What is Human


               
I have always been a humanist, or so I thought, until in one of our alcohol-fueled nights, Tim was complaining about the incompetence of some people, in the abstract. I immediately perked up and said, "But you are an American. You are used to having things convenient for you, more or less. You have the privilege of a white cis-het middle class male, and thus your language includes deficiencies in services that you were so used to. I am colonized. We make do with what we have, we are that way." My ears listened to what my mouth said, and realized something wrong with my first principles.

I have always been one for context, or so I thought, until in one of our (sigh, yes) alcohol-fueled nights, my leftist friend was buying candy from and got into an argument with a lady who short-changed her. Afterwards, she said, "Those are the masses we fight for. Masasapak, masasampal, masisipa  mo.  (You might thrash, slap, or kick them.)" I immediately perked and up and said, "But they are people trying to make a living. They don't care whether or not you're fighting for them in bills and lobbies; they are just grinding from day to day." My ears listened to what my mouth said, and realized something wrong with my first principles again.

I realized just now that I was in a conundrum. Unless I misunderstand both principles of humanism and context so awfully wrong, they are at odds.

Positions of privilege are always glaring contexts to me, yet at the end of the day, I will resort to what is due to human beings, being worthy of respect, and dignity, and worth. And yet, at the same time, human beings always stand as a foreground to any concern - be they political, economic, gendered, psychological, what have you - but at the end of the day, I will resort to what and who it is that speaks, and from where they are speaking.

You see the contradiction. If not, my friend makes it clear, and my fiance will again. My friend always complains that I do not pay enough attention to context: That when I stay silent on political or gender issues, I deny that the politics or the genderization is there, and that I am nothing better than a  centrist. My fiance always complains that I pay attention to nothing but context: That one can actually just judge a situation by that situation and not by who is speaking and what is being spoken about, and that I am always speaking from a position of colonization.

Maybe the problem is language. And me being me, I feel that that is indeed the problem. The violence of ontology, as Derrida would have it, is embedded within the language of the West, and it will be so so long as we have language. Power dynamics exist within being and difference, and that plays in all our structures, societal, personal, everything. That may be the way out the conundrum.

It is, however, an abstract way out, as all discussions about language will turn out. So here is a compromise: When those in positions of privilege note a societal ill, they are indeed coming from a place of privilege, and resort to humanistic principles being themselves embedded in the vocabulary of the West. When those marginalized speak of societal ills, they are indeed coming from marginalization done to what is in principle a human right, actions which are replete throughout colonial history.

Thoughts?

Image credits: https://ebbolles.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/08/31/jumpingthechasm.jpg

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