The Animal In Us

We humans like to think of ourselves as rational and critically thinking animals.  Actually, we usually do not like to think of ourselves as animals at all; the whole point of the expression is that we are something more than mere animals and any similarity is some left-over evolution has not yet eliminated.  The "animal" is the part of us that behaves without thinking, acting on instinct instead of planning out and considering consequences.  For some people, this is a handy excuse to do whatever they want without any risk of punishment, or at least serious punishment.  "I couldn't help it," they plead, "It was my animal instinct!"  They seek the safety of lack of responsibility.  We do not judge animals to be responsible for their actions; with very few exceptions, animals are not considered criminal and are not put on trial or expected to pay for what they do.  By giving in to the animal, a person is no longer in control of him/herself, and therefore not responsible.  However, things are not this simple, nor should they be.  For one thing, we do not just let animals that cause us harm or even mere bother to continue doing what they want or naturally do.  A dog that attacks a person is put down.  A bear that habitually wanders into town might be shot.  A fly gets swatted.  We do not put up with any trouble from other animals.  Other humans are given much more consideration, even when their actions are much more damaging and, moreover, intentional.  Even a serial murderer is not guaranteed treatment in kind, although it is not terribly unlikely.  By appealing to the animal, a person might try to get the best of both worlds, so to speak, in that we might accept the explanation of lack of control and also refrain from simply killing the person, probably because belonging to the human race gives us hope for better self-control in the future, besides our natural soft spot for those like us.  Being compared to an animal as a whole is generally considered insulting, although there are a number of exceptions.  At the same time, partial resemblance to animals can be considered a good thing in many cultures, as animals represent different strengths and weaknesses based on our observations of them.  People speak of totems or spirit animals.  However, these animals do not represent the whole person, but merely one aspect of the whole, or a goal to strive for in what they represent.  The animal in us becomes an ideal to emulate and to incorporate into the crazy quilt of our greater personalities.

The Source was typically spiritual in his explanation of the topic.  He had originally considered only the arrogance of believing ourselves to be "more" than animals, especially when those who insist so fiercely on this idea are often those who display the most "animalistic" behavior.  In this case, the Source was referring specifically to the habit of shouting down opponents that can be seen so often, for example in politicians.  The urge to fight against agreeing to disagree does not seem proper to him.  He felt that attempts to convince others of one's own rightness were displays of violence, cheating us out of discovering information for ourselves.  While there are undeniably abusive ways of trying to convince others to change their opinions, it is also true that some ideas are worth defending loudly and rudely, and allowing others to wallow in apathy and ignorance does nobody any favors.  To give an example, ideas about universal human rights and civil rights often need to be vigorously discussed, lest they be trampled by blithe privilege.

There were comments defending animals as well-behaved, even bordering on superhumanly wise, due to the lack of war, sport killing or other excesses in their behavior.  It is true that wild animals tend to be svelte, but a look at many domestic animals shows them overeating the same way their owners do.  One could argue that this is due to human influence, but it is more likely a simple outcome of the instinct all animals have to eat when food is available.  There was then discussion about the power we humans have to know that food will be available to us tomorrow, but others pointed out that many people are not in a position to know where their next meal is coming from.  We might have the mental capacity to plan, but not all of us live in societies that allow plans to come about undisturbed.

The Educator was almost impatient when speaking of the differences between humans and animals, or more precisely, the lack thereof.  She stated flatly that we are animals for better or worse, and no philosophical finagling would change that fact.  We are without a doubt the dominant species, being able to train others to do our bidding and enclosing them in zoos and circuses for our amusement.  Still, there are more similarities than some might be comfortable with.  We often speak of language as purely human, but animals also communicate, perhaps even with rudimentary languages based on sound.  Animals can create complex structures such as birds' nests and insect dwellings.  Some animals even farm their food; some ants cultivate fungi in their nests while others have herds of aphids to produce "milk" for them.  She also brought up the symbolic animals first in the meeting, mentioning their use in folk tales and fables.  Later on, she was reminded of the Chinese zodiac with its animal years.  Also, the idea that labeling people with animal terms removes their humanity troubled her, as we know what happens when groups of people are thought of as "dumb animals" and "subhuman".  Looking back over history, she wondered if slave owners were able to see their slaves as belonging to the same species as they.

The True Philosopher spent a little time turning the concept on its head, laying out the idea that we are actually worse than other animals because we have mental capacities that we use stupidly and selfishly.  What we label animal behavior is the most human thing we have.  Although he did blame us for our prideful destruction of our own environments and general cruelty, he took pains to emphasize that it is a "natural" outcome, what evolution has allowed us to develop.  The traits that have helped us survive as a species seem to come with the price of pride and arrogance.  He said, jokingly, that rather than evolution we have experienced "devolution", as we find ourselves more and more separate from nature and our roots, perhaps to our eventual detriment.

The Leader had written about the problem of dumping negative human behaviors into the animal category, and spoke also about the ever-present language problem.  We might say someone behaves "like an animal" but we are also aware of the intentionality of that person's behavior, something which we do not generally assign to animals, as previously mentioned.  We have overcome evolution, or perhaps been fooled by it, as we have the capacity to learn and adapt consciously, rather than waiting for the species as a whole to develop characteristics that promote survival.  In this, we seem to be different, and perhaps better suited for survival, than other animals.  He was not convinced by the argument of violence in the attempt to convince others proposed by the Source, saying there is a clear difference between politics and normal conversation.  He admitted that killing is a natural phenomenon, and unavoidable as practically every living thing must kill in order to survive; however, we humans can and perhaps should hold ourselves to a higher standard because we know we can find alternatives when basic survival is not at stake.  As science advances, it may be that we do not even have to kill to eat.  The bottom line is that we consider animals to act without reasoning, so any irrational behavior on the part of a human can be labeled "animal", even if the behavior taken by itself has nothing to do with any action any animal in its right mind would take.