I'll definitely do so. I don't recall off-hand if I've heard that one, but I've heard a lot of them (I've been an on-and-off listener for a decade).
> Still, I disagree. The tools that we use shape our souls as much as our brains. It's that repetitive daily use that mostly does this. We come to see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it, and our tools heavily shape this view.
I don't disagree with your assertion, I just do't think the way "see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it" is actually humanity.
> To reduce someone's humanity is an incredibly deep question and i don't have the space here, nor the access to beer, to do it justice.
It is, but my use here is fairly simplistic. Basically, I think most people use "humanity" as a stand in for the values of the day. Obviously, if something is so affected by the current culture and attitude, it's can't be the defining trait of our race, can it? Thus, most of my comments here have been along the lines of both calling out what I see as a bogus definition, and proposing my own one, base don what I see as defining traits of our race. Innovation, advancement, etc.
It really is a big question, but this bit by Hannah Arendt in "The Origins of Totalitarianism" (a book I highly recommend, it's as timely as ever sadly) really struck me.. it's on page 667 in the German version, this is my crappy translation:
> Humans, in so far as they are more than a completion of functions able to react, whose lowest and therefore most central are the purely animal like reactions, are simply superfluous for totalitarian systems. Their goal is not to erect a despotic regime over humans, but a system by which humans are made superfluous. Total power can only be achieved and guaranteed when nothing else matters except the absolutely controllable willingness to react, marionettes robbed of all spontaneity. Humans, precisely because they are so powerful, can only be completely controlled when they have become examples of the animal like species human.
So I would say at least part of the answer might be: taking away the ability to act instead of just react, and the the ability to start a logical chain of thinking from new premises (which is also something she mentions, though of course in contrast with totalitarianism, which forces a certain flow of logic based on some premises set in stone; she's not writing about what it means to be human).
Still, I disagree. The tools that we use shape our souls as much as our brains. It's that repetitive daily use that mostly does this. We come to see the world and then believe things in the way we experience it, and our tools heavily shape this view.
To reduce someone's humanity is an incredibly deep question and i don't have the space here, nor the access to beer, to do it justice. However, I like that you turned the question on it's head. Most of the time we ask what it would take to make something human. The way you pose this question: "what would it take to rob a person of their humanity?" is MUCH more interesting and very provocative.