To be ethical, we must first acknowledge that other people are human, as we are. This is the “thinking” component of ahimsa.
The fundamental building block of interpersonal relationships is the acknowledgement of others’ humanity or personhood. Obvious as this may seem, denial of this fundamental precept – or the absence of this fundamental understanding, as the case may be – has led to the severe denigrations of personhood seen in genocide and slavery.
As we proceed through the levels of development, we will see a progression. In interpersonal relationships, we begin at level one by acknowledging others’ humanity. Understanding the other characterizes level two. Appreciation for the other, representing and enhanced understanding that is informed by the intellect and buttressed by an emotional understanding (empathy, compassion, etc.), characterizes level three. Wisdom characterizes level four: it refers to a quality of understanding that surpasses the norm. As we proceed through the stages, typically, the other domains of being are incorporated into the value (e.g., empathy enhancing understanding in level three of interpersonal relations).
Real
True Narratives
I now feel as if I had just been aroused from sleep, and, looking back with quickened perception at the state of torment from whence I fled. I was there held and claimed as a slave; as such I was subjected to the will and power of my keeper, in all respects whatsoever. That the slave is a human being, no one can deny. It is his lot to be exposed in common with other men, to the calamities of sickness, death, and the misfortunes incident to life. But unlike other men, he is denied the consolation of struggling against external difficulties, such as destroy the life, liberty, and happiness of himself and family. A slave may be bought and sold in the market like an ox. He is be sold off to a distant land from his family. He is bound in chains hand and foot; and his sufferings are aggravated a hundred fold, by the terrible thought, that he is not allowed to struggle against misfortune, corporeal punishment, insults and outrages committed upon himself and family; and he is not allowed to help himself, to resist or escape the blow, which he sees impending over him. [Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself (1849), Chapter I.]
- David S. Reynolds, Mightier Than the Sword: “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and the Battle for America (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011). “Harriet Beecher Stowe taught whites to see slaves as human.”
- Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America (St. Martin’s Press, 2017). “An African-American minister urges whites to awaken to black suffering.”
History is littered with the non-acknowledgement (denial) of the full humanity of others.
- David Cesarani, Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews 1933-1949 (St. Martin’s Press, 2016): “At the center of ‘Final Solution’ are the words of Jewish victims.”
- Elliott Currie, A Peculiar Indifference: The Neglected Toll of Violence on Black America (Metropolitan Books, 2020): “. . . the details of every precious life harmed or lost this summer reveal a bigger truth about the nation. Whether the hand that pulls the trigger belongs to a white cop or to a Black citizen, the extraordinary violence against Black lives, Currie argues, is a consequence of the nation’s refusal to address the ‘longstanding structural roots of violence.’”
- Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House, 2021): “. . . a new book about women and chattel slavery as framed by a single object: a cotton sack that dates back to the mid-19th century, given by an enslaved woman named Rose to her daughter Ashley”.
On attributing worth to unsavory people:
- Richard Behar, Madoff: The Final Word (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 2024): “The journalist Richard Behar communicated extensively with the disgraced financier. His rigorous if irreverent book acknowledges his subject’s humanity.”
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Novels and stories:
- J.M. Coetzee, Age of Iron: A Novel (Penguin, 1998): “Mrs. Curren accepts her doctor's report of terminal disease with resignation, returning to her house only to fined a vagrant sleeping in the yard, an unwashed isolato named (she eventually finds out) Vercueil whom she is too weak to turn out. Vercueil is soon joined by others, in particular the teen-age son of her black housekeeper Florence. The son, Bheki, is wanted by the Security Forces—and Bheki's eventual violent murder, and Vercueil's wraithlike, eternal presence, become the poles of emotion for Mrs. Curren's dwindling days. After the police-murder, she even vows to immolate herself in public, so horrified and depressed is she by the barbarism—and what does she have to lose? She cannot do it, ultimately—and the book steadily takes on the nature of a testament to the dinginess of life and the life-denying nature of South African reality.”
