Megan Ganz's concept of humanity

Megan Ganz had a concise description of Dan Harmon, when asked by a journalist what she thinks of him:

"He's a work-in-progress"

She adds:

"That’s how I think of myself, too".

When you have a concept that encompasses yourself and others, you have nothing short of a working definition of humanity.

Here, that's not theoretical philosophy. This statement by Megan Ganz came 6 years after Dan Harmon harassed her at the work place, and a few days after he publicly apologised, without naming her. She felt so safe after his apology that she publicly forgave him, thereby disclosing her name.

A crucial part of Dan Harmon’s apology is this: 

"I certainly wouldn’t have been able to do it if I had any respect for women on a fundamental level. I was thinking about them as different creatures. I was thinking about the ones that I liked as having some special role in my life, and I did it all by not thinking about it".

Dan Harmon describes his earlier perception of Megan Ganz as a perfect entity, as someone who is completely described by what she is, and not as someone imperfect, in the process of becoming what she wants to be, with her own personal, secret trajectory. And Dan Harmon understands that his earlier perception was faulty. It took 6 years to people as intelligent as Megan Ganz and Dan Harmon, for him to understand this, and for her to calmly express it publicly (but she understood immediately, not after 6 years, as we can see in the links below).

This is of enormous consequences. It holds the key to reverse the weaponisation of identities, a trap many, if not most, of even our most accomplished intellectuals fall in, today.

That we are all work-in-progress, and at the same time, all helping each-other, makes all of us, everyone of us, a teacher of humanity.

It is one thing to deliberate about concepts from the comfort of a settled life, another one to create the concept out of your direct encounter with the forces of life. What you create then, is a new reality, a new world, a new space and a new language, that enables human encounter to happen and in fact, life itself, of which humans are a part, to grow. Concepts, when born out of life and lived truly, are the most powerful things we can create, and have a power that extends far beyond our individual lives.

We can be grateful to Megan Ganz and Dan Harmon for treading this path, not theoretically but by their own courageous lives.

Dan Harmon’s apology (starts at 18'):

http://www.harmontown.com/2018/01/episode-dont-let-him-wipe-or-flush/

The full transcript:

https://slate.com/arts/2018/01/dan-harmon-apologizes-to-community-writer-megan-ganz-on-harmontown.html

Some introduction and context:

https://www.vulture.com/2018/01/it-took-me-years-to-believe-in-my-talents-again-read-this-twitter-exchange-between-megan-ganz-and-dan-harmon.html

https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/dan-harmon-megan-ganz-apology-1201916560/