Are we humans?

The tendency to use the word "humans" to refer to mankind damages our self-understanding, and it's used, thoughtlessly I believe, by even the most refined thinkers in these ideological days of ours. This usage has a curious evolution. 

Feminists understood that they could change how people thought about fundamental realities of life -- being a man or a woman, in this case -- without opposition, simply by making certain strategic demands. They weren't above couching these demands in terms that begged for a chivalrous response, ironically enough.

The general public dropped "man" and "mankind" and began to say "people" universally when "inclusive language" -- a political tool designed by feminists to control speech for their own ends, ends inimical to natural law -- became the norm. In academe especially, they succeeded in replacing ordinary speech with "inclusive language" (and this was their triumph of using an appeal to chivalry for egalitarian ends) and thereby achieved results without a struggle.

Feminists knew they had to control the social media of the time in order to change the minds of the great mass of people. Magazines and TV were the media through which opinions could be changed without the need for argumentation. They grasped the Marxist idea that communication itself is a means. And they succeeded in controlling the language to the extent that many children seem not to recognize older texts using the word "man" to mean "men and women," even when they continue to use "man" in its linguistically productive sense (as Fr. Paul Mankowski explains), in forming or recognizing new words.
English "man" remains a preeminently productive morpheme. This is obvious from the fact that speakers are continually using it spontaneously and unreflectively in the creation of new compounds, not only in such terms as "hit-man," "bag-man," "airman" and "manned flight," but even in words we have seen emerge in our own adult lifetime, such as "point man" or "pacman." A few moments' consideration will show that "humanity," "people," or "person" are not productive in this way.
(Read the whole essay, which focuses on inclusive-language translations in Scripture and the Liturgy, but can illuminate the general question.)

In our more managerial and utilitarian time, yet another ideological usage has taken hold: The deliberately imposed replacement "people" has been itself been replaced by "humans." I don't as yet know how this came about; it seems not to have been a conscious effort on the part of any group of agitators. Humans brings a particular context, albeit subliminally; namely, the biological categorization of animals. In biology, humans are studied next to other species; we would speak of humans as a kind of mammal, or in contradistinction to birds. It's not a word that was used to mean man in the old sense, for as a scientific term, it takes no notice of the immaterial aspect of the human being.

Using "humans" in a sentence like "Humans have been making mistakes in governance since ancient times" makes a category mistake, because man is rational, unlike the animals -- monkeys don't govern and clams don't make mistakes.

To use the word "humans" instead of "people" or "man" in non-biology discussions tends, I'd argue, to imply that man is not a rational creature -- that he has not been endowed by God with the capacity to reason and thus to share in the immaterial world of the angels and of divine life itself.

When I posted these thoughts on Facebook, Tony Esolen said, "I always mark 'humans,' in my students' papers, with the comment, 'sci-fi lingo'." He tends to confirm my intuition that it is a scientific term -- and not a complimentary one -- that fails to acknowledge man's soul. And that implication becomes a feature of the user's world view, just as "inclusive" language formed ideological egalitarianism between the sexes in those who adopted it.

A note about the term "human person," which may seem to overcome the difficulty of the over-technical term human, in that the added word "person" connotes the rational side: First, "person" is not productive in the linguistic sense. It's awkward to form new words or replace old ones with it -- we are self-conscious when we say "garbage person" and if military, we would not bother to refer to a "pointperson" -- even if in so doing we would increase our virtue signal. Second, "person" is also a technical term, this time in theology, not biology. It lacks "homeyness" or common use. The man on the street cannot be counted on to recognize it as anything other than a redundancy, and an effete one at that. It can be argued that it will gain that comfortable connotation as it is used, but these things can't be forced. Honesty requires us to ask whether we would have used the term "man" or "mankind" in the context that we use "human person"* but are too ashamed to do so, simply because we sense it would not be politically correct.

*edited to include "human being" in this lexicon of substitutes for the straightforward yet more meaningful "man."

15 comments:

  1. This has bothered me for a while but I could not have articulated it as well as you. I've noticed a recent trend among (lovely) young people I know using the word "human" to the point of awkwardness in social media. ("I love these beautiful humans of mine..." [cringe])

    As for the college student, what if you don't have the likes of Tony Esolen as your professor? I think I know the answer. As you said, honesty requires it. I admit that switching "mankind" to "humanity" in a recent paper was born out of unconscious fear and shame. I recognize that now. Thank you for speaking out.

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  2. You're welcome.
    How we speak and the words we choose make a difference. In academe the difficulties are hard to avoid. Even the tiniest resistance to political pressure may not be tolerated. What to do, what to do... I think one can at least try.

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  3. I've wondered about the increase of the word "individual" by law enforcement and on the news, where they used to say person. Is that a step even further removed from man than person?

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  4. Can I add to this? I have noticed to a vast extent that people now use the word "that" instead of "who". Example: "The person that spoke to me..." I find it very jarring to the ear, and also incredibly dehumanizing. We are not objects "that", we are people "who"! I think it is closely related to the use of "human" and "individual" as you discuss here.

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    1. Yes, Piper! A pet peeve of mine for just that reason!

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  5. I am very grateful that you point these things out. I find it very offputting when women in my Bible study seem to get defensive or miffed that a Bible text contains the word “man” and they make a point of saying something like, “...AND WOMAN.” It always seems ridiculous that they can’t just intuit that no slight was meant to females in using the word “man,” but i have never considered the origins of the “inclusive language” that like most everything else these days emasculates rather than forces equality. Even though we speak the same English language, words now have begun to lose their universal meaning. It seems like a twist on the Tower of Babel.

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    1. Yes, Michelle, it's an unbecoming touchiness! Some have pointed out that no one objects to the passages where mankind in general is likened to the bride awaiting her groom in the chamber.
      These are just figures of speech. Without them, language becomes unbearably technical (and not precise anyway).

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  6. I was talking about this with my boyfriend and he pointed out seeing it from women on Instagram, calling someone “my favorite human”. I see that phrase all the time, usually as the caption for a lovey-dovey photo. It always rubbed me the wrong way. I think it’s slipped in as a cutesy phrase, but it comes across so cold and alien.

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    1. Yes, isn't it? Or even insulting. Implicit in that statement is the idea, by association, of an animal -- "My favorite puppy." There is a whiff of unseemly possession.

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  7. I like "man" and "mankind" and use them in my writing despite having been told that doing so makes me sound out of touch. w/e. In certain contexts I also think "persons" can be helpful, when you need a collective word but are emphasizing the individuals in the group. Thank you for exploring this. Something akin to the use of "the planet" vs. earth or world. Planet sounds more fragile, less special/important, more utilitarian...

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    1. I was consistently marked down for using man or mankind in my BSN program; also for using “he” for a sex unknown singular referent instead of “they.” I started out doing it naively but after that I was doing it defiantly. I dislike “Everyone take out their book,,” even more than using “people” or “humans” for “men.”

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    2. Good. Someone who thinks women are inferior to men has no place in any profession.

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  8. The women still run out of the room when someone shouts man-eating tiger!

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  9. Have you also noticed the trend to start referring to groups of people as "folk"? Especially with sexual identifiers: "LGBT folk" or "non-binary folk." What do you make of that?

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