Humanism In Forster's 'The Machine Stops'

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Why do humans dehumanize each other? Because it makes it easier to impose suffering and punishment to none humans. It is that simple, governments come up with terms such as collateral damage to describe the innocent civilian lives that are taken during warfare. Terms like “Illegal Aliens” to describe undocumented human being immigrants so that they can strip away all humanity out of that community and make them appear to be out of this world, savages, and prove that they are not worthy to have the chance of seeking survival. Or, as history tells, the use of pigmentation, assigning colors to groups of people and claiming one to be superior over the rest. All these terms are design and executed with the objective to take the humanity out of people. …show more content…

During the first part of the short story the central theme is “ideas”. The character by the name of Vashti is a mother, her son Kuno wants her to visit him, he wants to see her face to face and he also shares that he wants to travel to the surface of the earth. She is disturbed by the idea as she explains to him that his idea is out of the norms of society and not acceptable. The most interesting aspect of this piece of the novel is that when she is encountered by nature (stars, the surface of the earth, and the Himalayas) she states that those things are not worthy because they give her “no ideas”. This society has completely separated and isolated themselves from the natural world, after destroying it of course, but nevertheless not even the site of these things excites thought in the mind of Vashti. Is it the nature of humans to separate themselves from the natural world or to live in harmony with it? By separating themselves from nature they have isolated themselves from each other, and yet however the machine has provided them with devices to communicate with each other which hints that even the most minimal of interaction is still part of human nature and without it life is

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