- Helen Oyeyemi, Peaces: A Novel (Riverhead 2021): “What are the consequences of going unseen by the one person whom you most wish to perceive you?”
- Bola Babalola, Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold (William Morrow, 2021): “. . . Babalola resists having her facets flattened by other people’s perceptions”.
Novels, from the dark side:
- Justin Torres, Blackouts: A Novel (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2023): “. . . erasure poetry is much like queer history, a discipline that revolves around reading against the archive — mining biased sources for neutral facts, reading meaning into what isn’t said as much as what is, and flensing useful details off a rotten mass of lies.”
- Hanaya Yanagihara, The People in the Trees: A Novel (Doubleday, 2013) based loosely on a true story of a Nobel-Prize-winning medical researcher who was later imprisoned for sexually abusing young boys he brought back to the United States from their native New Guinea.
Poetry
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Johannes Brahms’ chamber works for clarinet were inspired by his admiration for then-contemporary clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, whose playing induced Brahms to come out of retirement from composing. Brahms said that he discovered the beauty of the instrument at that time, and critics count the two sonatas (discussion of No. 1; discussion of No. 2) in Brahms’ Op. 120 (1895) (approx. 33-36’) among the great compositions for clarinet. Still, these two sonatas for clarinet and piano sound a bit like two disparate voices struggling to find their way together. The reedy clarinet contrasts sharply with the percussive piano. (These two sonatas have also been performed on viola and piano, and much less frequently on violin and piano, or flute and piano, though Brahms was adamant about having intended them for clarinet.) Brahms’ two clarinet sonatas are the first such well-regarded compositions. To some ears, the first step is for each player to acknowledge each other’s ways. Top recorded performances of the two together (clarinet) on disc are by Fröst & Pöntinen in 2004, Pahud & Bronfman in 2007, Ottensamer & Traxler in 2011, Coppola & Staier in 2013 ***, Collins & McHale in 2014, and Collins & Hough in 2021. Top performances on viola are by Zimmermann & Gerstein in 2012, and Ehnes & Armstrong in 2024.
- Sonata for Clarinet and Piano No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 120, No. 1 (1894) (approx. 20-24’): a performance by Wlach & Demus in 1953, has earned praise.
- Sonata for Clarinet and Piano No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 120, No. 2 (1894) (approx. 19-22’): a performance by Wlach & Demus in 1953, has earned praise.
Other works:
- Luigi Boccherini, 6 Sonatas for Violin & Harpsichord, Op. 5, G. 25-30 (1768) (approx. 73-77’)
- Franz Schubert, Piano Sonata No. 4 in A Minor, D. 537 (1817) (approx. 20-25’)
- Matthew Locke, The Flat Consort (1661) (approx. 68’): simple, sparse music, instruments humbly playing together
From the dark side:
- Jordi Savall, et. al., “Les Routes de L’Esclavage 1444-1888” (The Routes of Slavery) (2017) (127’): “This is the latest of Savall’s ‘CD-books’ devoted to historical themes . . .” “Savall’s ambition is to trace through music the history of the European slave trade from 1444, the year of the first mass slaving expedition of the Portuguese to Guinea, through to 1888, the year slavery was finally abolished in Brazil. In his booklet note Savall describes slavery as 'the most monstrous of all the man-made institutions created throughout history', and that passionately held belief motivates a musical history that is as powerfully humane as it is musically satisfying.”
Music: songs and other short pieces
Visual Arts
Film and Stage
- The Great Dictator: In his dual roles as Hitler and a German Jew, Charles Chaplin expresses the idea of denying our own humanity in denying the humanity of others. Posing as Hitler at film’s end, the Jew delivers a moving address that illustrates the distinction between acknowledging and not acknowledging human worth.
- Giant, a film about racial and economic issues and an “indictment of an overbearing, racist culture”
- The Boy In the Striped Pajamas: the son of a Nazi officer befriends a Jewish boy in the concentration camp by where they live.