"If we have reason not to be fully pessimistic, it is because of the basic features of human beings. The human child only becomes independent after something like 6 or 7 years. This means that during one tenth of our lives we are dependent on others, which is not true of other mammals. So, for a long time, we all know that our small ones are completely helpless, and we have to protect them, to nourish them, to take care of them. This attitude, of which every single human being has been the beneficiary, is inscribed if not in our genes, at least in our minds. This means that we, in some instinctive way, know that we can only survive if we take care of the weaker ones."
~Tzvetan Todorov, in an interview from "The Possibility of Hope"
The idea that human beings should live only for themselves, and as such realize their "freedom," is not only fundamentally flawed, but nearly impossible to reconcile with human needs. "No man is an island," so the saying goes. Every person is so interconnected with every other person, at least by association and interdependence for basic necessities and for social fulfillment. The encouragement of the development of the isolated, individualized, competitive modern western man (and its dependent female counterpart) is deeply troubling to me. What I would suggest is some form of biological or culturally innate compassion seems to be suffocated by this self-serving, self-idolizing "individual," and I can see a whole host of symptomatic diseases in modern society that seem to be the direct result of it.
We know not how to live for one another any more. To care for others, even though we may have no direct knowledge of who they are or how they affect us. There seems to be a weaponizing of the modern mind, a sort of barricading one's self (and one's own small group) from the rest of humanity. The focus on our differences, rather than our commonalities, has been an appalling mark on our cultural human history, and is currently fueling our rapidly quickening downward spiral into hell.
I will not begin to assess the worth of human life. I will say that the degree of selfishness or selflessness of human beings is largely flexible and culturally determined--what innate qualities that may have served us biologically can surely be squashed by socialization and enculturation. This suggests that the hope for human progress is not lost, as our cultural evolution can yet take us to a place where we are not isolated, where our concern once again reaches beyond what best serves our own selfish endeavors, where we once again know the beauty of genuine compassion. Human life is so very conditional. I will say that what makes human life so amazing is the ability to reflect upon and appreciate abstract beauty--be it in the form of love, of art, of music, or of nature. That sort of seemingly transcendent sense of the abstract and the deeply moving response it can stir in the human recesses seems to me worthy by some accord. If that is lost, however, I dare say we have lost what makes us human, and if we lose that in addition to our failing to be stewards of the earth and all the life on it, as we are the life forms with the ability to reflect upon and manipulate the system of natural order, then I would concede that yes, we would have indeed forfeited what made us worthy of existence in light of the plight we cause the rest of the planet. I do wish to point out, though, that nature knows no concept of "right" or "worth." Only what is and is not, only what can go on and what cannot. And along that line of thought, our species cannot continue on much longer at the rate we are going, in the manner in which we are behaving. The earth simply cannot tolerate it, and the repercussions of our carelessness and disregard for our fellow human beings have already begun to be felt in the political chaos of the world order, and our disregard for the planet has already set in motions a most grievous set of events that will surely damage a great deal of human life, if not make it impossible for survival altogether someday. That, in a sense, can be seen as some sort of natural justice. Some sort of selection on the part of nature for what creatures contribute to and maintain the delicate balance of life, and the removal of the ones that are destructive and parasitic to the earth's integrity.
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