Definition of "MAN" is very important to an society. With a clear idea, then easy to every one: to be a man, and treat the others like human being.
A tree lays on its side cracked at its trunk.
It lays on top of another tree, also cracked at its trunk.
Sideways to the world.
A fence between us.
This is not the story of wind. But of suffering honestly, and laying it down.
There is a landing strip to my right.
A golf club to my left, tossed over the fence, lays in wet land.
A red tipped black bird is perched on the fence oblivious to all of man made ness.
Shamelessly sings.
I can’t make sense of my kind, but kindness and nature, since on this walk.
Great art is always inscrutable. Apparently, the same goes for great artists’ essays.
1
Humanness, the collective Homo sapiens, is not profound. An individual human may indeed be extraordinary, as is true for certain times in the history of humanity. But one's "humanness" is ordinary. You are as mundane as the dirt and grass beneath your feet. This is no small thing. It's recognition and acceptance can lead to great achievements.
I'm pleased to see Mr. Weiwei, one of the world's more financially successful artists, praise the virtues of being all that you can be.
Sure, "self-definition" does sound like an oblique jab in the nose of tyranny and "freely evaluating" the teeming bosh of ethnic cultures might seem to opine on immigration and terrorism, but not so much as to get him shot on the Lindenstrasse.
And hey, "humankind includes every single one of us"? That's Christmas cheer in the ears of every pedophile priest.
But really, do we need platitudes like this right now?
I've always thought that the question we all need to be asking is: What specifically are we attempting to do here? You know, you look at your wife, your job, your kids, your house, your employer, your community, your country, your politics, your infrastructure, your carbon fueled consumer economy of manufacturing pricey trash and digital devices that help you stay in touch with a continuously growing population spewing ever more greenhouse gas into the greenhouse with the locked door.
You look at all that, and you ask: What are we attempting to do here?
Try it! It's stimulating to actually look at what you do and ask why you're doing it, why everyone else is doing it, and ask if just doing something different is the perfect answer to the question.
Have a nice day.
I am an evangelical Christian. So my thoughts will be out of sync with this article--or the comments pertaining to it.
If you have to ASK what it means to be human. . . ..
. . .you're on the wrong track.
May I point out--and I don't mean to be invidious, relying on cheap scare tactics. . . . .
. .but may I point out: the question itself can lead to things like the Holocaust. Or slavery. Or any of the innumerable horrors human beings have visited upon OTHER human beings. . . .
. .whose intrinsic humanity they questioned.
I am thinking of a prominent Nazi general. Late in the war, he oversaw the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. The Poles arrested him. He was duly hanged.
But the man shared some thoughts with a fellow prisoner--a Jew:
"Darwin (!) has taught us that some people--notably Jews and gypsies--are incompletely developed human beings. Sub-humans as it were. . . . ."
No no! Not a word of truth in any of this.
You're human--or you're not.
Were you born of a human mother and a human father?
Then you're human.
Your intelligence--your creativity--your physical strength--your powers of coordination. . .
. . .ALL these things. . .
. ..are IRRELEVANT to the ineradicable humanity. . . . .
. . .of every human being.
Again, I don't mean--not for a moment--to question Mr. Weiwei's decency and good will.
But I have to say: the question, by its very nature. .
. .. scares me.
Just a bit.
Just a little bit.
@Susan Fitzwater
Agree.
How should we define "human"? This might be a alternative to "defien ourselves".
Every human being was born equally, but their collective behaviors are very different in societies, or in a society of different historic periods.
Obviously, the society, or many types of civilization at different stages of their development, has its own structure that is idenpendent to single human beings.
Very often, we are reluctant to recognize it. Just as the hydrogen or oxygen atoms in a H2O molecular, if they could think, they would consider themselves to be free and the molecular might not even exist.
Define hume society, considering the diversity of civilizations, is quite scary by nature in a similar way.
Define mind kind in a God's view, and then find the right way to define a person......
Chinese philosopher Wang Dongyue (王东岳) has done great effort to explain the evolutiion of matters, including human being as the end of the evolution chain, in a different way.
Ai Wei is spot on. Every age is slightly different due to technological innovation, yet human senses are constant and Humannes is under constant push/ pull.
Humanness, in this country, is relativistic. It says: Protection and justice for me, but not for thee . Steve Miller’s immigration policy template, advanced by Trump, is a case in point
With the advent of neoliberalism and the culture of so-called meritocracy, the country’s value system has been replaced from the age-old American ethic into one of “absolutely about money.” The new value system cpmmoditizes everything that’s not nail down.
Witness the NYT’s fine report on how the Kushner family has chased out rent controlled tenants to hike up rents. The same applies to the rest of Manhattan where a systematic ethnic and economic cleansing has displace working families in favor of people who are washing illicit money and can afford to purchase expensive real estate.
The result has been to leave behind NYC with the most segregated school system in the country. Poor, outer boroughs school districts receive next to zero financial support. Where is the humanity there?
I enjoyed a documentary from a few years ago, featuring Ai and shown at Traverse City's (Michael Moore's) Film Festival. Besides a first rate artist Ai is a compassionate, and brave human rights advocate. So how would I answer Ai's question as to who am I as a human? He is certainly correct in understanding the milieu of and from which each 7 billion of us has evolved. A wise yoga teacher answered the query by pronouncing, (whenever we as humans defer to our higher selves) 'I am everything you can see and everything you cannot see and that which you cannot imagine!'
