Humanity, and Striving Towards a Lack Thereof

Photo by Stephen Leonardi on Unsplash

“We are not reliable.”

A friend of mine recently exploded in indignation and fury, pointing out that despite high levels of intelligence, sometimes there were those of us who could be brought down by a bout of depression at any time. She felt that judging us on the basis of the good work we did when we were able was unfair, that expecting us to continue that level of work at all times was unfair.

“We need to stop placing pressure on everyone to be productive, regardless of their health and social situation.” – A heavily paraphrased, anonymous quote I remember seeing online.

That is an essential expectation of our capitalistic system – that everyone earn their own keep. That one is only entitled to what one ‘earns.’ Of course, this concept grows problematic the more one stares at it, regardless of which social class is under scrutiny. When taken as a whole, it is easily noted that each class above benefits, in proportional degrees, from the disadvantages of the class or classes below it. It can perhaps be argued that the higher one goes up the capitalistic ladder, the less deserving one becomes of one’s progressively increasing mountain of wealth and privilege. Directing the burden of deservedness towards the progressively more disadvantaged lower classes is only one of the many, many ways in which we, as a society, maintain the illusions of capitalism. One of the many ways in which the capitalist society proves itself a form of systematic and institutionalised violence.

This is perhaps the juncture where some would chime in to demand an alternative from me. (Why, yes, I’m thinking of a particular person and a particular set of arguments, but they are hardly unique in their point of view.)

I’m not here to provide an alternative – I don’t have one yet. I assure you, the day I do come up with the one, you will be the first to know.

One of the more interesting conversations I had on Tinder recently was, sadly enough, with an Ayn Rand loving “libertarian.” Perhaps he didn’t claim that title for himself. Perhaps that’s just me, projecting someone else onto him. “I care about my family, my friends,” he said proudly. That was the rationale he gave for not caring about systemic social ills on a wider perspective.

I pointed out to him that unless he had a very strange group of family and friends, that collective would certainly include among its members women, queer people, economically disadvantaged people and people dealing with mental and physical ailments. His essential philosophy was flawed and conflicted – it would appear that he cared only about those members of his friends and family who were cis-het, able bodied and economically well off men.

I do not think I convinced him – our conversation veered off on a tangent, with his attempting to convince me to read a book I was already reading, assuming that that book would somehow cure me of my social justice warrior tendencies. I assured him that so far I had found nothing in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind that negated my beliefs. I found it to be a very cogent, very interesting read, but so far it has done a terrible job of excusing the bigotry of privileged men. (The book doesn’t even bring such matters up so far – the only use I have for it is when debating hopeless Creationists and alien conspiracy theorists).  

I have, of late, taken to demanding that we exchange the conventional definitions of the concepts of “humanity” and “lack of humanity.” I believe we are wrong when we hold up the notion of “humanity” to refer to ethical, empathetic and compassionate behaviour. It is the nature of human beings to be brutish, self serving and cruel. Anything above and beyond that is something inhuman, a potential greater than the abilities of the human race. From this perspective, the world suddenly makes a lot more sense to me. Capitalism makes sense to me. The perverted forms in which we continue our pursuit of eugenics make sense to me.

Darwin propounded survival of the fittest, but I have a sneaking suspicion that we, as a species, are subverting that process. Our actions speak of short term survival, but in the long term the qualities we cultivate and propagate are the ones that will, quite possibly, ensure the extinction of the human species. Sapiens provides an excellent explanation for this – one which boils down to insecurity and overcompensation. It is often noticed that weaker organisms are the ones more likely to engage in unnecessary violence, precisely because they occupy a precarious position they fear can easily be taken away from them. Humans were, the book argues, somewhere in the middle of the food chain up until the recent past, and our unusually swift rise to the top of it has left us insecure, willing to be as cruel as is necessary to keep hold of our (arguably) ill-gotten gains.

What am I trying to argue for here? Inhumanity, I would say, As long as we are going to be subverting survival of the fittest and natural selection, let us at least do so in pursuit of admirably inhuman ideals. Let us at least allow ourselves to be compassionate. Let us, at least, provide recognition of the right to exist for every member of our species. Our species has come up with healthcare and technology that would have been unimaginable such a short historical while ago - back when our ancestors were middling along on the food chain. Let us put all of that to the use of our fellow humans. All of our fellow humans.

For if we have the cognitive abilities to think things through to this point, then let us at least live up to that potential we all carry - for being something more than human.