How we Lost our Humanity and How we can get it Back
Audio here!
What does it mean to be human? As a culture, we have asked that question in a million different ways and have probably thought up hundreds of different responses. It’s a philosophical question for some, a scientific question for others, and sometimes… an everyday question many ask just to try and figure out where they fit into the scheme of things. But here in the 21st Century, it may be one of the most important questions we could ask.
We have come to a crossroads. Humans will number near 9 billion in the not so distant future. We have not gone very far to eliminate chronic hunger, disease, famine, violence, war, abuse of other life forms on the planet, and the destruction of the ecosphere which sustains us.
Through the social sciences, we know we were not always like we are today… so full of greed, aggression, isolationism, selfishness, uber-competitiveness… nor so alienated from ourselves and each other. So what has gone wrong? What may be the reasons we have lost what Darcia Narvaez calls our “human essence?” What have been the affects of key qualities of modern, Western society such as political hierarchies and capitalism? And what might we do to restore homeostasis and build a healthier, more humanistic future global society?
We will discuss these ideas in a special Equal Time for Freethought with Darcia Narvaez and Harriet Fraad who have made it their life to ask, and try to find answers for, these questions.