Is Man Also a Fellow Human Being? From ‘Homo Homini Lupus’ to the Possibility of Humanity

Between the wolf and the fellow human being, the true human struggle unfolds every day. No society will ever be completely free from violence, injustice, or the desire for domination. Yet every era is judged by how much space it leaves for solidarity, justice, and respect for human dignity.

Hope does not lie in the utopia of a society of angels, but in the continuous effort to restrain the power of the wolf and strengthen the presence of the human within the human. Perhaps this is the deepest meaning of civilization.

“Is Man Also a Fellow Human Being?”

The phrase “Hell is other people” belongs to the leading representative of Existentialism, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, from his play No Exit (Huis Clos). In its narrow interpretation, some commentators have seen in it an expression of misanthropy, while others argue that it merely served the dramatic economy of the play by conveying the idea that our behavior should not depend on other people’s opinions of us, since such dependence deprives us of spontaneity and authenticity.

Sartre was far too great a thinker to succumb to such petty misanthropy. Existentialism, at its very core, is a form of humanism. It speaks of freedom, life, and revolution. Moreover, the heavy word “hell” cannot simply refer to the social pressure exerted by those around us, leading us into hypocrisy and role-playing. So what does it mean?

Hell is war, hunger, murder, persecution, abuse, imprisonment, and the torture of body and soul. These are fierce flames that consume and destroy. The true “hell” of man is his fellow human being. From the dawn of history until today.

What we call “civilization” is often not a conquest of freedom but an imposition of laws, surveillance, coercion, and domination. More often than not, the “culture” of one group stands against the ethos and way of life of another.

The greatest proof may be the “social contract” of the French Enlightenment thinkers: the involuntary—euphemistically called “tacit”—surrender of personal freedoms to organized minorities known as states, which bear arms supposedly to protect us. In reality, they often protect their own existence and the perpetuation of their power and order.

One person is the torment and nightmare of another—and vice versa. The ancient Athenian moneylender was the tormentor of the indebted farmer. The Persian priest-magician of the common laborer. The Pharisee of the Messianic believer. The inquisitor of the heretic. The European conqueror of the African. The French nobleman of the sans-culotte. The Nazi German of the Jew. The collaborator and right-wing oppressor of the Greek resistance fighter and leftist.

Even today, Sartre’s phrase remains painfully relevant. The Republican Trump supporter is a nightmare to the Democratic American. Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ “blue grasshopper” for the Greek poor. The nationalist American or European becomes the adversary of the economic migrant—the “wretched of the earth.”

If “your death is my life” were merely a principle of survival, perhaps it could be interpreted with some leniency. The tragedy of humanity is that it is usually the well-fed who become the “hell” of the hungry; the strong of the weak; the brutal of the gentle; the cynic of the idealist.

Will humanity ever succeed in overturning the meaning of the famous Latin phrase “Homo homini lupus” (“Man is a wolf to man”)? Not by creating a society of angels, but at least by building a future community in which human beings are no longer the “hell” of their fellow human beings.

Could our own Diotima offer us words that are comforting, yet above all realistic and firmly grounded in earthly reality?

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Diotima’s Response:

The question you raise is one of the oldest and most difficult in human self-understanding: Is man by nature the enemy of man, or does the very possibility of humanity depend upon the existence of the fellow human being?

If I were to give Diotima a voice, she might answer as follows:

Sartre’s phrase is not false. There are indeed moments when other people become our hell. History is filled with conquerors, oppressors, exploiters, priesthoods, authorities, armies, and ideologies that built their existence upon the subjugation of others. There is no need to romanticize the human species. Violence, greed, and domination are not accidental episodes in history; they are recurring patterns.

Yet the very history that gives birth to pessimism also provides testimony to the contrary.

If man were only a wolf to man, there would be no solidarity, sacrifice, or love. There would be no people who hid the persecuted at the risk of their own lives. No doctors serving during epidemics. No volunteers rushing to earthquake zones. No individuals sharing their bread with strangers. There would be no revolutions for freedom, no movements for civil rights, and none of the countless daily acts of kindness that never make it into history books.

History records mainly the screams. Life, however, is sustained primarily by whispers.

Perhaps, then, the famous phrase Homo homini lupus is only half the truth. The other half is that human beings are the only creatures capable of consciously rejecting the wolf within themselves. No other species debates justice. No other asks whether it has acted unjustly. No other feels guilt for the suffering it has caused or responsibility for the suffering of a stranger.

Human beings are both beast and the transcendence of the beast.

Will there ever come a time when people are no longer the hell of their fellow human beings?

Probably not completely. Not as long as fear, scarcity, ambition, and the thirst for power continue to exist. A society of angels does not seem to belong to the possibilities of earthly life.

Yet there is a more realistic and perhaps more hopeful possibility: that the share of the wolf may gradually diminish while the share of the fellow human being grows. Not through miracles, but through institutions, education, freedom of thought, social justice, and personal cultivation.

Progress is not the disappearance of evil. It is the limitation of its power.

Thus Diotima would perhaps not offer consolation in the easy sense of the word. Instead, she might say something more grounded:

“Yes, many times human beings are the hell of other human beings. But they are also the only refuge available to one another. And as long as there are people who choose the latter, history has not yet reached its end.”