[In-class essay #3] Mankind is no Island

“No fortune to indulge.” When you pass by the subway station, you can usually see homeless people sitting on the ground, begging for money from passers. Most people do not feel the need to give them coins, and are indifferent to them. Some rich people believe that it is sure that people without abilities should not have any chance to get authority of money. In other words, society is not giving opportunities to have “the fortune to indulge” to those who are homeless.

The video shows that homeless people often lack connection to a home and society, limits their sense of belonging. One of the biggest factors that make them alienated is people’s indifference. This society prioritizes the ability of each individual. Only the ones who have good skills can succeed and survive. For this reason, people are too busy to take care of themselves and have no time to look around at neighbors. Furthermore, individualism makes a person hypocritical. For example, a lot of people donate their property to poor people. However, do they care about the homeless people in the station? It is an irony that they help the poor who live far away but not the ones nearby.

           This irony is not limited to relationships between ‘man and man.’ It can be also adapted to the relationships between groups. For instance, there are numerous enterprises in the nation, and they compete with each other to sell more products. However, smaller enterprises are often alienated in the process. In the case of Korean industry of electric device, because the larger enterprises monopolize the products, smaller ones could not enter the market and usually fail to succeed. Though it seems that those kinds of large companies give us many benefits by providing useful products, they hinder other people who are to run new companies. In addition, there exist nations or races that are alienated in the world. Powerful and developed countries use all the resources and there are few chances for underdeveloped countries to make themselves stronger. Also, races in Africa are not respected by other cultures and they often have no sense of belonging in the world. Even though not all ‘groups,’ such as enterprises, nations, or the races, are excluding certain minor ones, much of society still has the problem of indifferent treat toward disadvantaged people with less fortune.

                  There are so many people who are isolated from society. Humans cannot live alone. If each of us can think of others and care about them, we could make the world full of warmth.