On Humanity

RubyStone · February 16, 2010

On Humanity

Well, I know this will be a serious topic, so serious that I might confront some of you those who not holding the same view, and to prevent profaning your holiness, I just want to ask, facing death, what you would do.

I want to study this subject for I watched a moving movie “2012”. In it people are facing the end of the world, and the director gives eyes to the scripting of characteristics, including emotional and moral aspects. The magnificent scenery impresses me greatly, especially the visual impact it brings. So, let’s combine with the movie and talk about the humanity.

Humanity, as it defines, is the quality of being human, which contains the emotion of mercy or kindness. We are all born as human, not animals, so we all have humanity in our soul. But humans do not have only this. We can’t hide to event other feelings like selfish, vanity, abhor, and fear, etc. And for most of the time, seldom is altruism. We can’t blame more, for all men are somewhat selfish, fear to death, and holding vanity within spirit. Since the moment human evolutes from anthropoid, human races have been in the progress called “civilization”. Human learned to utilize tools, develop agriculture, explore unknown things, which in turn promoted the progress of civilization. A consequent of civilization is the establishment of ethic, which systematically states what humans should do, and gives a definition of the standard of humanity. Human being is born a social race, and this means an individual can’t survive without society. However living in a society also exits problems, including authority distribution, occupation allocation, social activities, leadership, crime, etc. Among these problems, an eclectic solvent is the moral sanction, which might be religion, or something else. Using the word “eclectic” means it cannot resolve these problems radically, which can only relieve the situation. Human psychology is trying to study the individual’s mind, but I assume if that destination realized, there would be no individual. So by only standardizing the moral disciplines, we can never achieve the real meaning of humanity.

Well, let’s return to the initial question. Facing death, the director gives us the answers of different people. The Indian scientist, who was the first to notice the unusual activity of neutrino, which is observed having no influence on matter penetrated, finally he even couldn’t save his family. Kissing his son, the family sank in the ocean, watching the gigantic waves burying all things passed. The next one who got to know the destiny of the Earth is the geologist, the technical manager of the ark project. He actively carried on the project, for the sake of saving more people. But the space is limited; the number of persons who will get saved is also limited. Now we must decide who will obtain the right to take on. Common public? Are you kidding me? Only those take power, authority and wealth in hand might have the chance. As the movie mentioned, the project was cooperated by eight countries under the table, and they collected money required by selling the seat on the ark. I can’t answer this question for there will be different replies due to different faiths. Just as there is a saying that science needs sacrifice. Is that right or wrong? I can’t find the answer. The modern medicine is based on clinical experiments, that is, the patients are just the living samples. When humanity encounters profits, glory, reputation or something else, how many of us can insist our credit learned from childhood? Seldom can achieve it, unless the saint or God.

One of my respect persons in the movie is the US president. Although at first I condemn his decision to keep secret from public, his final action shakes my soul. When the final hour came, whereas other related persons all took on aboard, he determinedly stayed with the people of the United States. He said:” I was the last president of United States of America in history. I will stand with the nation till the last time.” Hearing this, I know he was a real hero, who will live eternal and immortal in people’s heart. He demonstrated what humanity is by sacrificing his own life. He owned my worship with his holiness. Compared with him, there also existed those who put their selves first. They took every action to stop the spread of the information about the project, even killed those wanted to open the plan to public. In their minds, humanity was nothing but a word. But in that very situation when sources were limited, humanity could do nothing, even might became an obstacle. Just like what the officer said, life is unfair. Facing disaster, little could human do to avoid. There is a saying by Shakespeare that there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. I can’t say the officer is wrong, nor he is right. Maybe he is right in practice, but he is undoubtedly wrong in moral. Only God has the right to decide individual’s destiny. I think the director didn’t tend to illustrate just scenes of a series of disaster, however, what he really want to tell us is that do not forget why human is so called humans and penetrate what’s the meaning of the movie.

As to the main characters, I didn’t feel much attention, although their brave behaviors did win my adoration. Yuri was a selfish man, but he saved his children at the last second. The movie also told us that regret is never too late when you are alive. Humanity is in our everyday life, although you may not notice, it is always together with our soul. As long as we sustain a blessing heart, our humanity will not be disguised.

The movie 2012 makes me think a lot about the meaning of civilization. Why God created such emotional humans? What I realize is that society improves through evolution of human’s thought. And the most important, is so called humanity.

Eudemon · February 19, 2010

2012, yea i have this movie in my harddrive for like months, just need to find sometime to sit down and watch it

Snowhaze · February 21, 2010

Myself as a singular who holds no faith to god (and as one who've not watched 2010, thus replies referring to Ruby's understanding itself.), believes that "humanity" is nothing but an advance form of the conscience to survival.

As the minority of mankind shows their caring to those desperately in need for rescue; the majority continues on their course of fufilling their material desires - to live, or to prosper.

The complexity of humanity holds too much to be summarized into ink, but when you break down our races' various doings, how different are we from those loose in the wilderness?