Thursday, August 23, 2012

Perils of Humanity


Recent Picture of Humanity

Humanity is a special feature qualifying someone as human. Humanity is not anything far away from mankind, it is what within them. The definition of humanity given in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is: “Human beings collectively; the human race; people or being humane; kind-heartedness” (Hornby 608). So, this definition emphasizes on the collectiveness of becoming human or becoming mankind. It also envisions 'humans' as merciful creatures that kind-heartedness is the characteristics trait of human beings which most of the animals lack. According to the Dictionary of Philosophy humanity is, “The quality of being human or the quality of being humane, kindness, benevolence; beneficence” (Mautner194). So, humanity embodies  the underlying features that meet the requirements as human. Probably, it may focus and differentiate human with animals available in our surrounding. Humans characterize themselves with politeness, sympathy, love and affection that are called human virtues. Obviously, this definition could term human as somebody with a loving heart, and who is full of virtues.  Lacking the demon and animalistic instinct is another quality of human.
A clearly distinguishing feature that separates humans from other species is their orientation to others. It means humans necessarily do not live for them rather they live for others where humanity echoes. People like Buddha, Socrates  have compassion, tenderness and feelings for others. Their sharing and caring nature pushes the cycle of the mankind world wheels ahead. It means humans are philanthropic in their life activities. In this regard, we can say that living for others is humanity. Living in its own is not humanity, it’s mere animality which portrays the present picture of humanity in the entire world. It is a theoretical glass on humanity. In this essay, I will try to explain the present situation of humanity, its diverse understanding and practice in the life of today’s man.  
What is the real face of humanity then? Let us pragmatically goggle at the changing face  of humanity in Nepal and throughout the world. Humanity is to appreciate love, affection and support. There is a drastic change in the practice and understanding of humanity. It seems to go with the life of crises and woes, pains and problems. For example, some people of Nepal are categorized as untouchables and are not allowed to enter the house of so called upper caste people. People forget the sense of respect and honour. They are money minded and too much materialistic. They turn to be hallow and empty-headed. Is it humanity?  With massive influence of materialistic and individualistic mode of lifestyle, people are turning to be heartless. They have enough food but they do not want to distribute to the poor. Thus, cruelty is ruling over them. How much pathetic juncture humanity has moved through?
In the name of humanity, bad attitudes like cruelty, disloyalty, injustice, falsity are dominating human beings. Human beings are found to be killers, murderers, and criminals which never suit them. This reflects the lack of values, better culture with sense of responsibility and discipline in life. As a result, humanity is going through trauma and troublesome, ignorance and ineducation, disease and depression, storms and stress. In this way, struggling with deprivations humanity transfers vices and bad attitudes to the upcoming generation.
Generations and generations will suffer as humanity shifts its genuine ground and woefully departs  from us. Looking at present scenario, to be human is to have no sympathy and kindness in people. It is all negative for the progress and prosperity of human development. The time defines humanity is to be more self-centered, self-seeking, egoistic, ego-centric, individualistic, unhelpful, unsympathetic and so on. Can humanity get regarded then? Insanity humanity embodies is: war. Paradoxically, humanity is war creator, a violent raiser. It is generating the clashes and conflicts, confrontation and riots. It is how no peace is felt neither in the North and no humanity is safe in South, the complete West is wasting its time and money in wars  and no any pacifism practiced in the East. In the name of First world and Third world we are fighting within ourselves. We are further fighting in the name of superiority and inferiority, religion and race, modernization and industrialization, ideology and politics
The road to humanity is hazy, where humanity means wrong-doing, it means to involve in arson, to vandalize the public properties and become the miscreants. Day by day we are adding new adjectives to refer to humanity.  Furthermore now in reality, humanity means full of injustice, inequalities, malpractices, horrors, deep anxiety, political oppression, suppression, lack of values, culture, feelings, social disintegration, sentiments, etc. The problem may have come as “ ...that humanity is not an object. It is nothing but a fiction” (53 Tolstoy). Maybe people are not that much aware about the degrading state of humanity because they could not notice any significant changes with the ever lowering rung of humanity.
