Recently there was a documentary on tv that was looking at urban development and planning in China. The program was only mildly interesting. My engagement with it was thus brainless until one of the commentators said a very curious thing.
This commentator was commenting on the stresses placed on people when moving from a rural environment to an urban environment. Such a move, as one can well imagine, would undoubtedly be stressful. The recognition of the stresses faced by so many of the Chinese peasantry however did not grab my attention. The process of urbanisation that is currently underway in China is one that has occurred all over the world. Globally urbanisation has been a process which requires people to detach from their rural roots and such detachment is most assuredly stressful.
So, it was not the stress of Chinese urbanisation that caught my attention, rather it was the word the commentator used to describe what needs to be achieved to alleviate this stress. “What is required” said the commentator with complete sincerity “is to customize the people to become comfortable in the urban environment.” It immediately struck me as bizarre to use the word “customize” in relation to a person. Isn’t customization something we do to a car?
People are not customized, they become accustomed. This commentator was Chinese and her grasp of English wasn’t the best so chances are the use of the word customization was merely a semantic mistake on her part. Let us just imagine for a second that it wasn’t a semantic mistake. If it wasn’t a semantic mistake then the commentator has the disturbing opinion that people are resources who are to be manipulated in the same way that cars are. To sincerely use the word “customize” in relation to people robs them of their humanity. Most of us would think that this is a despicable way to think of people.
Unfortunately, it seems that it is precisely this despicable perspective that contemporary society adopts towards human beings. There is an extractive agenda that sits behind most social institutions and governs most social and professional engagements. Due to this extractive agenda people really have become the sorts of things that are to be customized. Most of us and society at large are guilty of exactly the same error that the commentator on Chinese urbanisation made; we have constructed a customized humanity.
The term “human resources” illustrates this very well. The dictionary definition of the word resource is “a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively.” By applying the term “resource” to human beings we are making exactly the same mistake that we make when we say that we are going to customize them. Most businesses have human resource functions that are specifically termed such.
The use of the term “human resources” to describe the departments which deal with employees seems to be premised upon an understanding of what human beings are in a business context. They are objects which can be customized, manipulated and used to attain an end, which in the business world is profit.
Social media also seems to be running the risk of assuming a customized humanity. Social media is used as a medium to increase social standing. The amount of friends you have and the amount of comments and likes you can generate is interpreted as a function of your value as a being. The people one befriends, the comments they make, and the likes they give are all transformed into a number and the greater the number the more important the person. The people then become objects which one must acquire. I don’t doubt that social media need not be used like this but it seems that the reality of things is that it very often is.
Do these examples not illustrate that we have adopted the perspective that we despise? I am sure many more examples can be thought of to illustrate the prevalence of this perspective. It seems that we are in danger of losing an appreciation both of the humanity of others and of the humanity of ourselves. We have bought into customized humanity to the degree that we see ourselves as the product of our environment to be manipulated and customized. We accept this view of ourselves as objects of society but endeavour to turn ourselves into shiny and flashy objects which catch the eyes of objects similar to us. This is a worrying state of affairs.
So, what are you going to do about it?