OUR STUDENTS SHOULD NOT BE MERE HUMANTS

Behold the wonder of an anthill. Thousands, tens of thousands of ants, each pursuing its single-minded duty with the utmost efficiency and commitment: collecting food, creating additions to their habitat, defending their queen and their way of life, reproducing in earnest. Interfere with their activity, and you do it at your own peril; the entire colony will go into defensive mode and attempt to contain the intrusion with total concentration. The colony will continue to grow, build, reproduce and add to their habitat. Ants have no way to alter their genetic demands. They have no free will.

We can marvel at this example of inflexible, pre-programmed activity. It becomes an object of interest, as human observers occasionally intrude through a glass wall and observe the never-ending pursuit of ants to be ants. Yet, (as far as we now,) no ant stops to question its pre-programmed genetic dictate. No ant questions its role, its work, or its goal. No ant challenges its genetic destiny.

Free will does not play a role in an ant's world. They live and die pushed and pulled by their genetic directives. Of course. They are, after all, ants. We would not expect them to do otherwise -- to rebel against their genes or challenge their conditioning.

Behold now the humant habitat. Tens of thousands -- or hundreds of millions -- of humants, hurrying about in pursuit of their socially ordained duty, building additions to their habitats, acquiring and consuming food, defending their way of life and their "queen," reproducing in earnest. Behold their magnificent buildings, their advanced vehicles, their designer clothing, their work and their play. How many of them live in a higher plain than ants? How many of them question the directives of their social order? How many look inward for answers, rather than blindly submit to their cultural conditioning? How many challenge the norms, the expectations, the goals that their societies inject? How many humans are, in fact, humants?

Whatever the number of humans that you would include in the "humant" category (and I would include a very high proportion,) it seems beyond doubt that these humans have lost -- at least temporarily -- the defining characteristic of "humanness": free will. Through social conditioning, they have lost the ability to think for themselves, to question, to reflect, to challenge. They have become humants.

Humants accept the status quo unquestioningly. They have drowned their ability to envision options under the sea of "what is," not allowing themselves to envision "what could be." Humants are guided by obedience to the social dictates. They obey well. They don't allow themselves the human luxuries of questioning, challenging, or envisioning alternatives. When visionary humans depict a different option for humanity, humants fight against it automatically, as an attack on the anthill. This anthill, they feel, is the only anthill. All other options must be rejected.

Throughout history, there have always been more humants than humans. Humants have rejected change and progress to the best of their ability. Yet, that minority of brave humans who have allowed themselves the power to think, to question, to challenge and envision better options have managed to move us forward in spite of humant resistance. They are responsible for all human progress. They have taken us from the cave and the dark ages to the present. They now envision our future potential as a species evolving toward a brighter future and a more just world. They will help create a better human society in a better world.

We must empower our students to not be mere humants. We must help them realize the human potential to attain justice and peace; for the enlightenment of humanity; for the greater good of the species. Knowing that they will find the opposition of humants along the way, we must empower them to engage in battle and prevail. Given the critical issues that we now face, the future of humanity rests on their success.