Man for a reason is called the crown of creation of the Almighty. He subjugated nature to himself, and scientific and technological progress went so far in a short time that people can no longer imagine how their ancestors lived without his achievements several centuries ago. However, those values that are common to all, despite any technical revolutions, remain the same. What is humanity? A student’s composition can provide an answer to this question. After all, everyone knows - even kids teach this - that empathy and compassion are among those features that distinguish people from animals.
Human Values and Community Development
When people talk about the crisis of European civilization, first of all, they mean the crisis of those value orientations, directions, in the direction of which the society should develop. Previously, various kinds of religious beliefs served as such compasses. But with technological development, religion gradually began to lose its position. About a hundred years ago, she gave an exhaustive answer to the question "what is humanity?" The composition that children now write in schools will be very different, although not so much time has passed by historical standards. Now, much less often, children are taught the fulfillment of the ten commandments, the second of which is "love your neighbor as yourself." The theme of humanity from this has not become less relevant.
Compassion in everyday life
Manifestations of mercy can often be seen in everyday life. Someone helped to lift a decrepit old man on the stairs. Someone served an orphan or just an unknown beggar. However, this quality is especially evident in those conditions when a person is threatened with an absolute loss of his appearance. When all conditions help him regress again to the level of an animal, but with his actions he proves that he belongs to the genus Homo Sapiens - such an expression of humanity is the highest and often accompanies heroic acts.
Examples of humanity in inhuman conditions
One of the most monstrous manifestations of cruelty in world history is the concentration camps of death. The people who got there took all kinds of property - from clothes to gold fillings in their teeth. The prisoners did not even have names. Everything that had at least some value was taken away - even if it was the last memory of relatives and close people.
But later it turned out that even those who served as overseers in these camps often had a choice. They could behave better or worse with respect to prisoners, thereby determining their fate. Many authors who survived that terrible period answer the question: “What is humanity?” Victor Frankl's essay “Saying to Life:“ Yes! ”: A psychologist in a concentration camp” describes in detail what is happening and gives many examples of humanity.
Mother Mary: a benefactress who died in a concentration camp
In a concentration camp called Ravensbrück, the well-known benefactor of hundreds of her contemporaries, nun Maria, passed away. Her ideals of faith and her desire to serve God were so great that even before the war began, she divorced her husband and moved to Paris to get a haircut as a nun. And this despite the fact that they already had a son.
In her youth, her name was Elizaveta Kuzmina-Karavaeva - she was a very talented and hardworking woman, wrote poetry. One of his poems was also dedicated to her by Alexander Blok.
In Paris, mother Maria opened a shelter for those in need. All the time, she cooked, sewed, arranged it, tried to find funds for the poor. During the war, she and several of her accomplices, in order to save the life of the Jews, issued them fake baptismal certificates. Then the secret organization of mother Mary was revealed, and the nun was sent to a concentration camp.
There she spent about three years. They say about her that just a day before the concentration camp was released, she changed her room with another prisoner and instead entered her gas chamber.
Everyone can be merciful
Thus, in completely different conditions, such a quality as humanity can manifest itself. Composition-reasoning may include various examples. However, in everyday life, and in such unbearable and cruel conditions as a concentration camp, actions can be dictated by him. The most important thing is its focus: after all, in all cases a person sacrifices something for the good, and sometimes even to save the life of another.
To do this, you must have a very mature moral attitude. The case of the mother of Mary, who had fearlessness before death and those people who could take her life, is the highest manifestation of mercy and the answer to the question: “What is humanity?” An essay in a school may include examples of individuals who showed heroism in their actions.
Everyone is able to show this quality. In any environment, there are many people who need help, and life itself provides everyone with a lot of situations where you can make a choice in favor of humanity.