Illustration: Anne Geßner
As I was walking through the streets of a German city, I suddenly noticed a surprising scene: a woman in her forties was lying on the ground next to the entrance to an underground station. What caught my attention was that nobody bothered to help her. No one dared to look at her, it seemed as if everyone was in a hurry. Suddenly I heard voices whispering: "I am sure she is an alcoholic. I think she is a drug addict. If she is so, it's because she deserves it." Those who went for a walk or shopping tried to ignore her by looking at their mobile phones or the shop windows. The people who passed her gave themselves excuses to avoid feeling guilty. After seeing people ignore her and leave her to her fate, I understood Rousseau's words very well. I wondered when society and its citizens had forgotten that first instinct that had brought them to the highest point of evolution. Instead of listening to his natural inclination to help his fellow human beings in danger, they kept looking for arguments to refuse to help. What had made them strong through numerous dangers was repeatedly suppressed by the talk of reason. How was it possible that human beings were not able to show pity? And this is what people called rational behaviour? At that very moment I understood how the divinised reason had caused people to separate them. And what is worse: this self-serving reason has led human beings to their own alienation, as the compassion that is their most proper instinct is canceled out by the calculating use of reason.