I believe this is one of the first questions we each must ask ourselves when we come to terms with ourselves as spiritual creatures and begin the journey to where that awareness brings us.
Humans, to whatever degree, have the ability to contemplate and study other life forms.
3
What is it to be human?
To be human is to ask:
1) What is it to be me?
2) What is it to be you?
3) What is it to be us?
4) What is it to be a good person?
5) Am I becoming the better person that I imagine myself being?
To be human is to question; to be engaged in life; to be creative; to experience love, awe, angst, disappointment, betrayal, dread, horror, sympathy, and many other states in the course of our lives. It is also to suffer and to die, and to overcome our fears as well as our addictions. This and many other things far to large to enumerate are what it is to be human.
Each of us has this day or a part thereof to find and create beauty and meaning. We are all storytellers, and the primary story we tell is our life's narrative. Try to be honest, and struggle honestly, and don't forget to laugh as there is time enough for tears.
6
'Human' once made me think of hope and progress. Now it just makes me sad.
6
It' s a pleasure to read this brief meditation on "what it means to be human" in this series, written in clear and unpretentious language. It is an essential point, I think, that the meaning is contextual, and is revealed in the course of "life attentively lived."
In noting that we are much freer than ever before, Mr. Ai hastens to note that various forces "tend to constrict our personal freedoms."
To his listing, I add one more--the inertia of the person himself/herself, who is inattentive to the freedom s/he has, and doesn't elude the constricting forces (which are not only repressive, but culturally distracting).
For too many on the planet, the constricting forces (poverty, overt repression, lack of education and time, etc.) act directly to limit the effort to "become human." For many others, these are not significant restraints--and the failure to discover and express personal "humanness" is a result of inattention, or attention wrongly directed.
Consider the boy Aladdin, exploring a cavern filled with jewels and other treasure--but told to find and recover an old brass lamp, whose real value is unknown to him...
3
I don't see the necessity to define "humanity" or what it means to be human. We know who we are.
The important thing is to be able to define and identify consciousness. We may very well create non-biological consciousness without even realizing that we have done so, and that raises huge moral and ethical concerns.
1
I find that our morality is based on different degrees, and more importantly timing.
Sometimes. it can be solely based on whether we are having a good day. We then measure how much we are giving up at that moment in relation to how much we have gained during the day up to that point. It is a matter of whether we have enough patience built up, and of course energy to follow through.
I use this analogy often (for those that know me) - If you are walking down the street, and someone was in dire need (requiring help to possibly save their life), then almost all would act to help without even thinking to do so. It would take a great sense of immorality and devoid of feelings within oneself to walk on by or turn away.
We do so everyday to all of the people that are in dire need, except they are suffering or perishing in slow motion.
Think about that for a second...
5
Kindness, I've discovered, is everything in life. That's what humanness is to me. Without it we are lost.
Thank you Ai weiwei.
40
@C T And yet an unkind person is still a person...
What it means to be a highly principled artist of free speech in Xi Jinping’s China is to have to be expatriate in Berlin. So, being human, to Ai Weiwei, must be a matter of “will”-ful desire, rather than freely living the actualization of one's potential.
YES, “We humans are what we conceive ourselves to be,” yet truly being expresses capability to LET one's potential flourish, rather than PRIMARILY “respon[ding] to conditions that we encounter in our environments.”
For the sake of letting oneself be best, we “examine how a person sees himself or herself and others within...their times.”
Not that we’re primarily “embedded” in our experiences, but that we are ORIGINS for discerning what experiences matter more than other experiences.
YES, we live “in pursuit of [our] own ideals.” So, we embed experiences in what we VALUE. We are potentially artists of being. We MAKE meaning, the artist of living knows.
Indeed, then, “Everything hangs on how we define ourselves.” Yet, that definition is shaped by being the basis for our capability to define and establish beyond ourselves what truly matters.
To all those criticizing Weiwei for not seeing the big picture.
Uh. You do know who this guy is and where he came from don’t you? You did read the piece? His conclusion has Iran flaws but for pity’s sake.... if you believe in the big picture then practice what you preach.
4
For those lecturing Weiwei on culture and human you might at least make the minimal effort to familiarize yourself with the fundamental Confucian concept translated into English as human and if you do so the lectures will end and the time for penance and self criticism begin.
Even this should do the job.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism
5
Want to shout out these fantastic photographs from Jeenah Moon is all.
5
"the forces that tend to constrict our personal freedoms — states, religions, ethnic identities, economic interest groups and others"
These are also the forces that civilize us, protect the interests of those who cannot protect themselves, and create a space for The Good ... even for those who feel constricted by them.
Me. Me. Me.
To be human is to be me and that is
the source of the spreading rot of
our existence ever amplified by new
tools to make my grievance bigger
than yours and my identity more important than yours. Let's start with
ideas and gestures and leaders to tamp
that down. Otherwise our decline will continue.
