I believe in humans – by P.K. Odendaal - August
2017
Inhumanism –
my own fabrication of anti-humanism, is rampant in the world and the cancer is
spreading epidemically and hyperbolically, despite my article on it:
I never
expected the article to be a magic wand, but neither did I expect inhumanism to
travel faster than light. In fact, it is nowadays the only way to get some
publicity – by strapping a bomb vest onto your body with or without bombs or
burning your wife.
But ...,
bombing and burning are so provincial and not subtle enough – some form of oppression
by the forces of Government or the Church is much more effective and can be
spread with impunity. It is against the latter that I take issue today.
It is so easy to classify humans and we do it every day. We
classify them to assess their importance relative to us, and once we have
assessed that, we find it easy to put them in a box or even better - in a box
file. In this box file we put similar people and on the outside we put a
sticker on which we write: 'below me' or 'not my class'.
In fact we go so far in society that we class them in large
groups or castes and then call them high society or low society. As if that
matters. As if it is the most important thing in the world. We might even sort
them according to colour, as if colour matters.
We are so addicted to sorting and sorting out whilst we have
no idea why we sort them. In our databases we sort them even according to the
first letter of their first or last name, as if that matters.
In this respect I like to sort things according to their
species and one of the species I really like is the human species. They have
such exciting ways, dreams, customs and stories of which I shall never tire.
However, as soon as I put another layer on them so that they
are not any longer of the pure human species, like politicians, snobs, tax
collectors or customs officials, I lose interest in them. These politician et
al and many others hold no interest or value to me, because they lose their
value as human beings as soon as they are classified.
How or why should any of these mentioned inhuman
classifications be of any interest to me if they are such stereotyped inanimate improvisations?
I know what to expect of them. From politicians I expect no truth or honesty,
from traffic cops I expect no reason or mercy and as for snobs ... I forgot
what not to expect from them - if anything at all - they have just become too
stale to think anything of them at all.
As soon as they remove that layer under which they disguise,
hide, camouflage or excuse themselves, I become interested in them again. In
the taxonomy of species one gets to a point where it becomes impossible or
meaningless to say something is animate or inanimate, and these mentioned
disguised human beings fall exactly in that gap between animate and inanimate,
because to classify them as animate or inanimate will destroy the status of
both these groups.
But, my issue today is not specifically with politicians or
traffic cops. It is with any kind of disguise which makes humans less human,
and believe me, it is these disguised humans who are the first to claim their
human rights - why, I would never know.
I believe in human beings because they are sentient, kind,
friendly, loving, appreciative, honest, humble, long suffering, sympathetic and
resilient. I do not find the last mentioned qualities in any of these disguised
humans.
On a more humorous note I am reminded of the character
Falstaff in Shakespeare's King Henry IV - Part 1. Falstaff is quite a coward
and gets into a swordfight with Hotspur which is quite a hero. After a light
touch from Hotspur's sword, Falstaff falls down and pretends to be dead, and
here is his heroic defence of that cowardice:
’twas time to
counterfeit, or that hot termagant Scot had paid me scot and lot too.
Counterfeit? I lie, I am no counterfeit: to die, is to be a counterfeit; for he
is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man: but to
counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the
true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is
discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.’
I believe in Fallstaff, because he is so truly human and
never pretends what he is not - and I believe in humans, because they do not
pretend what they are not.
I close
with this lovely song from Beauty and the Beast:
We'll be dancing again!
We'll be twirling again!We'll be whirling around with such ease
When we're human again
Only human again
We'll go waltzing those old one-two-threes
We'll be floating again!
We'll be gliding again!
Stepping, striding as fine as you please
Like a real human does
I'll be all that I was
On that glorious morn
When we're fin'lly reborn
And we're all of us human again!
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