Many a times humanity is viewed as something abstract, something that supersedes rationality. For instance, why should one help a blind to cross a road? There is nothing to gain for the person(one who helps) in this scenario. This must not be a logical action. So something that is not logical is not needed. At best, it is desirable. But still, this thought makes us feel uneasy. Why? Even if you can’t get a handle on it, you somehow know that there is something inherently wrong with this kind of thinking.
Let me help you. Humanity is one of the most logical things out there. It’s just that the reasoning it follows is not the microscopic ‘quid pro quo’ but the much wider (and more beneficial in the long run) ‘collective good’. To understand its implications you first need to loose the reasoning based on individuality. You don’t need to think what will happen if the blind person is not helped. You need to ask what if all the blind people are not helped. The projected losses would be as follows. All of the blind population will either have a choice to always stay at home or to go outside and get injured or die. Either way we would be deprived of their substantial would be contribution to the development of humans. Its like doing away with the entire electrical wiring of the house just because a fuse blew out. In the premise of ‘collective good’ any effort in which there is a net gain to the group greater than the effort or a loss greater than the effort can be avoided, then that effort is worth taking. And I’m sure most of the actions people perceive as constituents of humanity can be explained logically by the reasoning of ‘collective good’. Some that cannot be at first will, at careful examination, appear as precursors.
Humanity is the quintessence of the approach that will help us to achieve our maximum potential as a species not as an individual. Sure from time to time you will notice a blind person not being helped. But remember that the just because the few people observing the incident chose to ignore humanity, it doesn’t mean that humanity as a whole is not needed.
I perceived that the person asking this question was questioning the logical side of humanity and I answered accordingly. Hence, in the quest of making my answer as rational as possible I tried to do away with the sappy stuff.(which in itself is an irony) But, not for one moment, I think that the emotional aspect of humanity plays second fiddle to its rationality.
Thank You.
