Well, hello. The question "what constitutes a human being?" is not new and certainly not surprising. I have recently enjoyed a very good movie - "Life is beautiful" which made me rethink on the importance of the word "human".
For those of you who haven't seen the movie, I strongly recommend to fix that mistake, and I'll give a brief summary on it. It's a movie about a Jewish man in Italy during Mussolini period. His
liveliness, the happiness he brings to people around him, how he saves his little son's life are truly noble qualities. A wonderful person - loving, caring, funny, never bored, why did he die that awful death?!
Why did millions of people die? Why did no one move a finger to stop it, only too late?! Why do we not care about anything until it somehow touches our life? However, I do not want to devote this "essay" to racism and fascism. I want to devote this page to a discussion of what qualities make us human and what make us monsters.
Being able to talk, hear and see - ie, communicate- doesn't automatically make you human! Any higher life form communicates and eats and survives.
Human, hence the word humanity, does not mean our physical qualities and achievements, although, it does include them.
It is just hard to understand how things, so obvious and simple, could be NOT understood?! Of course, it's the way a person's brought up, what kind of values system he/she has, and events that happened in his/her life that determine how one percepts the world around him. For example, for me it's not even a question if I should be descent to other people or not. It's
what I take for granted, that I have to be descent to other people. It's an axiom which does not require proof or explanation to me. Believe it or not (depending on your experience with people), there are people to whom this is not a fact! They don't realize why should they be descent? How do you explain to someone why they shouldn't be cruel and rude and unjust and what not???
I guess the question here is, do you realize who you are? What are your faults, and do you want to be a better man? And if yes, are you willing to do something about it or are you just going to want to change?
Of course, this is not solid science, and a concept of humanity is a stretchy one, but ask yourself: is feeding your offspring and making love to your spouse making you human? Because animals do that too.
Does having friends make you human? Animals too have friends...
So what moral and ethical qualities make us human?
Is it kindness and fairness? Is it helping others and charity?
Or is it just doing good deeds as the bible says? However, "good deeds" is also a concept requiring definition. Good by whose definition, or by your society, or your God? Whose? And whose matters most?
Anyhow, while this is all good and true.
You are the best judge of yourself. You can run from consequinces and you can run from society, but you cannot run from yourself. Being able to face yourself with no quilt is a starst.
Just wanted to recap about the movie again: I believe that this is one of the best films I've seen in my life, and I've seen a couple terrific movies;)
So, please watch it, and next issue I am going to talk about Judaism and the Holocaust.
Thank you and if you have any comments or questions, feel free to email me or post your messages on the forum.