Mankind is People-Kind

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="334"]The Prime Minister on peoplekind, taken from cbc.ca[/caption]

In a recent town-hall meeting, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau interrupted a young lady's public comment to correct her for saying "mankind."  Mr. Trudeau insisted "We like to say peoplekind, not necessarily mankind.  It's more inclusive."

Personally, I'd never heard or read the word peoplekind until I saw that clip.  Even as I type it in this document my auto-spellchecker underlines peoplekind in red to indicate it's not a word.  So I guess I'm not alone in feeling unincluded by Trudeau's inclusive statement.

You see the pronoun he chose is "we."  That's a first person plural  pronoun which indicates he's referring to two or more people.  Unless it's a majestic plural, which would indicate he is kin to the Queen.  In one sense, as we'll see shortly, we're all kin to the Queen, but that's only because we're all mankind.  More about that later, but first we'll assume it's a plain old plural pronoun. That's a safe bet.  As a first person plural pronoun it's also the subject of the verb, "like."  So the pronoun, we, does the action, and the action is to like.  Hence, We like.  If it is just the Prime Minister who likes saying peoplekind, "I" would be the subject.  So it's not just Mr. Trudeau.  It's a group.  It's a group who want to be more inclusive, and because of their desire to be inclusive they say peoplekind not mankind.

Who is this group?  I'm not part of that group.  I've never used the word, and now that I've heard it used once I really don't like it.  As already indicated my built-in spellchecker is feeling a little excluded too.  So I decided to check if dictionary.com is part of the "we."  It's not.  I typed in peoplekind, and as of right now up popped a message: "Did you mean perplexed?"  I guess it read my mind.  Yes, I'm perplexed over peoplekind, and I'm also feeling a little excluded by it too.  And apparently I'm not alone.  My built-in spellchecker and dictionary.com seem to share my sentiments.

While dictionary.com couldn't tell me what peoplekind means, it did tell me what mankind means: "the human race; human beings collectively without reference to sex; humankind."  Sounds inclusive to me.

Etymologically, "mankind" comes from the word mankin, or the Old English word mancynn.  Kin means "a group of persons descended from a common ancestor or constituting a people."  Dictionary.com helped me with that definition too.  Well said, dictionary.com.  So the definition of mankind and the etymological origin of mankind both exhaustively include all people, man or woman.  They are inclusive terms, and, if I might say, they are much more inclusive than Mr. Trudeau's "we."  His "we" doesn't include me, my spellchecker, dictionary, dictionary.com, or that young woman he corrected.  But mankind includes me, Mr. Trudeau, that young woman, and whoever, whether man or woman, designed my spellchecker and programmed dictionary.com.  It also includes everyone else not included in that lot.

As it turns out mankind is much more inclusive than Mr. Trudeau's use of the first person plural pronoun as a subject to the verb like.  I'll stick with mankind.

Now more to the point.  Why is mankind an inclusive term?  It's inclusive because it assumes a specific worldview.  It assumes ancestral relation to a man.  What man?  One man, Adam, the first-man.  As the etymology from the Old English indicates, mankind comes from mancynn (mankin).  Mancynn assumes each person, whether man or woman, is kin to the first man, Adam.  God called Adam "man."  Eve came from Adam, and she was mankind.  All people came from Eve.  So all people are mankind, the kin of Adam.  Capisci?

The biblical understanding of humanity is much more inclusive than Mr. Trudeau's understanding of the first person plural pronoun.  It's also much more inclusive than his inventive use of personkind.

If all people are kin to one man then all people are kin.  If that one man is afforded dignity, then all his descendants are afforded dignity.  Adam was created in the image and likeness of God, and all his descendants bear that same image.  That image affords us all dignity.   That dignity comes from God, and it assumes we are all the kin of man, Adam.  We are mancynn, mankind.  Like I said, we are kin to the Queen.  And I'm not using "we" majestically.

All the children of the world;

Red and yellow, black and white,

They are precious in his sight.

That means that by God's design all of Adam's kin, all of mankind, are to be treated with dignity.  Men and women deserve dignity.  Whatever the language, race, or nation of origin — all of mankind —  all are people according to the Bible, and all deserve dignity.  Mr. Trudeau, as well as whoever the "we" are, do not like to say mankind.

They say peoplekind.  But the biblical view of mankind is very kind to people, so in one sense saying mankind is people-kind.  I like mankind.