Moyers: What if we are wrong about human nature? Adler: If we are wrong about human nature, if we are not different from the animals in kind, if we differ only in degree from the higher mammals, I cannot state a rational justification for a different treatment of men and beasts. The Roman law made the fundamental distinction between persons and things. The word "person" is a very important word. I have never found anyone who is willing to call a cow a person. Or a dog a person. Now why not? Why do we refuse the word person to these animals we love and care for, our domestic pets. We sometime joke "my cat is like a person" but we know we are joking, that they are not persons. Now that word person means that we by being persons, not things, have a dignity. And all of us, every human being from the least to the greatest in terms of all the difference talents and aptitudes is a person, has personal dignity, and the rights that we have, the right to freedom, the right to political liberty, are our personal attributes.
As long as there have been humans, we have searched for our place in the cosmos. Where are we? Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet, of a hum-drum star, lost in a galaxy, tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe of which there are far more galaxies than people.
The number of useful ways of assembling nucleic acids is stupifyingly large. It's probably larger than the total number of atoms in the universe. This means that the number of possible kinds of human beings is vastly greater than the number of human beings that has ever lived. This untapped potential of the human species is immense. There must be ways of putting nucleic acids together which will function far better - by any criterion you wish to choose - than the hereditary instructions of any human being who has ever lived. Fortunately we do not know, or at least do not yet know, how to assemble alternative sequences of nucleotides to make alternative kinds of human beings. But in the future we might well be able to put nucleotides together in any desired sequence to produce whatever human characteristics we think desirable. A disquieting and awesome prospect.
Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it. In war it serves that we may poison and mutilate each other. In peace it has made our lives hurried and uncertain. Instead of freeing us in great measure from spiritually exhausting labor, it has made men into slaves of machinery, who for the most part complete their monotonous long day's work with disgust and must continually tremble for their poor rations. ... It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours; concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
A person's a person, no matter how small.
My puny human brain, just a few bucks worth of water, salts, and proteins, hung in there just fine against a jillion-dollar supercomputer.
People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.
We are game-playing, fun-having creatures. We are the otters of the universe.
You care whether you are being seen as a person or as an object. In fact, there is little you care more about than this.
People whose hearts are at war toward others can't consider other's objections and challenges enough to be able to find a way through them.
As important as behavior is, most problems at home, at work, and in the world are not failures of strategy but failures of way of being. As we've discussed, when our hearts are at war, we can't see situations clearly, we can't consider others' positions seriously enough to solve difficult problems, and we end up provoking hurtful behavior in others.
When we start seeing others as objects, we begin provoking them to make our lives difficult. We actually start inviting others to make us miserable. We begin provoking in others the very things we say we hate.
Difficult people are nevertheless people, and it always remains in my power to see them that way...Seeing someone as a person doesn't mean you have to be soft...Even war is possible with a heart at peace.
When you begin to see others as people, issues related to race, ethnicity, religion, and so on begin to look and feel different. You end up seeing people who have hopes, dreams, fears, and even justifications that resemble your own.
From Mission Joy There's a concept that we have in South Africa, the concept of ubuntu. It says, a person is a person through other persons. I mean I could not speak as I am speaking without having learned it from other human beings. I could not think as a human being except through learning it from other human beings.
Moyers: What if we are wrong about human nature?
Adler: If we are wrong about human nature, if we are not different from the animals in kind, if we differ only in degree from the higher mammals, I cannot state a rational justification for a different treatment of men and beasts. The Roman law made the fundamental distinction between persons and things. The word "person" is a very important word. I have never found anyone who is willing to call a cow a person. Or a dog a person. Now why not? Why do we refuse the word person to these animals we love and care for, our domestic pets. We sometime joke "my cat is like a person" but we know we are joking, that they are not persons. Now that word person means that we by being persons, not things, have a dignity. And all of us, every human being from the least to the greatest in terms of all the difference talents and aptitudes is a person, has personal dignity, and the rights that we have, the right to freedom, the right to political liberty, are our personal attributes.
Missing Reference