Many of the problems in the world today, when one reflects upon them, call for an answer to an ancient question: What is it to be human?

I believe there is no single immutable answer. We humans are what we conceive ourselves to be, by which I mean two things: what we will ourselves to be and what we say we are. Our self-conceptions are, in turn, responses to conditions that we encounter in our environments, and those conditions constantly change with time and place. The only way to answer this question is to examine how a person sees himself or herself and others within the social, cultural, economic and political conditions of their times.

There is no such thing as a human being in the abstract. Only when we see people as embedded in their experiences — their own social positions, their educations and memories, in pursuit of their own ideals — can the question “What is a human being?” fully make sense.