1
disappointing......it´s never nothing
I think there is great wisdom in Mr Weiwei’s observation. Now that the world is flat as Mr. Friedman once famously told us, we seem to need a new “Age of Enlightenment” to figure out how to share the planet, as borders are less constraining than they once were and people in many societies, once existing with less freedom and order, rightfully demand more! Will the bully in the sandbox end up taking all the toys or will he be helped to share? At the basis of this is the question Mr Weiwei asks, do all humans have worth or just those who have money and power?
4
The article is hardly enlightening. At best it is polemical, at worst it exposes a lack of clarity on the nature of the human as species.
To be human is to belong to distinct class with distinct characteristics. Elephants are not giraffes though generally classified 'animal'.
The humans are characterized by their 'range' of behavioral characteristics. The degree of our humanness is a function of the range and the quality of the species potency. Since that range includes compassion, tenderness, mercy (among other more base predatory behavioral forms) we can claim our humanity from the highest evident acclaimed behavior. As exemplar these identify what it means to be human.
That other species display some of the same behavioral characteristics does not make them human...even if they are sweet. We can stroke an nuzzle our pets but these are in another class. And our tyrants are human but NOT an example of what it means to human.
We live in an age where too many people are not even asking the question, but accepting definitions of themselves presented to them by the media, by their political parties, and by the cyberworld, Thanks to our electronics and a 24/7 news and entertainment cycle, they can stay in that reality indefinitely. The first step to finding our humanity is to unplug on a regular basis. The second is to have some curiousity about the truth. I never cared for the Matrix, but the red or blue pill choice is starting to resonate.
5
We are animals with clothes on, living in a similar but different circle of cultural influences. Regardless of where your circle intersects with higher or lower cultural influences, your members are the same once one is naked.
2
You’re an educated and well-traveled man, so you know that “self-definition” as the “iron undergirding of morality, aesthetics and practical philosophy” is a culture-bound assertion.
3
@Ed
F =ma is a culture bound assertion. A damned good one.
You mention the experiences that obliged you to adjust your understanding of what a human being is. Likewise, I think that most of us will find keys to our humanity in life events that ruffle our complacency in some way. For me, this includes being in my 50s and knowing that the majority of my life is now behind me.
3
Personally, if have to think so hard as to what I am or want to be, perhaps I'd prefer just not to be. Anything that fouls its only source of drinking water that keeps them alive probably doesn't deserve to be in the first place. No one will miss us when we're all gone.
2
“Man is the only animal that blushes...or needs to. “ - Mark Twain
8
1. "What is it to be human?... there is no single immutable answer."
An "immutable" answer is unchangeable. So of course--since our conceptions/classifications are always developing; better answers might be forthcoming. Thus universities--to search and research for better ideas, questions and answers.
But for now, the obvious answer is "Has human DNA." This entire series seems a desperate attempt to make it a mysterious question. It is not.
2. "The only...answer...is [a] how a person sees himself or herself and others.... "
Nonsense--that's Humpty Dumpy's view--he (and each of us) can make words mean whatever we like. That makes communication impossible, as Alice knew.
True--word meaning is a human creation. And individuals can coin new words. But mostly language is a community creation--with communal standards of correctness--for both grammar and word meaning/interpretation. No one sets the standards/rules (except in legislation) but they exist and evolve nevertheless.
Also--[a] is a different question!
Lexicographers are skilled at both gleaning the rules/definitions "in effect" and tracing their etymology.
Definition can be mere synonymy or systematic--as in biological classification or the periodic table of elements.
Philosophical definition--from Plato on--seeks systematic definition. Scientific and all academic definition evolved from that.
"What are persons?" is a better question. And so are "What are well ordered humans?" and "Virtuous humans?"
2
Here's one perfectly valid take on our "humanness": We humans are self-interested bores who are in reality no more or less than cockroaches but a species of cockroach that are rapacious consumers and destroyers of our beautiful planet and the life-forms living on it. What difference does it make what you think you are, your pretentious self-importance, when your very reality is unsustainable. For example, Europe is burning up and there is massive human suffering going on but meanwhile, philosophers speculate on the meaning of our "humanness".
1
I am sorry but hey! Ai Weiwei is also an "authority" on world affairs? C'mon! A man who represents actually our "cultural" values? He committed vandalism but it was seen as a wonderful daring "performance" in our world of art and beyond. Do you remember? We have the photos of WeiWei and his wonderful gesture of himself smashing a Han Dynasty vase. Of course, his symbolic gesture (if it was, who knows) is to deny cultural tradition. If we keep our cultural standards, Weiwei would not be printed in the NYT as an experts-in any field. Next time, please show one-of Weiwei dancing performance on videos. And, I don't have anything personal against this particular person, but to those institutions that have given him a cultural existence. It is our "contemporary values" which make people like him to be praised as a Renaissance man. And, yes, it is our "values" that have made Mr. Trump to access the president of the USA.
2
The first flaw in our thinking on what it means to be human is that we, especially us Westerners, think that we are qualitatively different from animals. The truth is we only differ from animals quantitatively. We simply possess certain mental capacities at much greater levels than other animals, such as the ability to use complex language, to imagine things that do not exist, or see different possible futures. We have a much greater ability to think rationally, as well as to create new realities out of our imagination, such as religion, money, moral codes, the internet, and legal systems.
