us are
about what it means to be human.
Rarely do
the stories which are reported these days talk about how “news” affects someone’s
humanity. Parents never have a
conversation with their children, or one another, about their humanity. How our
humanity is being changed by actions reported in the press is what the news
shows never report. Humanity and the human question is the last thing that
politicians want to talk about. How to protect humanity is something which
cannot find its way into laws. How Corporate actions enhance our humanity
certainly is not on the Fortune 50 Board agendas.
Caring
for the humanity of customers is not discussed in sales meetings. The health of
the patient’s Humanity is not taught in medical schools. Is the Humanity of
students discussed enough in a majority
of high schools? Are Teachers held to a humanity proficiency scale?
Does
the military give Humanity training? Are elected officials ever elected because
they talk about and demonstrate their capacity for humanity?
WHY AM I HERE?
The reason
we don’t talk about our humanity is because we now have a gap in our thinking
and in our culture regarding humanity. We cannot think about how our humanity
is nurtured or sustained in the American culture today, because only very small
groups or individuals in our broader American culture today, pay any attention
at all to humanity. So, if our broader “sense of self” pays little or no
attention to our humanity – or actually works against it - then we have an
attention deficit regarding humanity.
Our view of
the human being is not based on general conversations about humanity or
understanding of what makes us human because in order to gain power and
control, the general view of the human have been reduced to viewing humanity
through specific lenses – genetics, behavioral psychological, physiological,
chemical / pharmaceutical, economic, culturally specific, dogmatically
religiously views, or others. All valid. All important. But the specificity has
left a gap in our thinking – our capacity to think about humanity is now a
negative or worse – laughed at.
We now do
not want to see our humanity or the humanity of each other because if we indeed
strove for this, we would have to treat one another differently. We would have
to give up our specialist thinking, our professional status, our positions of
power and control. If we treat one another as objects, if I am able to label
you, things are so much easier.
WHAT DO I WANT?
Is our public life so one-sided in our thinking that we are unable
to think about our humanity? I want Humanity to re-emerge in our public
thoughts. Because some of us have lost the ready, facile ways to think about
humanity – the generally human – let me put my 2-cents on the table.
Here are some basics of humanity: kindness, tenderness,
goodwill, sympathy, openness, modesty and benevolence?
We don’t see these much today discussed in our outer culture. What
has hardened the hearts of the outer culture and made these appear so rarely in
our public thoughts today?
Or, do the do-gooders simply do the good in the private
human-to-human culture without calling attention to themselves? This means, as
Vaclav Havel points out, we have a “parallel polis”. An official culture in which humanity is
disappeared and a human-based culture where humanity is alive and well – but silent.
I’m afraid the outer polis has Humanity Attention Deficit Disorder. If this continues, it will be catastrophic.
© Copyright 2015, Jean W. Yeager
All rights Reserved
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