The emerging dimension of humanity is non-law abiding nature in humans which is also an anarchical condition. To some extent, the present state of humanity is something like the total absence of humanity where nobody regards nobody, just take an instance of father and son. So degradingly, humanity is to have and get a non-justifiable practice that leads the whole world as the hell. Inferring on the down-fall of humanity, Gandhi claims “The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice”  (Gandhi 2). Gandhi could have thought that there is not a proper balance maintained between science and humanity. One thing greatly visible is: human progress has given unnecessarily importance to science and scientific innovations even taking humanity at risk. In Gandhian view, political leaders without principles, money making tendency through any means, are liable for the bitter picture of humanity, a few to indicate.  So, it is the consequence: the degrading state of humanity.
As a recent form of humanity, war comes itself as a killer. Either religious, political, cultural or social wars or wars such as national, international, local whatever sort of do nothing good to nobody. Only the benefit goes to arms and ammunition factories of developed countries. Thus, wars causing a huge number of deaths and massive loss of property should be stopped soon to keep the further road of humanity intact. Philosophers like Kant claims, it is only possible if humanity is treated as “kingdom of ends.” They believe humanity as a supreme goal for everyone lifting ourselves from excessive nationalism, extreme self-centeredness, self-seeking behaviour, egoistic nature, ego-centric individualism, unhelpful, heartless or unsympathetic tendency.  
Helen Keller’s following lines matter a lot to us which  are not mere suggestive in tone but also picturizes the war raged society: Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. ... Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction (Keller 5).
Helen probably wants change in the presence of absence and absence of presence. She requests and calls us humbly for standing ourselves against wars, murders, preparedness and a destructive agent. Every human should be derived by the spirit of preserving the seed of humanity. It can be done  changing ourselves the army of construction.
Those humans who involve in war or violence (war supremo or violence maestro) should not forget the fact that it benefits no one. The history is a witness of ancient wars in between Greeks and Trojans, the World War I and II that had proved the futility of war. Whoever is declared to be the winner or losers, no winner is a real winner but he loses instead. War victors never win the heart of people whose family members have been killed. Do we want to invite and enjoy or discard the terrible war in human form? It is an option for all we humans either you follow Buddha or a bomb. Let us direct ourselves for the welfare of humanity, “The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity by contributing to the establishment of the kingdom of God, which can only be done by the recognition and profession of the truth by every man” (Tolstoy 173-74). It is everyone’s responsibility to establish the city of God considering the humanity as the kingdom of ends.
Humanity though defined differently by different philosophers and scholars as having competency, courage, generosity, decency and humane qualities. Unfortunately, the mankind has forgotten the virtues and learnt the qualities of other extremes that have defamed greatness of so called civilized humanity. Presently, humanity is changing its focus and locus and turning to be worse and worse. But we should not forget Einstein saying, we cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings. Thus, we must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty as optimistically Gandhi maintains.
Works  Cited
Famous Quotes of Gandhi. Web July 26. <http://www.snvoakland.org/gandhiquotes.pdf>.
Hornby, A. S. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Ed. A. P. Cowie. New York, Calcutta:  
            Oxford University Press. 1989.
Keller, Helen. Strike Against War. New York. Jan. 5, 1916. Web July 27.
<http://thespeechsite.com/en/famous/HelenKeller-1.pdf>.
Mautner, Thomas. A Dictionary of Philosophy. Blackwell Publishers Inc. Cambridge and  
Massachusetts, 2004. 
Tolstoy, Leo. The Kingdom of God is within You. Web July 28.
<http://aren.org/prison/documents/religion/Misc/The%20Kingdom%20of%20God%20is%20Within%20You--Tolstoy.pdf>.

No comments:

Post a Comment