Man’s (In)Humanity To Man

(Preliminary note: I have kept to the original noun (viz man) in this blogpiece, recognising that today this is regarded as a sexist description.)

In 1784 the Scottish bard, Robert Burns, composed his poem Man Was Made To Mourn.¹ One of the eleven stanzas of the poem includes the lines,

‘Man’s inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!’

During the 250 years since the penning of this poem the phrase ‘Man’s inhumanity to man’ has been quoted many thousands of times, mostly as ratification of the inevitability of human atrocities. The phrase, quoted this way, suggests that malevolence is innate to the human condition.

Such implication, however, may not have been Robert Burns’ intention. Burns wrote the poem soon after meeting the father of a woman, Kate Kemp, whom he wished to court. Kate though, was out looking for a lost cow at the time of Burns’ visit. Burns thus had to spend time with her father, a man of ill-temper. Burns’ ill-fated visit with Kate’s father may have been the inspiration for the inhumanity wording. Most of the poem he composed on his walk home.

It may also have been that Burns was recording his antagonism towards the class inequalities that were prevalent at the time in Scotland and throughout Great Britain. The Industrial Revolution was well underway, concomitant with poor working conditions, rising inequality, and unhealthy living conditions. The young Robert Burns (25 years old at the time of writing the poem) would have been appalled at what was happening and passionate about protesting it through his poetry.

Hence, the words ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ must be read in the context of the time, Burns’ age, and his meeting with a cantankerous father of his love interest.

I would guess that many who quote the phrase today do not know where it came from, nor perhaps, who wrote it, and why it was written.

Today, it is a line thrown out as verification that humans are basically ill-willed and immoral at heart. When we see clips of warfare and violence happening in Gaza, Ukraine, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, or Somalia Burns’ phrase is sometimes quoted as if to say ‘well, that’s just the inhumanity of human nature.’

But, is this the case?

One of the reasons we see clips like those mentioned above is because they are newsworthy. In other words, they are out of the ordinary, they are literally – news, something new and not something usual. They are un-usual.

And, being unusual, they cannot logically be cited as proof that human nature is basically ill-willed, violent, or in-human.

Furthermore, when a comparative analysis of how different cultures understand the basic nature of humans, we have to concede that the notion that humans are innately inhuman is not a global understanding.

Certainly, it seems, violence and ill-will occur in all cultures. Sadly however, it seems that western culture is unique in its rendering of human nature as being inhuman at core.

The American First Nations author, activist, and historian, Jack Forbes for example, writes of the First Nation notion of wetiko, which he describes as a disease that has no respect for the cycle of life and death and is without any sense of sacredness. But, as he notes ‘Non-wetikos may, at times, be cruel, but their cruelty is individual and sporadic, not part of a system of cruelty.’ It was this system of cruelty that he saw within the western culture, particularly that part of western culture that colonised the Americas.²

The cultures of SE Asia share a similar conceptualisation, with Buddhism especially speaking of Buddha nature, which has been expressed as the innate capacity for awakening, compassion, and understanding that resides in everyone.

Amidst the struggle against the apartheid system in South Africa Bishop Desmond Tutu was able to proclaim that, ‘You know human beings are basically good. You know that’s where we have to start. That everything else is an aberration.’³

Sadly however, western culture has so infused the whole world (via colonisation and/or economic hegemony) that western ideas, understandings, and concepts now dominate globally. From within this western worldview it is difficult to look from outside to see that this worldview is not a universal one.

Tragically, when this view of the of man’s inhumanity to man is normalised, assumed to be true, and legitimised it becomes very difficult to confront and change those situations in which violence, ill-will, and inhumanity do take place. After all, if this is the way things are, then they cannot be changed, only shifted slightly until the next outbreak of inhumanity.

Man’s inhumanity to man must be questioned and shifted towards the more central tenet of: Each person’s humanity to each other person.

Notes:

1. Robert Burns, Man was Made to Mourn, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, first published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock in 1786

2. Forbes, Jack D., Columbus and other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism, Seven Stories Press, New York, Revised Edition, 1992. Original version 1979

3. His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, Avery, New York, 2016