The Dignity In Mankind

When we accept agape in our soul we begin to see the universal dignity in mankind. Sometimes it’s hard to see it in an individual, because it lays dormant, but when it is sparked and catches fire it’s a sight to behold. What I’m referring to is the dignity that Rousseau and Kant express inside every human being. Rousseau mentions it when he talks about “Born free, and everywhere in chains.” And he is right, it’s a condition given since birth. However, people don’t realize it because one can’t understand it until it’s been opposed. The dignity Rousseau, Kant, and I are expressing is the sovereignty within all of us. One can’t see it, but intuitively one is certain of it. When wrestling with it in our youth we can learn to darken the world by simply closing our eyes, do you see? It’s so simple, yet so unexplainable. It’s this dignity that can help a rational being become ever more rational. This is the very point of education, to learn “sweetness and light” as Matthew Arnold calls it, which is the grist for thought. With this freedom we’ve been given we can perfect ourselves and learn to steer the bow away from the demeaning and depreciatory, and towards the elevating and almost divine.