5 January 2013
Here's a short story I wrote a while ago. I hope you enjoy it.
Although she looked it, she was not human. This was the idea that the one called Danforth conveyed to the citizens. They laughed, as would be expected. Silencing them, Danforth continued. “Yes,” he said, “she has no humanity at all.” These words produced an unexpected effect: all of the citizens, upon hearing these words, immediately believed what he had said to be true. They now believed that she had no humanity. Only Danforth understood why this had happened. By saying that she was not human, he had brought into the citizens the view that he was a madman: how could she not be human? His second statement, though, was not so impossible. Being human and having humanity are quite different, since the word humanity to the citizens meant something like kindness or benevolence, qualities not shared by all humans. So Danforth’s second statement showed that he was not a madman and reassured them of his ability to reason. The unexpectedness of the second declaration after so unreasonable a first not only seemed to clarify the first, but also seemed to fulfill it. The citizens lost control of the level of the reassurance, and so they accepted Danforth’s condemnation of her. Having achieved his goal, Danforth strode away on a well-known path. When she arrived later that afternoon, she spoke with a prominent citizen and warned him of a man named Danforth, a man whom she said had no humanity. He asked her to leave: why should he trust one who herself had no humanity? Feeling hopeless, she tried to speak with other citizens, but they greeted her with cold stares. Standing on the path, she implored the citizens with her eyes, inwardly surprised by their lack of human kindness towards her. At last she wandered away on the same path another had recently begun. She thought of Danforth, the one whom she knew had no humanity. Why, she thought, had the citizens not believed her? Danforth, further on the path, thought of himself, whom he knew to have a great amount of humanity. How, he thought, had she developed this strange opinion of him? Maybe it was her who knew no kindness. As each quarreled alone, an outside observer looking down on the path knew the truth: that both she and Danforth possessed humanity. He did not leave his place to tell them, though, for he had none.
Humanity • Opuss № I