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
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 God
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
<http://thespeechsite.com/en/famous/HelenKeller-1.pdf>.
Mautner, Thomas. A Dictionary
of Philosophy. Blackwell Publishers Inc. Cambridge
Tolstoy, Leo. The Kingdom of God
<http://aren.org/prison/documents/religion/Misc/The%20Kingdom%20of%20God%20is%20Within%20You--Tolstoy.pdf>.
