Principle to Keep

I think that an important principle to keep is the principle to act on sympathy or that of humanity. Reading The Road, I found that the man does not act on his sympathy for others. He puts his son's safety above all else and, in doing so, he creates this sort of distortion in his judgement where no matter what happens, he will consider his son first and only his son. Later in the book, we read that they do give aid to an old man, and that the man only did so because his son begged for them to help the old man.

This also brings up the concept of humanity. I saw in Keduse's post (reason why I'm posting this late) that he considers "lending a hand when needed" to be part of being humane. I respectfully disagree. Not to be critical of Keduse's statement, I just want to say that some people may not group the two in the same broad idea. Humanity, to many people including me, means giving back to the community and giving to the people who deserve it. "Lending a hand when needed" may have led to the man giving aid to the old man struck by lightning or the people who were half-eaten. The son held onto the humanity that his father did not have, but nearing the end we see that he starts to become more like his father through isolation. How the son views the world is based on his fears and his father's influence.

Also, we discussed this in class several times (and is also mentioned in Keduse's post, just an FYI) but I don't consider murder/killing/the taking of a life to be the loss of one's humanity. If we take Adolf Hitler as an example, we can say he was a hero to Nazi Germany. I'm not saying that I approve of his course of action or his way of thinking. I'm making the point that everyone has their own opinions and most of Germany held Hitler in a high position because he was able to make the country a world power once again and he was able to boost the citizens' morale (albeit with horrifying costs). It's all part of perceptiveness, seeing things as one wants to see things or as what one knows how to see things.