On Humanity

This is going to be the start of what will hopefully become a series, On ___. In this series, I will write essays on my views of weighty/abstract topics, though I do hope to avoid political discourse (it just isn’t fun). This is an attempt to write about topics that are more mature than the ones I typically address. Not that I don’t love fandom and stuff, but I want to cultivate my views on things that are not “high school topics”.
I am going to start this series with On Humanity, a topic I have been exploring in my creative writings for years. What is humanity? Where does it come from? What does it mean? Why is it so important?
Humanity derives from the Latin word humanitas, meaning literally ‘culture’. Humanitas was a way to distinguish Romans from barbarians, a way to make non-Romans less than human. Rome had culture, sophistication, nuance, society, humanity, in a way that the other peoples at the time did not. Or so the Romans thought.
So, from the beginnings of the word, having humanity naturally meant that there was another group who did not have it. The very existence of a name for this quality implies that there is a group of people without it. Humanity can only be recognized by an adjoining absence. The word humanity does not mean the presence of humanness, but rather that somewhere in the world there is an absence, and it is not here.
It is not here. It is never here. You might notice that the groups of people that invoke humanity the most are the ones who believe they have it. The people that ask you to use your humanity, to consider your humanity, to consider their humanity, these people often disregard humanity themselves. Humanity is the word they use as armor to protect themselves. They use an abstract quality as a protection from prosecution and fear when they often most need fear and prosecution.
Those who are seen as without humanity are often the abstract ‘other’ that people always invoke as an enemy. The ‘other’, the Romans’ barbarians, the Catholics’ Protestants, the Europeans’ Africans, the Pilgrims’ Native Americans, the WWII Americans’ Japanese, modern society’s Muslims. These people are not whole representations of people or races, but abstractions of incorrect ideas. The use of humanity as a device to shut out the ‘other’ is deeply flawed, not only in ideals but in practice.
The separation of peoples from each other prevents the kind of cross-communication that makes scientific conferences so valuable: the kind of communication that spreads ideas across borders, races, languages, and worldviews. There is a need, especially in today’s world to communicate effectively, and one of the first steps to this kind of communication is to do away with the concept of humanity. If its presence implies an absence, maybe we should stop acknowledging the presence at all, if only in order to stop acknowledging the perceived absence. The word humanity doesn’t mean anything now, just like humanitas did not mean anything to the Romans. It is just a way of making the ‘other’ into the ‘less-than’. And we don’t need that.
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Chorus of the Day!

You're the judge, Oh no

Set me free

You're the judge, Oh no

Set me free

I know my soul's freezing

Hell's hot for good reason

So please

I don't know if this song

Is a surrender or a revel

I don't know if this one

Is about me or the devil

Last Chorus of the Day:
Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na) by My Chemical Romance

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La! ~SCP