"Beneath the social ought to be the natural. Beneath the duties that tie us to individuals, there ought to be a duty that ties us to all men and women whatever their relation to us. In fact, beneath the social, the historical, there is nothing at all.

When a Jew could no longer appeal to his fellow German as a neighbour, as a friend, as a relation, as a partner, as a fellow Jew even, when at the end, naked at the barbed wire, he could only appeal to the man with a whip as a fellow human being, then it was more than too late. When men confront each other as men, as abstract universals, one with power, the other with none, then man is certain to behave as a wolf to his own kind.

... we recognise our mutual humanity in our differences, in our individuality, in our history, in our faithful discharge of our particular culture of obligations. There is no identity we can recognise in our universality. There is no such things as love of the human race, only the love of this person for that, in this time and not in any other.

... woe betide any man who depends on the abstract humanity of another for his food and protection. Woe betide any person who has no state, no family, no neighbourhood, no community that can stand behind to enforce his claim of need."

Michael Ignatieff, The needs of strangers. pp 52-53.