Human culture makes us human. Each culture takes 1,000s of years to create its reality, its religions, its language, its moral codes. These evolve so slowly over time that the origins are so obscure and unknowable that we believe they always existed. We also begin life with a set of genetically programmed instincts, but every value, belief, language and law was at some time in the past made up by our forbearers. Indeed, many of our cultural rules are specifically meant to override those antisocial animalistic instincts.
To be human is to have absorbed identify with one set of these values, beliefs, laws and culture that you were indoctrinated with from birth. The friction between humans, as well as some of the joy and revelation occurs because of the clash between our very different cultural backgrounds and thus, different concepts of what being human really means. It will ever be so.
6
"What is it to be human ?"
That's a good question, but it's too narrow-minded and conceited.
The better question is: "What is it to be a part of nature ?"
We are just one species of 8.7 million species on this big blue marble of nature, sustained and nourished by Mother Earth along with all of those other species.
We are part of the community not just of humans, but of a vast interconnected community of nature of animals, plants, marine life and delicate ecosystems.
If we only focus conceitedly on the 'humans', we are missing the philosophical and existential boat, because humans won't survive terribly well if they ignore the community of nature that sustains us with air, water, nutrients and habitability.
What is it to be part of nature ?
It's to respect and honor nature in all its glory....and not to rape it to death with ugly human excess, conceit and ego.
Without nature, humans are just another extinct species.
48
@Socrates
Quite a string of false dichotomies.
That Judeo Christian obsession with antinomies and dialectics? Spare us dear lord please spare us.
1
@Socrates
While I endorse and embrace your words, in defense of the question you are commenting on, I’m not clear as to what question Ai WeiWei is posing. On the other hand, his essay does dwell on politics, economics, societies, so you’re commemts seem apt.
There is one fundamental, no-doubt-about it reason why the gap between the "haves and have-nots" has become so much wider in the past 10 years: Most "humans" care only about themselves, and/or don't believe in helping one another unless they are family. We have so many people in this Country that will never have to worry about where they're next meal will come from, where they are going to lay their head down at night, or where will they're next check come from. No longer do we believe in 'treat others as we would like to be treated". As humans, we have become, "I'll treat you anyway that I feel like treating you".
5
Ai Weiwei is one of my heroes. How brave he is! How important is his message of love and human dignity!
13
Today, being human means to disregard Science, human suffering, our own best interests, the pain and suffering of children caused by our direct infliction of that pain, and the outright theft of resources by strongmen who we vote for. Millions upon millions of American humans band together to share their racial hatreds, fears and psychoses that clearly harm the world, and do so with a screaming frenzy that emboldens worse actions daily.
We cannot turn away from the devolution that is underway, and accelerating: we now fully expect quotidian violence and assume it is unstoppable, because it has not been, indeed, it is amplified by 'leaders'. A referendum on "human" is November 6, 2018.
5
"I am you, and what I see is me."
4
So far all the evidence suggest a bipedal animal prone to killing its own species.
Oh yes, a few other characteristics, but nothing of any real consequence.
3
Thank you Ai Wei Wei! I am looking forward to your exploring your first answer: We are who we will to be.
2
People like you need to realize that homo sapiens are nothing more than one species of great apes-nothing more. We have merely evolved into a creature that can communicate better and destroy the ability of the planet we live on to support much of the life as we know it. We have already driven many species to extinction and are well on our way to the sixth mass extinction. The odds are very much in favor of our species becoming extinct in a few thousand years. Homo erectus lasted for approximately 2,000,00 years. We have been around for much less time. There is no creator and no grand plan. Quit trying to make a killer more than it is.
2
@libdemtex And yet, if we are to be more, we must ask the questions Mr. Weiwei has asked.
He has tried to set aside hopelessness and cynicism in order to aspire to be more and to call all of us to be more.
I encourage you to try the same
12
To quote the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, "Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun."
8
What is "hummness?"
Even after reading Confucius's ancient insights into the concept, I do not know what "humanness" is.
Nevertheless, I do know that "humanness" is a quality that is not possessed by any current Republican.
2
As we live longer and pack more experience, the ultimate answer appears and it is contained in Ai Weiwei's observations: we are here to care for one another. Without caring for one another as a first principle, there is no promise or sustenance of civilization.
Caring for one another implies equality. More, it implies that one cares for the stranger as much as for one's family. Each great religion teaches these principles: care for one another and care for the stranger.
When the principles are forgotten or ignored, then brutality and totalitarianism, racism, and nativism take over. To be human, we need to discipline our tendencies to give control to those who do not observe the basic two principles. Only by standing for them in our actions do we preserve humanity and civilization.
9
Equality is a legitimate principle but we need to allow nature to decide just how equal we are. Each of us differs, some greatly, in our intelligence, ambition, abilities, talents, experiences, education, pedigree, eloquence, confidence and motivations. As such, we can expect greatly varied outcomes. It is not the place of government to try to limit the extremes that are found.
1
I thoroughly enjoy these columns and applaud the NYT for having them. Good thinking material.
I get it that humans are interesting to us, after all that's our species. But this idea that we are so important - right now, in this universe, among all these animals, plants, stars and things seems to me to be a bit pretentious.
Granted, we are on track to destroy an entire planet and most life thereon, but other than that unfortunate turn of events, we are pretty insignificant.
