This was, on my part, kind of a wink at the humanities bros that might be around hahaha.
This points to a very famous quote in literature/philosophy:
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto (Terence)
… quote that from its humble beginnings in a comedic scene, was taken out of context and widely used - starting from antiquity up to the renaissance, enlightenment, and beyond - according to the varying needs, concerns and views of the time.
I’m not sure if I encountered if first in Montaigne or Rousseau, but it was in my late teens and it (my own interpretation of it) made a firm impression on me. To me it meant that there was something in me that could be called ‘humanity’ and was shared between all humans, and that this thing had within itself the whole range of what humans were capable of ; that there was in me such a potential, and if it was only the ‘circumstances’ of my particular life that were to be thanked for the depths of it not being expressed, it nevertheless had to be acknowledged, known, and taken responsibility for.
Needless to say that such a point of view didn’t need to be amended much upon discovering actualism. Only needed was the realisation that ‘I’ was humanity, instead of it being that thing over there, known by then in all its immensity, that had me in its grasp… and the ‘good news’ that the full seeing of this would be, indeed, its end.
6 Likes