004 ☓ anon text

[envy_the_sinners]

[Scar's been lying low in Olivine ever since the hurricane, and he's starting to go a little stir-crazy. Being left bored with his thoughts can only end in one thing. Anon questions.]

In my time here, I have come to find that there are a great many "worlds" that are home to people who wouldn't be considered human, but experience the same depth of thought and range of emotion.

[Even he can make that conclusion, now.]

In that case, what is humanity? A measure of physical traits? A state of mind? Something into which one must be born?

Comments

[envy_the_sinners]

No, you're clearly more of the type who prefers to look at the tribulations of humans from afar and call them lower than yourself.

[ossifragant]

Is that what you think?

If you want to put words in my mouth, go right ahead. I don't really care.

[envy_the_sinners]

I put no words in your mouth, your blatant generalization of humans did that for you.

[ossifragant]

To borrow the word you used, I don't mock the 'tribulations' of humans. What I don't like is the tendency to cast aside a certain group for whatever the reason may be. It doesn't matter. Maybe it's fear or hatred.

When faced with the fact that there are people who can't be considered human, people who still understand love and sorrow, do they accept this fact openly?

No. They merely become another group that needs to be eradicated. It's something different and therefore needs to be destroyed.

[envy_the_sinners]

That is not the nature of a human's interaction with a non-human. That is the nature of a thinking thing interacting with anything. The more different it is, the easier it is to cast aside. That holds true for humans and non-humans alike.

[ossifragant]

Have you ever been called a monster for something you can't control?

[envy_the_sinners]

[Has he? No, not explicitly a monster. At least, not for the things he couldn't control. But he knows what it's like to be treated like an animal. To live in constant fear. To walk down the road and know that every pair of eyes on the street was boring into the back of his head, waiting for him to prove it.

So for the sake of this argument, and for keeping his identity as secret as he can...]

Yes.

[ossifragant]

[If that's enough to satisfy him isn't entirely clear, but he doesn't press the issue.]

I'm a bad person to ask the difference between 'human' and 'humanity.' It's a word born of a place where humans are the only species capable of compassion and rationality.

That doesn't mean I can't hate the word.

[envy_the_sinners]

I am not asking the difference between 'human' and 'humanity.'

I am trying to parse what, precisely, makes a human. Is it a state that can be achieved? Or is it something one must be born into? An 'all or nothing'?

[ossifragant]

If you want to be literal, I'd say the only way to be human is if you're born one.

This place doesn't cause a dramatic personality shift for those not human.

I lost a lot of people before coming here. People who died protecting me. It's been months and I still feel guilty. I'll probably never stop. It keeps me awake at night.

If humanity is anything perhaps it's compassion for another living being.

[envy_the_sinners]

Others have come to a similar conclusion.

But then why would we call it humanity, if it is something to be felt by those who aren't human?

[Because he is totally convinced that you aren't human, bro.]

[ossifragant]

[He's... not being very subtle about it.

He's pretty bad at pretending to be something he's not even if he is technically human now.]

I don't know.

[envy_the_sinners]

Something to consider, then.

[ossifragant]

What would you call it?

[envy_the_sinners]

I am starting to wonder if the state of empathy truly needs a name. We call it what it is.

[ossifragant]

Maybe the best thing would be to call it "being alive."

[envy_the_sinners]

No. I have seen men who are very much alive who completely lack any sense of compassion or empathy.

[ossifragant]

[Would one of those men happen to be Greed's close friend because um]

Then it's the wrong term for it. What then? It's one of those things so engrained I'm not sure one term could encompass it.

[envy_the_sinners]

[Why yes, of course.]

The wrong term for what? What are you trying to describe at this point?

[ossifragant]

What else?

Another word for humanity.

[envy_the_sinners]

Yet humanity is beginning to look more and more like a physical state rather than an emotional one, due to the fact that the existence of non-humans with emotions refutes the idea.

[Yeah, even he can admit that, now.]

[ossifragant]

There is no other word for the emotional side of it, is there? Maybe you're right. Maybe there is no need for there to be a term for it in the end.