"We are what we conceive ourselves to be ... what we will ourselves to be and what we say we are" is just not accurate. What we will and say may be a couple of characteristics of human behavior but as far as describing the whole of what it means to be human, it falls a little short.
"Everyone seems to agree that we live today in a completely distinctive time." How can we not live in a completely distinctive time? I would be willing to wager that since humans 1st had a concept of time, they thought they lived in completely distinctive time.
The mentioned "forces," globalization, the internet, late capitalism (?), the collapse of Cold War ideology which seek to describe the world’s new situation are in the news in our "completely distinctive time" but these things are no more forceful or unique than any number of events that have and continue to occur throughout human history.
What is it to be human? It is to oversimplify humans; it is to believe in the absurd; it is to make ourselves sound important.
5
Life is too short, and sometimes brutal,
and in the end we have only each other...
Nothing else matters.
5
@William As Ram Dass says, We are all walking one another home.
4
What makes America a strong country above all else is our understanding and respect for what it means to be human and the freedoms that go along with it. As such, we should welcome the potential allegiance of all the world's people, as specially when they are denied freedom and basic human rights from their own governments. We do ourselves a disservice "building walls", playing identity politics and demonizing immigrants.
3
To me, this is the best statement of the essence of true liberalism I have ever read.
1
We humans can dream. We can imagine. That is the basis of creativity and invention. It is the basis of wanting a better society, a better life, the pursuit of values and ideals like Justice and Peace and Harmony - for all of us.s
But dreams and imagination are also the basis of greed and criminality.
May we follow our Better Angels. And not our worst.
18
Humans are part of the web of life that share this planet. In our hubris we consider only ourselves as we destroy swaths of the web in the name of consumerism and greed. There will come a tipping point where we change the web of life so profoundly it is unable to support us. The earth will continue, life will continue, but human kind might not.
29
@AM
I gave your post a recommendation and do not disagree.
I will add, though, that modern science is showing humanity is intricately intertwined with, or a part of, the entire universe. When we know, literally, that all the elements that combine to make our bodies were forged at the core of stars that eventually went supernova — That we are in fact creatures made of stardust — Then it is incredibly sad that our history is one containing so much destruction and failure to be inspired by such an awe-inspiring fact.
5
To ask what it means to be human is not necessarily an anthropocentric question, although it could be (and historically has been at times). It seems to be, as one of the other posters said, that we could ask what it means to be "humane" as a human. To ask what it means to be human in that sense means to be reflective about our relationship to historical circumstances and to other people--who we very much need. Given the ever accelerating pace of technological, economic, and environmental change that disrupts not only our material circumstances but our relationships, it is ever more important to be asking this question in order not to lose a reflective and empathetic foothold--not to give way to a Hobbesian world of the war of all against all or to be prey to rigid ideologies that offer simplistic solutions.
3
I agree, I suppose, that we define ourselves by interaction. What I worry about is any view that
is this anthropocentric. Top of the food chain, we
are animals, evolved apes. And our position makes us the least necessary species. We have removed ourselves from the natural order, not physically, but mentally. "Sapiens" is an adjective, not a genus. The word implies, to use the term from Genesis, "dominion." (The ancient Hebrew
might have connoted "husbandry") As such we
have applied to ourselves undeserved
transcendency, and objective detatchment from animals and the environment. Our species concerns eliminate humility. Why not turn on each other simply because we interest each other, can relegate the other animals to the level
of cartoons, and focus, in deadly fashion on each
other for our beliefs, habits, genders, ethnicities,
races. In short, without larger perspective of energies heading us toward extinction, we have
learned to live by division and violence. Intellect
is suspected, isolating.
"In my view, self-definition must be each individual’s final and most sturdy principle."
Tyranny forces conformity with the definition of self by others.
1
We are not much more than the narratives that we base our behavior on. From the earliest millennia of Homo Sapiens, to be human has been tied to the ability to process information and to develop narratives based on that peculiar ability. The present exponential explosion of information presents a new and humbling challenge: what if our individual and collective information processing capacity is actually limited? For billions of uneducated people, it is already severely reduced, while for the others, the strains - in the form of stress - are such that they cloud both their understanding and their moral compass. That could explain the nonsensical emergence of a Trump presidency in the most prosperous and developed country on Earth and the murkiness of the competing political narratives in practically every country. In the end, we are what we do - and what we don't do.
8
We are the stories we tell ourselves, and others, about who we are, and our attempts to live up to those stories.
So, to preserve humanity, tell a story that is humane; that calls to and engenders in us the greatest of that we are capable of being; that turns self toward the common good, and the healing of the world.
9
A lot more interesting than Henri-Levy's contribution.
I'm sure every human who has ever walked the earth believed they lived in a completely distinctive time. I doubt anyone ever said, "oh, we're living the same fifty six years that the English lived in the 1800's."
There was a particular distinctive time, however, that mattered far more than the distinctive time we're living through today: the post WWII years. We had all witnessed two kinds of horrors: atomic warfare, and the slaughtering of six million humans. It was a time when we had to grasp the idea that we humans had finally developed weapons powerful enough to obliterate our entire planet. It was a time when the most heinous acts of man toward fellow man were on full display.
