Of Love
Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love. So there comes the love for humanitarianism, an ideal of which humanitarian aid and humanistic care are two significant part, attaching great importance to values of human beings, especially the most basic elements of them：human existence and their survival conditions, as well as the pursuit of happiness of all humans.
To my best understanding, it is a tolerant and inclusive spirit related to one’s spontaneous moral conscience, selfless dedication to all others out of tribulations the world always calls for whether in time of war or peace. Love for humanitarianism is also an art which arouses much concern about humanistic care, rather than alienated from each other. Then it requires knowledge and effort just as romantic love does.
It is universally acknowledged that patriotism has been lifted on a higher position and a prevalent emotion deeply rooted in its citizens within the country. People care only their fellows and restrict the view to their own country, completely disregarding of sufferings from any other nation. Say, severe natural disasters struck a small poverty-stricken country badly in want of survival materials
and where casualties scattered around but doctors and nurses are in shortage. Could it be that we have the ability to offer an aid to show our indifference? Just for a reason that the victims are not our fellows? We surely cannot do that. Take a look at Norman Bethune, the well-remembered Canadian physician by our Chinese people. He came to the front for his service as a surgeon during the Spanish Civil War. His selfless commitment to the wounded soldiers during the Anti-Japanese War would give an enduring impression. All his good deeds are practices of humanitarian aid. As Erich Fromm has put it, “we should free ourselves from the narrowness of being related to those familiar to us, either by the fact that they are blood relations or, in a larger sense, that we eat the same food, speak the same language, and have the same‘common sense’.”
It is a noteworthy phenomenon that in the development of the world and its ethics, compassion or mercy for others ceases to be a virtue. It is obviously wrong. Never has humanistic care been obsolete but thriving, and would probably be the main stream in the future. Fromm added, “knowing men in the sense of compassionate and empathetic knowledge requires that we get rid of the narrowing ties of a given society, race or culture and penetrate to the depth of that human reality in which we are all nothing but human.” As is the case with Charles Dickens, the representative writer of Victorian
Age, his masterpieces such as Oliver Twist, A Tale of Two Cities reflect ideas to a large extent in conformity with humanitarian spirit. Dickens fulfills a humanitarian journey through lines of every word in his books, from characters he molded and scenes he depicted. We can say all his works pervade and rife with humanistic care.
In broad sense, fraternity can also be counted as an aspect of humanitarianism. We human beings live in a village of globe, though from different regions, of diversified cultures, of various social backgrounds and religious beliefs. In the presence of God, however, all are created equal and endowed same rights. The emergence of brotherhood and sisterhood makes it possible to reach the highest level, that is fraternity, which is not specific relations to an individual or an group, but an attitude towards the whole world. With an open and inclusive heart, fraternity spontaneously overflows.
Humanitarianism prevails because of its practical meaning for modern society, that is, to awaken inner conscience for the sake of morality. Moreover, humanitarianism at the height of all humans, aims to set up an order in which love is for all and everyone can both enjoy love from others and give love to them.
注：Quotes of Erich Fromm derive from his work The Art of Loving
.
