I am reading Jonathan Glover's Humanity now. This book shows us how a war can intrigue the worst side of human being--selfish, cruel, and sadistic. We can gorge our enemies' eyes and torture them to death without blinking eyes. We can erase our conscience in order to kill people efficiently. We will even smile at an amputed body while feeling excited for our own survival.
In the preface of Humanity, Glover asks a serious question: what is humanity? Without humanity, we are just murderers killing each others for nothing. Without humanity, we are just like the thug in the movie Rashinmon (羅生門), claiming that "if we are not selfish, we can't survive." On Time's China blog, I saw the smiling faces of people who rob the materials that are sent to help refugees in Sichuan. Why these people--who are neither the victims of the earthquake nor the refugees who need help--smile? I think they might be excited that the earthquake didn't kill them, so they trample others' life to assert their distorted self-identity.
Morality is not how we mention about ourselves, but about how we response to an extreme situation. In the Sichuan earthquake, some people choose to be a rescuer, some choose to be a thug. Of course, we need to build our humanity constantly; but in the end, human beings are--as Victor Frankl says--"self-determined."
In the preface of Humanity, Glover asks a serious question: what is humanity? Without humanity, we are just murderers killing each others for nothing. Without humanity, we are just like the thug in the movie Rashinmon (羅生門), claiming that "if we are not selfish, we can't survive." On Time's China blog, I saw the smiling faces of people who rob the materials that are sent to help refugees in Sichuan. Why these people--who are neither the victims of the earthquake nor the refugees who need help--smile? I think they might be excited that the earthquake didn't kill them, so they trample others' life to assert their distorted self-identity.
Morality is not how we mention about ourselves, but about how we response to an extreme situation. In the Sichuan earthquake, some people choose to be a rescuer, some choose to be a thug. Of course, we need to build our humanity constantly; but in the end, human beings are--as Victor Frankl says--"self-determined."
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