It was also a time, albeit more subtle, that we came to understand that there are no more unknown lands to conquer. The eras of explorers and voyages of discovery are past. Everything on this planet that can be "owned" is known. All that's left is a lot of low-level squabbling among nations about who controls what. It's strange that we all persist in fighting each other with small bombs and automatic weapons and tanks when it's clear one hydrogen bomb could put an end to everything. There are no real winners anymore. Just people who think they're winning.
Being human is to look each other in the eye and admit that we must get along and take care of this planet we all live on or we will eventually destroy ourselves.
We've shown little evidence that we're up to the task.
13
Revealing to yourself who you are is a moment to moment movement within yourself, and seeking to understand this is a noble enterprise. For the most part then, asking who you really are must be in some sense a effort to confuse yourself about what you can not help but to not know. To ask the question is to imply you already know the answer, because, who is asking the question? This is may be an example of what the philosopher Wittgenstein said is the first magical move we make when language tries to obscure what is really going on, what things really mean. Discovery is what we need to accept, not what we need ask about.
1
What does it mean to be human? It means many things, as this columnist suggests. But one thing that is uniquely human and applicable in past times as well as current times as well as future times is to be aware of mortality, our own, that of others, and that of other species. And I would suggest the more aware, the more human. And in this way, we are capable of being good stewards of our planet (not that we are succeeding).
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"Everything hangs on how we define ourselves and how we treat those with whom we share our surroundings, which are teeming with different ethnicities, religions and cultures." Being human seems to be, for most, exclusively all about our own species, whether struggling to find a place in the world or trying to own the world.
We should also have respect for other species, animal and plant, that inhabit this world with us. Respect should include working to ensure clean water and air and land for ourselves and our children and for future generations of all species. Without that, there is no 'human dignity'.
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What does it mean to be human in modern society, specifically whether self-determination, individuality, the dignity of creative person can flourish in modern times?
I have little hopes in the flourishing of individuality and the dignity of person in modern times. For all individual accomplishment in art, science, technology, politics, economics which has led to modern times, we have a vast coopting of the individual and rather reinforcement of various groups in society, group thinking.
Society in its knowledge advance is becoming so sophisticated that an individual can increasingly be expected to be subject to any number of types of manipulation, to in fact be encased from birth in a reality not dissimilar to the film the Truman Show. Increasingly for an individual to advance in society the person has to agree to this or that group end, and the less the person is in agreement, even if an outstanding genius, the more the individual is subject to an artificial reality of containment, control, manipulation.
Manipulation of reality today is so sophisticated, so startling, that one would never know if one is surveilled and controlled by newspaper reporters, spy agencies, corporate entities or if alien intelligences (extraterrestrial entities) are interfering in human affairs. I cannot recount the number of startling coincidences, synchronicities, events in my life which make it difficult to distinguish between the random and "guided", controlled, occurrences in my life.
3
This question can be broached on the basis of either of two assumptions. One is that there is no transcendent source of meaning to which we may refer. The other is that there is.
The answers I see here seem all to derive from the first assumption. In a sense, then, they can be seen as "whistling past the graveyard" as the old folks used to say.
Taken to its logical conclusion the first assumption renders any question of meaning, and by necessary implication, any question of dignity, hope, charity, and so forth, simply vain, as the sage Qoheleth taught.
Mighty exertions are made to avoid this conclusion, but they are made in vain.
7
I recently finished Julian Barnes novel, "The Sense of an Ending". The protagonist, Tony, lives a "safe" life, trying not to make ripples or waves; lawn mowing was as active as he ever got except for one moment he wrote an angry, insensitive note to his friend who married Tony's teenage girlfriend and later ex-wife. Tony married another woman who also later divorced him. Both women left Tony with a challenging judgement, "You don't get it" and "You are on your own". To be human is more than just individual self-definition, it is also engagement with others; like the Leonard Cohen song "Marianne", "to laugh, cry, and love again". Ai Weiwei's life tells us that to be human also means to create, to communicate, and to endure adversity.
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Wrong.
We are not what we will ourselves to be; that is absurd.
We are What we say we are? Wow. Just as bad.
We are what the facts show us to be; the evidence. Creatures on a small planet revolving around an ordinary star. Evolved by evolution as did all creatures on Earth. Then we set up artificial governments and countries and try to live in them. And we have to interact with others and we do the best we can.
That's what we are. We do not live in a completely distinctive time. Change is constant and all things are impermanent. We take that and we live with it.
I don't understand your question; I'm not avoiding it; there is no question to ask.
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What does it mean to be human?
It is a question that has meaning only among other humans.
We have no special status in the universe - it does not care about our continued existence any more than it cares about the dinosaurs or those two neutron stars that just collided 537 trillion light years away in another galaxy. If we render our planet uninhabitable by us through climate change, nuclear war, genetic engineering gone wrong, or some other catastrophe, the universe will go on without us.
Self-definition of what it means to be human only goes so far. It's also a collective effort, which can be through cooperation or coercion. Being human encompasses bad behavior as well as good.
Other people are the mirror by which we see ourselves. Their answers about being human color the image we see reflected back to us.
We won't really know what it means to be human until we can get a second opinion.
