WOHAA

Today I want to think about "only." Only is the O is WOHAA, an acronym I treasure because it was the first one Bette and I shared. We both knew what SNAFU meant, so we "shared" it in a sense, but WOHAA we invented ourselves and it had an important role to play in helping us get to know each other.

WOHAA means "We're only human, after all." It is within easy reach when you have failed at something. It is especially handy when your failure, the discrepancy between your intention and the outcome of your choices, is going to get the bulk of the blame. In this latter use, the meaning of WOHAA is, essentially, "You really ought not to have intended that outcome (committed to that goal, maintained the importance of that value, etc.).

I want now to introduce a second acronym--a potential acronym, really, since it is likely that no one has ever used it. It is WFHAA. The F stands for "fully." We’re fully human, after all.

I grew up at a time when "only human" was something anyone could say, but "fully human" was something said only by aging transcendentalists and fans of the new humanistic psychology. "Fully human" is the name that belongs beside 10 at the top of the scale. From 9 on down is "less than fully human" and, depending on how you wanted to twist the graph you could get to "bestial" or "inert" at the lowest numbers.

“Only human,” by contrast identifies “human” not as a goal, but as a limiting condition. “What do you expect, he’s only human?” we ask about a public official of our own party who has been caught in an extramarital tangle. That’s the kind of behavior your expect from people in his condition and the name of the condition is “human.” The most generous way to characterize this liability is “fallible.” “Broken” is more fundamental. “Sinful” isn’t any worse than “broken;” it just provides a religious context for it.

So which is it? Is “full humanity” our blessing or our curse? This is the place where we ask what the definition of is is. If I had a good solution to this dilemma, I wouldn’t be writing it here. You knew that, right? I do have an approach, however.

I agree that “less than fully human” is a phrase with meaning. We have all chosen the lesser good or the easier way at times when we know we could have done otherwise. We know what “more fully human” meant for us, particularly, at that time particularly and we know we didn’t measure up. We remember times when we did measure up. For me, “less than fully human” and “not my best self” or even “didn’t bring my A game” all mean the same thing. If we have friends who use similar standards—and we do because that is a big part of how we choose our friends—these norms can be made into “what people generally ought to do” or ought to want to do or ought to pay the price of failing at.

“Only human” has another context in mind. It imagines that “not bringing your A game” is pretty much what happens. It tries to manage the discrepancy between intentions and outcomes by lowering the intentions. Sometimes that’s the only humane thing to do. At other times, is expresses only your own unwillingness to expect more of the person in question or your own unwillingness to pay the price of recurring disappointment, which, after all, does hurt. It isn’t an unreasonable thing to do and sometimes, it is the best thing to do.

But there is another way to take “only human.” It’s probably theological, in essence, regardless of the language used. In this way of thinking of it, you don’t have to postulate a God/god or some gods to talk theologically. You just have to recognize that there is something which, as Martin Luther said, stands in that “ultimate place,” a place beyond which no appeal can be made.

In this context, “human” is just WYSIWYG, today’s final acronym. What you see is what you get. Actual human beings do is good sometimes and bad sometimes. It is the process by which we intend good or intend evil or don’t really care to choose between them that is broken. The point is that humans are broken. We are broken in the way that nearly everyone is broken in The Matrix, one of my favorite religious films. People think they are choosing to be cops or social workers or hackers or whores. In fact, they are none of those things. They are batteries. Their actual job, the only job that means anything in the real world, is to provide an energy source for their captors.

You want “only human?” There it is. In this larger context, you will never make a real choice, never do anything more than ephemerally good or bad as long as you are “plugged in” to a life of appearance and sensation. Getting rescued from the Matrix, which is something you can’t do yourself, would present your first opportunity to make an actual moral/immoral choice. “Only human” is what people tell each other, in this larger context for that phrase, as long as they are plugged into the Matrix and are only deluded puppets. Being rescued from the Matrix will bring you your first chance to begin trying to be fully human.

It’s hard to grasp. When you have grasped it, it’s hard to like it. But, you know, WOHAA.