This semester I’ve tried to be more lighthearted and somewhat superficial. There were a lot of reasons for this, some of which I discussed last week. Next semester, I’m thinking about being more serious while still examining the question: What is the good?

Here’s a foretaste:

While psychology and sociology discuss the abnormal and what goes against social norms, and while science says that humans are just the most sentient of animals, and while religion (in general) says that humans are either the worst of God’s creations or the best, only the Humanities give a happy medium (something of which I’m fond).

The Humanities say that every human experience is part of humanity – the saint and the sinner are equally human. Neither Hitler nor Mother Teresa was more human than the other. The murderer and the martyr are equally human. I don’t know of any other discipline that presumes such a thing.

My favorite professor pointed out that the Genesis story says that man was created from dirt and the breath of God and is thus a mixture of the highest and lowest things.

There comes a problem when we refer to genocide as inhuman (not to be confused with inhumane). The question I have is this: Which group involved isn’t human? Some say that victims become nonpersons – what a legacy we give them. Others say that to murder someone is to make yourself less than human, but the Genesis story explains how man killing man – brother killing brother – is a perfectly human event (however undesirable).

Take civil wars. Who is right? Both sides kill, both sides eliminate humanity, and yet both are human. Is the winner human? Is the loser human? Can’t they both be human? Mustn’t they both be human?

We wouldn’t dare say, after our own civil war, that the Union troops or the Confederates were less than human, and we won’t even say, (like they did) that the slaves of the day were less than human. Even that’s an interesting thought. The Civil War caused black slaves to finally be viewed as human (legally anyway), but that obviously doesn’t mean that to be a slave was to be less than human even if it meant being treated as less than human.

It seems to me that only the Humanities have the guts to bite the bullet and accept both Hitler and Jesus as human (albeit on the most extreme opposite sides of the spectrum).

We cannot simply say that Hitler was a devil so that we can feel better about being human. We cannot only accept the good among us as part of us. We must accept every creature born of woman as human if we are to ever maintain anything close to human rights. We cannot define humanity in such a way as to intentionally have it make us look good.

Welcome to humanity. You are a member of a group which has raped itself, murdered itself, slaughtered itself, eaten itself, defaced itself, destroyed itself and done unbelievably atrocious things to itself. You are a member of a group which has simultaneously loved and cared for, given itself for, made sacrifices for, worshiped and honored both itself and things other than itself.

You have the potential to live a life that falls anywhere in the spectrum between Hitler and Jesus. You may even be able to expand that spectrum (hopefully on the good side). Welcome to humanity.

Matt Brumit a junior Humanities major. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].