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@Larry Roth
"We have no special status in the universe - it does not care about our continued existence any more than it cares about the dinosaurs or those two neutron stars that just collided 537 trillion light years away in another galaxy."
I find it endlessly fascinating that people write these kinds of things, implicitly presenting them as "scientific fact" when actually, they are the purest form of non-empirical metaphysical speculation.
Going a bit deeper into the assumptions presented here - particularly the assumption that it is possible to even conceive of a purely self-existent, purely physical "anything," it is remarkable to consider the extent of the delusion we have suffered as a species since the advent of this collective psychosis in the late 19th century.
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@Larry Roth
I agree that we are not special amongst beings in the universe, except to ourselves. Which is no problem.
Sometimes I think that "being human" is not so much an individual endeavor, but rather the collective expression of all humanity. Sometimes I think of myself as a single yeast cell living in a sea of sourdough starter (I have been baking). 99% of me is derivative of all the lives that have lived before. The 1% spark of unique existence that I bring to humanity is the result of natural genetic variation, but feels like my personal contribution to the evolution of our species. I cannot gauge how special I am, assuredly not very. But it doesn't matter.
It is beautiful and heart-rending to look at humanity as a single organism. We have this lifetime to participate in, and bear witness to, the pulse and foment of our collective human "life".
And everything living must die.
3
Your 'essay', asking what it is to feel human, has, for now, more questions than answers. Still, worth delving into, given that we are curious animals, even with the 'gall' to think we are better and beyond the animal kingdom...of which we are really an integral part of. Although true that we are a bit more sentient than our cousins (i.e. bonobos, with whom we share 98% of our genome), able to imagine and create beyond our basic necessities of food and shelter, instincts we think are a start, not an end, of our endeavors. And, different perhaps from other animals, we are aware of our own mortality (the price to be paid for the survival of our species?), which we may resent, hence created god(s) to hopefully allow our existence to go on forever. Trouble is, we humans are not smart enough to 'know' whether there is a God or not, however anxious we may become in answering an unanswerable question. Unique as any and all of us are, we do share much more as social animals, where family and community are essential for our survival, let alone the joy to be alive and able to share our humanity with our fellow men and women. I suspect that some callousness on our part, when faced with the utter violence we see and hear around us, has to do with a defense mechanism as we feel despair in not being able to stop it, and install solidarity instead; and know, instinctively, that there cannot be peace without basic justice for human rights. We are a work in progress. Some humility yet?
12
Ai Weiwei is right to see the question, not the assertion of fact, as the distinctively human feature of that human attribute we call language. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty said, “Man is not a natural species but a historical idea,” a question posed to being. Man is the only being free enough to allow a historical destiny, not convention or nature, to determine who he is—provided he overcome subjectivism and the presumptuous illusion of “self-determination,” which is slavery masquerading as freedom, and hold his future open with the simple question “Who am I?” Human exceptionalism is humility, freedom for destiny, not self-will and self-assertion.
6
"In my view, self-definition must be each individual’s final and most sturdy principle. It is the iron undergirding of morality, aesthetics and practical philosophy. If it slips away, even for a moment, then the answer to the question “What does it mean to be human?” will be: “Nothing.”
This paragraph is the conclusion. "Self definition"? Fine. In that case. All of the above essay is irrelevant. If everybody defines, you don't get to establish the parameters and decide when a definition is or is not "nothing". It is self-definition. Each and everyone of us then sets up the rules and defines. One paragraph would have sufficed.
2
To be human is simply to be an animal separated from all other animals by the ability to think with abstract symbols - nothing more, nothing less. The part we want to overlook in our humanism is the fact that we are like all other animals, except for a mind that uses symbols of symbols to think instead of the mere symbols obtained from direct contact with our surroundings. What we have yet to understand is that, like all other animals, our thoughts are directed by a "survival" program, which we have tricked by ridiculous beliefs as to what exactly is supposed to survive. When we program the human mind in the computer (using a survival algorithm) we will see what humans have done to themselves and begin the long road back to our basic reason. This will happen if we don't blow ourselves up first in our confused humanism.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
2
That's right, Nothing, or equivalently, because they are endowed with intelligence, whatever they determine it to mean.
Since the reality of what actual human culture is like is so profoundly negative, in general, aside from the possible, I prefer to ask "what must an intelligent being do in a situation such as I face?". In this way, I look beyond the apparent hopelessness of human culture.
If you consider what it means to be an animal, and then what it means to be an intelligent being, it's not surprising that the thing in transition, from one to the other, is troubled.
5
To be human means to understand that at bottom we are all defined by the nothingness of the abyss. There is no real you within you. It is in this sense that I believe that to be human in the 21st century means having a relationship with the other defined balance and mutual respect. If the Gap between myself, my culture, and my religion becomes too big with the others self, religion, culture etc.; we can be sure war will ensue.
5
Couldn't agree more, but those who most need to ask the question are those least able to understand it. And not to understand it is to be a prisoner of one's world view.
8
We are equally, our families, our schools, our bodies and minds, and our hopes for the future and our suffering of the present.
I cannot be fully human alone and apart and struggling in a cutthroat system, I must belong and matter to other humans.
We evolved from small tribes of simple people, who lived and died in cooperation with their families and tribes.
