#i’m begging u guys to use ur critical thinking skills with stuff like this

[aroaceoutofplace]

“what makes us human”: a loveless aromantic’s thoughts

the age-old question: What Makes Us Human, that’s been pondered throughout the centuries. many people have many different thoughts about what makes us human; love, kindness, pain, and so on. but there’s one question that no one ever asks. why do we have to define humanity? biology already defines what’s human so why do we have to share a common trait or experience? why isn’t the simple fact that we are living, breathing people enough?

i like to think about it like this; what makes a bear a bear? well the answer is simple, bears have specific biological traits that they all share like habits, size, shape, etc. if someone told you “what makes bears bears is their sense of compassion” you’d look at them like they were crazy. so why is it so different for humans?

there are animals that live their entire lives, whether that be a year or 100, alone. some animals spend their entire lives around others. but if someone told you that the animals that spent their lives alone were less of their species because they “didn’t love”? you’d think that’s ridiculous, what makes an animal part of their species is simple facts.

now just apply that to humans. it’s ridiculous to think that people who have different experiences aren’t human, in fact it’s just plain wrong. what makes us human is simple biology, what people mean when they say that is “what makes me respect people as human” which is entirely different. the fact that you need traits or experiences instead of just basic facts to respect or value people says more about you than them.

going back to the animals for a second, think about watching a nature documentary. think about what you feel when you watch it. you might feel bad for the prey when the focus is on them and you feel bad for the predator when the focus is on them, right? (or at least understand the hard struggle even if you can’t relate to it) now if you saw an entire group of a species reject a couple of them because they acted differently? you’d probably feel bad for them, or understand that that isn’t fair. so when you apply that same logic to humans, the whole concept of “what makes us human?” is total nonsense.

when you look through the lense of logic and compassion (which can coexist despite popular misconceptions) you can see the whole debate about defining humanity for what it really is, an excuse to exclude people. there are 7 billion people and counting on earth. defining all of them by anything other than the simple fact that they meet the biological criteria for being human will always leave people out. it’s time for us to start analyzing these ‘philosophical’ debates to see whether they’re actually a debate or a thinly veiled attempt to control who ‘deserves’ compassion and who doesn’t. once we start doing that, we can look at greater dilemmas and problems that are actually productive to debate.

so the next time you’re asked a ‘deep’ question about what makes us human, remember all of the other beings on earth and the irrefutable facts that join them all together.

#sorry this is so long #but it really really needed to be said #i’m begging u guys to use ur critical thinking skills with stuff like this #i love liberal arts but #this is why i hate english and philosophy #they frequently ask questions that are just unnecessary in the first place #long post #e screams #loveless aro #aromantic #amatonormativity #love #aroace #dehumanizing language #? #dehumanisation tw #actually aromantic