Humanity - Lost Forever?

To be human scientifically means to be a Homo sapien. This is that a human is a being different from that of an animal or alien. However the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary also indicates that the there is something more than physically different to being human. It says that human means “1. Of or characteristic of a person…” and humane means  “1. Having what are considered the best qualities of mankind; kind, tender...” (883-884). These definitions show that we as humans believe there is something more to being human than being in a human form. Humans have the unique characteristic to risk their life to save another and to feel the need to improve their life and the life of others.

Art captures the world around us. Some artists say that the purpose of their art is to inspire and capture the little things in life that others overlook.  To be an artist one must aspire to capture human interactions, nature, or human creations. The quote “Our insistence on cognitive knowledge may have already have robbed us of some of our capacity of being human” from The Creative Impulse shows a humans overwhelming need to create and improve everything. To be a success in America today one must become wealthy through being the best. But as we improve ourselves and strive to be the best we lose sight of the meaning of being humane and through this how to be human. We still hear stories of people risking their lives for others and of people improving the world for everyone but these become headlines in the news which often seems to undermine the action the person did.

Actions have become more for show and fame than for the people the actions are helping. In the excitements and meaningless improvements in our lives we as a community lose the sense of community and our personal communications along with the emotion it creates. We now communicate primarily without logical left-brain as “speech gave the left brain the edge to usurp the sovereignty of the mind from its elder twin” (Shlain 16). We have taken the emotion out of communicating when it is not entertainment.

 In the government the officials must promise the public many things that they can never do in order to win people over through their emotions. This causes our emotions to become a stumbling point rather than an asset. The officials on the other hand need to have or show little emotion because to us an emotional candidate is a weak candidate. This does come from human nature as shown by Shlain in The Alphabet Versus the Goddess when he says “Although the male paid a price for his relative isolation from his right-brain emotions, he gained the ability to shut out feelings that might otherwise distract him…” (17). The protector male lacks in emotion in order to become better protectors but today this has become a means to become influential in politics.

In today’s society one of the few ways to reconnect with nature is to go on a vacation. Vacations are now becoming more like our society so less people are connecting with nature. The vacations that help one to connect with nature are those in the mountains, in the woods, or by water where there is no theme park and few night lights to be distracted by. We will never regain our full humanity if we continue to take away the true nature of vacations. When we take our electronics on a trip we remain closed off to true emotional communication. We also lose the objective behind a vacation and may feel farther away from humanity than we did before the vacation. Trips of mercy and community service are maybe one of the best ways to, even just for a little while, regain our full humanity.