Celebrating Humanity

The Beijing Olympics is barely a stone’s throw away, and you can literally feel the vibe in the air in the city. Not to mention the increased security in all establishments. I can’t even go in and out of the school without an ID anymore.

But something crossed my mind as usual while pondering on being involved in this epic event. What are we celebrating in this Olympics? Humanity? What is humanity? I look at Beijing, the frightening machinery of human efficiency, then I think of the cost of this vicious determination. You might think the entire Chinese population is really jubilant, but that’s not really the case. In any totalitarian state, there is a shroud covering what’s really going on.

A lot of Chinese Nationals live a life that I don’t envy. I can see and feel how they are not in control of their own lives. I can see how they are driven by outside forces beyond their control. I can see how they they don’t have much choice as to what they want to do with their lives. I have heard stories that outside the city, children are taught to do one thing, and do it for the rest of their lives because they don’t have access to education. Their dads might just teach them how to drive a truck, and they’ll be a truck driver forever because that’s the only thing they know what to do.

On the other hand, I can see the foreign powers at work as well. I can see why Chinese distrust anybody not from the mainland. China was forced to open up because foreign nations wanted a piece of the enormous market. This was way back when Britain, America, France Germany, Russia, and other countries were out for conquest because they were rapidly using up all their resources. They needed to penetrate the Middle Kingdom, and that’s what they did. To put it bluntly, it’s like raping a little girl. The imagery is not so far from the truth, and not so much an exaggeration. Just think Opium Wars, and what lengths Britain and other countries went to make sure China opened their borders. Until now, you can hear these same countries on the news trying to tarnish China’s moment of glory in the coming Olympics.

So back to humanity. We are now at a precipice in human history. You can see it, hear it, feel it everywhere around you. You know something is not right, and things are going down the dumps. You know in you gut that the shit is about the hit the fan. You can see it on CNN, the conflict in the Middle East, food crisis, oil prices, disease, human rights violations, and so on. What is it again that we are celebrating? Those ephemeral instances when we show an act of kindness? Is that what humanity is all about? In a constant state of suffering and despair, only to be rewarded by a brief moment of respite?

It wasn’t always like this. I went to a couple of museums yesterday and last week that showed our ancestors like the Peking Man and the Jiuniushan Man, and I remember what I read in the Story of B by Daniel Quinn. The Law of Nature always made sure we never went out to intentionally obliterate our own competition, our own species. There was a law written in stone that we compete for food and sustenance, but we never go make it our business to kill our competitor and take his food, or prevent him access from food. This only began to happen when the Agricultural Revolution happened, or when so called ‘civilization’ began.

We like to call early humans primitive and barbaric, but when you look at the world today, after the Enlightenment, the Rennaissance, the Industrial Revolution, the internet, amidst tremendous technological progress and standards of living, there is more suffering than ever. In Ancient Wars, people died in thousands. Today, people die in millions, and they aren’t even casualties of war, but casualties of our great human civilization.

So what should we be celebrating again? I can go on and pretend, just like you, that as long as we’re not the ones suffering, that life is great and we should celebrate the heights of human achievement. But let’s face it, we are also celebrating the heights of human cruelty and indifference.