What must we do to become humane? This question has always existed for those who seek the best in people — love, friendship, and the creation and preservation of all forms of beauty. We want a safe world that allows us to grow into our best selves.
Hannah Arendt* described the challenge:
The world is not humane just because it is made by human beings, and it does not become humane just because the human voice sounds in it, but only when it has become the object of discourse … We humanize what is going on in the world and in ourselves only by speaking of it, and in the course of speaking of it we learn to be human.
The Greeks called this humanness which is achieved in the discourse of friendship philanthropia, ‘love of man,’ since it manifests itself in a readiness to share the world with other men.
As you doubtless noticed, the English borrowed from the Greeks to produce the word philanthropy, which Oxford Languages defines as “the desire to promote the welfare of others, expressed especially by the generous donation of money to good causes.”
To progress in our humanity, we must engage with people we don’t know, especially those who are unlike us. Who might they be? Those of a different color, socioeconomic status, customs, ideas, national origin, religion, etc.
If you have read the Homeric epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, you will remember that a stranger to a new place would be welcomed by a native there. He would be given food and shelter. It was typical to provide him with a gift and to receive a gift from him in return. This was called philoxenia (my emphasis here and below), a love of strangers in which the unfamiliar traveler and his benefactor were turned into friends.
This word is the opposite of xenophobia, the fear, mistrust, or dislike of an individual who is foreign or strange to you.
What kind of conversation might enhance our humanity and relationships? Arendt, again, points the way:
Truly human dialogue differs from mere talk or even discussion in that it is entirely permeated by pleasure in the other person and what he says.
He will doubtless sometimes say things about which we disagree. What then?
Retopistics: A Renegade Excavation, 2001, by Julie Mehretu, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art
Zygmunt Bauman** offered this in 2003:
The fact that others disagree with us is not an obstacle on the road to human community. But our conviction that our opinions are the whole truth, nothing but the truth and above all the sole truth that there is, and our belief that other people’s truths, if different from ours, are ‘mere opinions’ — are such an obstacle.
If there were only one set of answers, all known to each of us, conversation would become pointless and boring. We are enriched by those who are different when we permit ourselves to overcome a hesitancy and fear of them that is often misplaced.
Consider this as you think about the prejudice and stereotyping of those we do not know. Individuals with “all the answers” do not enter into conversations with the openness that creates humane discourse with people unlike themselves—the strangers who might become friends, if only …
They, too—the outsiders—want to be loved, noticed, and understood, to inform and be informed, to help and be helped, touched, cared for and caring, applauded, encouraged, and allowed to work hard and stay safe. They are all around us, driving cars, making music, standing at the bus stop, writing poetry, fixing machines, working in the stores we visit, displaying computer expertise, going to school, filing tax returns, and caring for their children and ours.
As David Held*** wrote in 2002, in dark times, we must remember that “history is still with us and can be made” in the best possible way: in a humane fashion that serves ourselves, our shared prosperity, and those we might make friends with in conversation.
Every day is an opportunity. Let us all make that history.
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The top image is the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: A Winter Day Near Chequamegon, WI, March 5, 2025. Laura Hedien Official Website.
*Hannah Arendt. On Humanity in Dark Times: Thoughts about Lessing” (Address on accepting the Lessing Prize of the Free City of Hamburg. (1959)
**Bauman, Zygmunt. (2003). Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bond. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
***Held, David (200). Violence, Law, and Justice in a Global Age. Constellations, 9 (1):74-88 (2002)
