The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #106840   Message #2211608
Posted By: folk1e
08-Dec-07 - 07:21 PM
Thread Name: BS: How strong is your humanity
Subject: RE: BS: How strong is your humanity
The obvious answer is that my humanity is very strong ..... it, however may not agree exactly with what the general perception of humanity is!
Humanity is not simply being altruistic (admirable as that may seem), nor is it being wholy individualistic. The truth as is usual lies somewhere in-between!
Until recently we have had a major war every generation, with the result that the survivors have a healthy aversion to war in general, and to war with their involvement in particular. More recently the advent of modern media allows us to experience some of the effects of war, pestilence, fammine etc without having any personal involvement in it. This has the effect of de-sensitising us to the otherwise shocking events we see daily. How many care about some african civil war that does not affect us directly? If , on the other hand, it is a local shooting where we know eather the people involved, or the place, we are very interested!
There is also a marked difference between actions taken by an individual on his own and one in a (large ) group.
Humanity is red in tooth and claw, and is also capable of completely selfless acts. This is one of the things that make us so interesting!