Humanum veritatem videre

Terence once said, "Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto," or "I am a human: I consider nothing human to be alien to me." Generally speaking, I try to take the opposite approach.
As a Christian, or at least someone who takes Augustine's view on Original Sin very seriously, I tend to view people as scum unless they redeem themselves. I've written here plenty of tirades against what we do to ourselves as people. The human condition is not one which I am thrilled to claim, most of the time. However, I do see all around me hope for a better future. I see people who are genuinely interested in making the world a better place, rather than just making a buck. I see Nietzsche's "will to power" ideal being broken by many selfless men and women.
However, this is the exception to the rule, by and large. I do not consider most human beings to be genuinely philanthopic or amicable in general. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the human race, I just think that the human part needs to be transformed.
Enter Existentialism. I always thought it was weird that such a devout Christian as Kierkegaard would be considered the father of a movement that spawned Nietzsche, one of the most famous (or infamous) antichristians in history. But what I've come to realize is that these men who are lumped into this movement all share is a common ideal to change our lives or at least perspectives to be more than we are. For Kierkegaard it's his "knight of faith" in Fear and Trembling. For Nietzsche, it's his "ubermensch" in Thus spake Zarathustra. They both emphasize overcoming the base human to become something greater, something that sees beyond the disguises and false images we so readily put before ourselves.
I guess this is what I hate about living here in Vernal. I hate that the people here refuse to reach beyond what they've been given.
I was in Park City over the weekend. Aside from being a more affluent community than most of Utah, it also boasts being more educated and more liberal. Summit County is one of the few counties (maybe 2 or 3) that votes Democrat consitently. While I was there, I was not only associating with people who are more educated than the averge Utahn, I was with people who are more educated than the average Park City resident because I was with Notre Dame alumni and students.
When I came back to Vernal, I actually didn't talk or associate with anybody outside of my family until today at work. And it was at work that I realized just how backwards people here in Vernal can be. Many of them are barely literate high school dropouts who make their living by destroying the environment in order to sustain our energy greed. But I realized that I look at these people not as humans, but often times as animals. This is actually inaccurate. I view animals with more respect for being more responsible with their ecosystem. After work, I realized this is a real problem for me.
Why is it that I look so far down my nose at these people? While it is certainly true that we have different political ideologies and our priorities are placed in different fields, we do share a certain amount of attributes that should force me to look more highly on them. We are all human beings. We share 99% of the same DNA. We all survive on the same basic biological processes and share the same resources.
This is even more significant from a Theological perspective. We are all God's children. He doesn't favor me over any of these other humans. I am not more special to God because I attend Mass weekly or pray nightly or write a blog that reflects my theological thoughts. No, if anything, being in this position means I have a responsibility that they do not have. I need to try to make them more aware of who they are and what they do. I need to try to educate them. I need to try to open their eyes, rather than shake my head at them.
This, then, is the conclusion I have made. We so often rule people out from being human. It's how we are able to fight wars. It's how we are able to enslave entire races. It's how we can still have lingering epithets that attack us based on the person we are rather than on the crimes we have committed. It's how we have such strong ethnic boundaries. We need to be as Terence and consider all humans to be human. We need to learn to see the true human, instead of our selectively chosen favorites. There should be nothing alien to us that is human.