Loving humanity, but manking — not so much …

… Christianity and Humanity—from a Distance | RealClearBooks. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As the citizen’s love and loyalty attach less and less to those nearest to him and more and more to an abstract and idealized agglomeration of “humanity,” social bonds loosen and politics itself becomes meaningless. Political activity can only take place within defined groupings of people; there can be no negotiation or arbitration among members of an otherwise undefined humanity.

Schiller, somewhere in Don Carlos, I believe, makes the point that the lovers of humanity often turn out to be the persecutors of mankind.