The Goodness Of Humanity || Are We Even Worth It ?
We are all humans until race disconnected us, religion separated us, politics divided us, and wealth classified us.
Image source
Humanity is the quality of being humane. The definition of humanity, however, isn't really a concern. The concern is how we act and believe in humanity. How we express our love and benevolence is the prior picture of humanity. Every humans is bound to humanity to some extend but the question is how much ??
Suppose you are travelling by some strange places. Suddenly you see a kid crying and asking for help. There were other kids who were torturing that kid, they were making fun of him, teasing him, and even humiliating him. So, what will you do? Go and help that kid, persuading others not to torture him, or you would call their parents or teachers or whatever you would wanna do, the question is why would you want to do that ? Why would you even want to help that kid ? Why does it even matter to you? So, okay you feel humanity, right? You feel it is the right thing to do or may be you just don't want to live with the idea of leaving the kid cry.
Humans will do things what they feel right because of natural compassion. According to Mengzi, a Chinese philosopher, " humans are born with benevolent urges that they can develop into systematic thoughtful benevolent." The more you do good acts, the more you become moral.
I believe humans are born innocent. They are neither good nor bad when they are born. They just copy the things they have seen or taught when they were young. It depends on how they are raised and the environment and other variables to determine if they are good or bad people in general. With the acquisition of goodness or badness, they tend to acquire humanity as well. As a human, everybody is bound to humanity but it might really be different for different individuals based on circumstances and the environment they were grown in.
There might be various reasons why one can somehow deviate from the goodness of humanity. I would like to cover some which I think are considerable.
- Position:
Position is something that corrupts people's mind. Powerful people appear more corrupt because they are caught more publicly. They set ethical rules much higher for other than they do themselves. - Imitation:
The way people are seen and treated influences the way they act. They imitate the acts of others and reflect their environment. If the environment is bad, it's so obvious that people living in that environment commit bad things. - Arrogance:
Self images describes the character and behavior of a person. Those people who consider themselves superior to the others feel that they are less responsible for their wrongdoings.
The Free Will Defense:
God maximized the goodness in the world by creating free beings. And being are free means that they have the choice to do the evil things - a choice that some of us exercise.
Given the right circumstances and various other factors, some people tends to deviate from the goodness of humanity. All in all humans are bound to humanity which arises due to natural compassion. Since we are humans we have to see the things that helps develop humans into humane.
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.”
-C. S. Lewis
This is really a great post,
I kind of feel the same about life, we are born with innocence and complete emptiness, we fill what we see, we imitate what others do, we learn what others teach... other people tend to have so much impact on us, but all in all we are human and we pose humanity.
I have reblogged this post so that it reaches audience, and that's all I can do.
keep up the good work :)
thank you so much for the share :)
we are indeed a parasite at the beginning, we gradually develop ourselves as we grow up!
I have also nominated you for the SV guild here https://steemit.com/steemvoter/@steemvoter/steemvoter-guild-nominate-a-friend-for-the-guild-vote-tuesday-may-9#@aashishkandel/re-steemvoter-steemvoter-guild-nominate-a-friend-for-the-guild-vote-tuesday-may-9-20170509t112427479z
I hope it helps get you some audience :)
thank you so much aashish, I am so glad you are selflessly promoting me :)
It's my pleasure, Deepa :) :)
Congrats you have been selected as Author of the day by the Steemvoter (SV) Guild, keep up the good work and helping make Steem great!
Note: You should receive many guild votes in an hour or so, enjoy!
thank you so much for the support!
I do tend to take the same standpoint that by nature humans are rather 'innocent' and that deviations from that are typically 'learned.'
Even though I've endlessly heard the quote that "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," I personally find intentions to go a loooong way. Yes, these can be corrupted and quite subjective, but knowing why somebody did something is typically how we tend to judge others actions.
I always think back to the old 'morality' question of:
It often leads down an interesting path of responses, often showing how that person (giving the response) prioritized various things. Some same stealing is against the law, so it's wrong...others instead go into the more human synergy and/or sympathetic view that helping people is of higher priority.
There's no easy objective answer to this unfortunately...hence why there are tons of governing, religious, etc styles out there. So I've personally just tried to start from the acting persons point of view to see how it makes sense to them...even if I disagree, I can get where they're coming from.
Good to see we having same standpoint :)
Now, looking at the question of morality, I don't think it's ever good to steel for whatever cause. Given the cause of helping people, it's not immoral to steal but illegal. But again, rules are just sets of instructions developed by people to keep ourselves under some systems so that we do not bend from it. Let's keep that part apart, it's always obvious that hungry stomach do not oblige by any rules or philosophy. People tend to steal when they do not own anything to make their living. They can go to any extent which is so natural, however, I don't see any good in that. It's okay though. Living doesn't only include being alive, but also following moral obligations.
If someone is stealing food to feed their starving family or medicine for a sickly spouse, so what will it do? It will make them stay alive and feel the energy of life again. But someone who is stealing has to live the whole life with the guilt of immoral obligation. However, that pain can never be the worth more than the life of someone. So, I personally think there is nothing either good or bad, it's believe which make it so. If you have belief that you are doing good, it's good... if you think it's bad and you are doing it, then that tends to hurt for the rest of the life.
Again, I am just imposing my personal thoughts, I don't say I am right but I believe. The world works on belief and faith :)
Wow awesome thoughts @deepapoudel
And hey @sykochica, I have nominated her for the SV guild here
https://steemit.com/steemvoter/@steemvoter/steemvoter-guild-nominate-a-friend-for-the-guild-vote-tuesday-may-9#@aashishkandel/re-steemvoter-steemvoter-guild-nominate-a-friend-for-the-guild-vote-tuesday-may-9-20170509t112427479z
If you want her to get more audience, and promote this post then please vote my nomination so that it helps add some value to it. I think your vote really counts :)
Your post was a refreshing reminder to everyone that we need to stop all the hating, negativity, judgments and self serving efforts that are so prevalent today. I especially loved your C.S. Lewis quote: "Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching." I wish there was more integrity, honor, caring, helping others, etc. in this world today. I guess we all have to remind ourselves is that starts with each of us. Thank-you for sharing this article with us!
yes! we should start with ourselves first.
I am glad you find my post interesting :)
On the side, you won 100 steem on some of your effort here:
https://steemit.com/prize/@clains/300-steem-now-worth-250-usd-200-steem-extra-consolation-prizes-congratulations-to-deepapoudel-eirik-and-mynameismariq
wow! It was a great surprise for me :)
this morning @aashish told me about this, and now I am getting time to come here and say "wow" :)
100 steem is almost 100 $ at this point!
Great!!
it will help me so much!
Great article:)
thank you!
Very well written article. These are really some basic and yet crucial points which decide our benevolent nature.
Great post Deepa! Way to go!
I write on similar lines. If you too like my articles, please donate for my education, I am an engineering student, studying on loan and living in aided facilities. BTC address: 1Lop6vbYTDUcVrUtDTuZ6adcAoDydAKJS4