What should we be? A human or an animal


Species beings, while hunting their prey in the food chain, target the weakest link first, since after all, it is their easiest prey. But it is also the way of nature to eliminate the weak, leaving only the fitter to survive at every given occurrence in nature. It's an unsaid decree in nature that if one has to survive, somewhere in the food chain, another has to die.

They also face the threat of survival from rivals among themselves, fighting for territorial dominance or to win over a mate. Some lay siege around an opponent's territory or supply lines to food and water, as a strategy to weaken and win over them. In a number of species, the powerful among them assume leadership and lord over an army of subservient ones. This trait can be observed in ants, bees to hyenas and lions. Some species beings also resort to violence to tame and wrest control over their mates. Even some birds do this. The bout of life can thus, knock their life out or its challenges can push them to become stronger or subservient to the stronger, in order to survive.

In the human world, the threat to survival comes more from within the humans themselves than from any other species or natural calamities. While humans prey upon other species beings for food, they also domesticate the weaker among other species and fight their fellow humans to cast their dominance upon them. They make them subservient and extract labor. Strangely, a lot of things they do are similar to other beings in the species kingdom. Many of their behavior can be likened to similar behavior in other species, like for example, the act of physical abuse and domestic violence to remain a dominant partner.

Even as a group, humans fight over each others' in the name of race, religion, language and so on and so forth. And nations fight over each other to be the dominant player in the continent or the world order. Where then is civilization, if power is used to eliminate another or to dominate and exploit another, how better are humans than animals on the planet? Beneath the sugar coated propaganda of civilization aren't humans just like animals? 

Civilization, therefore, should not end up becoming a cover-up of animal instincts in humans. By draping them with fabricated lies, humans are not going to become evolved beings. Civilization should rather reform humans and prevent them from displaying the tendencies to eliminate, exploit or enslave the weak; the selfsame tendencies that are visibly present in the species kingdom and covetously present in the human world.

If humans are distinct from other beings and can act by their free will using their power of reasoning, then the collective endeavor of human civilization should be aimed at transforming the weaker in the society into stronger and self-reliant individuals. But if factors weakening them are not eliminated from the human society, they will, in turn, become an opportune ground for other stronger humans with untamed animal instincts to exploit their weaker counterparts in the society to build their dominance.

Humans thus have a choice between, the raw evolution of nature (based on strength and dominance) and the collective progress of all beings (based on strength governed by justice).

Now, given a choice, what should we be, a human of reasoning or an animal of instinct?

Image courtesy: https://commons.wikimedia.org

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