We are equally doomed if we pretend to have independent lives but in fact are servants in a world dominated by the 1% who own us.
As a modern American, I am not human, in the sense that I mean. As a poor American I feel cut off from the main, and am watching as my American system devolves into jungle cutthroat competition.
There is no one in charge, and there is no God, no way to connect to the main, unless one thinks one's vote is consequential.
To live in a devolving system is to lose the future.
Hugh
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@Hugh Massengill
Beautiful summation of this cut-throat materialism we live in.
But the question of transcendence is still open.
3
@Hugh Massengill
One must find that which is their own, as our independence is self-determined.
1
Answer the question of our identity by reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktr Frankl.
With regard to the health of our nation, lacking a world war where we are unified by defense of country, we need mandatory domestic service for two years upon reaching the age of 18.
Finally we create responsible, patriotic citizens by returning to a government serving the common good, not one that serves unfettered corporations and oligarchs.
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@Robert Goldschmidt I'm so glad you brought up Frankl. "Man's Search for Meaning" is one of the greatest books on philosophy and the human condition ever written. Thank you.
Alone in a barren desert, or on a planet devoid of other humans, a human animal/person might have (self-defined) dignity, but there could be no progress, no language, no appreciation of the arts. Only in communal contexts that elicit mutual learning and care can a person's full humanity blossom. A human child cannot raise itself. Indeed, even if a solitary human managed to be suckled by wolves, a fierce individuality would get the person nowhere.
Self-awareness and self-definition can too easily morph into self-centeredness and/or the closed referential "realities" of mental illness. Self-centeredness, in turn, can easily become selfishness, where resources are hoarded and where defeating other individuals or social orders become "the game." We see how this is playing out in government failures and lawlessness worldwide. Unchecked individuality by "disrupters" having fun at others' expense leads too easily to anarchy and chaos, while strict social control stifles individual expression and possibility.
Humans evolved and developed communication, trade, and the arts through sharing. A solid sense of individuality must always be balanced by a person's communal efforts to preserve dignity for all, in the context of preserving the best of all cultures.
Defining "best" is itself a social construct and cannot be done in isolation.
Humanity has a long way to go before most humans on our planet can safely experience their full, individual "humanness."
14
“In my view, self-definition must be each individual’s final and most sturdy principle.”
Ai Weiwei is an extraordinary example of what it is to be human. The moment that we cease to define ourselves is the moment when we opt for irrelevance.
12
1.The American Psychological Association, in just the last 2 years, has published: A textbook which, among other things, takes for granted that consciousness is the fundamental reality, and psi (paranormal) research is completely valid; and a special journal article also presenting an essentially positive view of psi research as valid.
2. One of the world's leading neuroscientists, Christof Koch, is among a rapidly growing number of equally esteemed scientists seriously considering panpsychism (the co-existence of mind and matter throughout the universe) as superior to materialism or physicalism as the basis of our understanding the universe.
3. Scientific research on lucid dreaming (a state in which one is aware that one is dreaming; a state far far more vivid and potentially powerful for both psychological and physical healing than any form of virtual reality could ever be) is advancing to the point that it is likely that within 10 years, the ability to be lucid at will in one dreams will be widespread, leading to a transformation of the entire field of medicine, as well as having profound ramifications for education, sports, the arts, the entire range of sciences (including the ability to conduct and replicate successful parapsychological experiments), and more.
If we are wiling to let go of the incoherent philosophy of materialism - which as Pauli might have said - is not even wrong - we can birth a new era of unparalleled unity and freedom and love.
8
@don salmon
Second follow up comment:
Here is SrI Aurobindo's vision of humanity, from the conclusion of "The Ideal of Human Unity" (note the language - it was written just after the end of World War I)
"Yet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be achieved by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul... For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is... the self-development of the divine in man in all his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom equally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding that equal freedom of self- development on a common aim... a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of this inner spiritual unity.
"These three things are in fact the nature of the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit... it is the awakening of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil itself in the life of the race."
www.remember-to-breathe.org
3
@don salmon
Follow up, on the global/political necessity of rethinking who and what we are:
The author of this article provides, I believe, one of the most accurate overviews of the breakdown of the modern nation state available.
He provides hints of the flexible, integrated world order (not the "one world government") that Landauer, Aurobindo and Schumacher foresaw.
What the author is lacking is any hint of the contemplative, unitive dimension the above three individuals saw as fundamentally n necessary for the world order, in order to avoid the statist uniformity a one world government would otherwise have.
What is remarkable is how clearly Schumacher saw the inevitably of the breakdown of the modern nation state, over 50 years ago; Aurobindo saw it approximately 100 years ago, following the aftermath of World War I and what he saw as the inevitable failure of the League of Nations; and perhaps even more remarkable, Landauer, the "contemplative anarchist," saw it nearly 150 years ago.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/05/demise-of-the-nation-state-...
2
"Human" is a word. It represents a class o animals. Each living thing is an experiment by evolution to survive and reproduce. The generality of a word, a noun, is derived out of abstract characteristics. This is a convenience of thinking and communication. I, as one of the experiments, identify identify with a few of the others who place themselves into humanity, There are many who claim to be human that I refuse to identify with. This is both a linguistic difficulty and a social one.
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