“Man’s inhumanity to man…”

THE WORDS BURNS BURNT INTO OUR LANGUAGE: “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn!”        Robert Burns (1759-1796)        Scottish poet and lyricist        “Man Was Made to Mourn: A Dirge” (1784), stanza 7        The phrase “man’s inhumanity to man” was coined in this poem, written by Burns in 1784. It was included in his first book of poetry, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, also known as the Kilmarnock edition. That volume, published in 1786, made Burns famous and contains several poems that gave us immortal phrases, including: “man’s inhumanity to man,” “the best laid schemes of mice and men” (from “To a Mouse”) and “to see ourselves as others see us” (from “To a Louse” ).        “Man Was Made to Mourn” reflects Burns’ antipathy toward the social and economic caste system that had been imposed on Scotland by Great Britain, which created a huge, poor, disenfranchised underclass and benefited a relatively small number of wealthy landowners and businessmen. The poem also seems to subtly reflect Burns’ support for Scottish independence — a radical position at the time.

A MODERATE MUSLIM'S VIEW OF ISIS: “The story of ISIS is not about Islam, it is about the universal human story of cruelty and man’s inhumanity to man, whether it be ISIS, Nazism, fascism or pure hatred of others. Intolerance and arrogance mixed with power and politics has caused most wars.”        Alia Hogben        Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women        In an op-ed published by The Kingston Whig-Standard, October 8, 2014        (Cartoon by artist Steve Greenberg)

THE ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST’S ANTIDOTE: “There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.”        Alan Paton (1903-1988)        South African writer and anti-apartheid activist        From his essay “The Challenge of Fear,” originally published in the Saturday Review, September 9, 1967

THE ANARCHIST’S ANTIDOTE: “Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man’s inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality.”         Emma Goldman (1869-1940)        Russian-born social activist and anarchist        In her book My Disillusionment in Russia (1925)

A FEMINIST’S PERSPECTIVE: “Given the reality of female oppression, how women treat each other matters more, not less...I am not saying that woman’s inhumanity to woman is on the same level as man’s inhumanity to woman; it is not. But women have enormous influence over each other; we have the power to encourage each other to either resist or to collaborate with tyranny.”        Phyllis Chesler        Pioneering feminist and Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York        In the introduction of her book Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman (2009)

THE ANIMALS’ PERSPECTIVE: “Man’s inhumanity to man has received a lot of press, but man’s inhumanity to animals is worse, by far, if such a thing can be imagined. It is remarkable that animals will have anything whatever to do with us.”        D. V. Barrett         In the book Little Thoughts, Big Oughts (2001)

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