Homo Sapiens: Morality and Monstrosity

What does it mean to be human? Its actually a very uncomfortable question, in my opinion. In as little as ten minutes we can easily find and view evidence of human cruelty and kindness, of human hatred and love, of our despair and our hope. We can watch hubris unfold and gather pearls of deep wisdom. We can marvel at just how smart our ancestors were. Whether we're looking at marvels of engineering like the pyramids in Egypt, or the Socratic dialogues, the evidence of our ancestors' intelligence is abundant. It seems only fitting that we'd still find so many examples of human ignorance today. 

Positive Negatives

With little effort we can discover the seeming paradox of being meat bags with powerful biological imperatives, but also with the capacity (at least) for deep moral conviction. We read stories of people who cannibalized fellow humans in order to survive (The Donner Party, or the true story of airplane crash survivors covered in the film "Alive"). Neuroscientists reveal that hunger can become so powerful as to turn off our morality so that cannibalism becomes palatable, if necessary for our survival.

We see evidence of our intellect and ingenuity all around us. We have tremendous reasoning and cognitive abilities, but most often simply adopt the ideas and opinions imposed upon us by others. The Milgram experiment revealed how susceptible we are to the whims of authority. Our innate desire to conform and be part of the tribe is constantly exploited to achieve particular ends. And we almost always conform, even if conformity in that instance is senseless or ridiculous.

Intelligent morons. Calculative idiots. Free slaves.

Common Threads

And none of us are immune. We all feel pulls to both the Light Side and the Dark Side; we must decide which side we want to win each and every second in order to secure, and maintain the victory we desire.

I'll stop with that point before I do a terrible job of butchering Nietzsche and Jung, but I encourage you to read from both about what Jung called "the shadow."

But there's this... separateness that comes inexplicably with our sense of connection, isn't there? We intuitively understand that we are not the emotions or sensations we feel, nor are we the myriad thoughts that race through our minds. We are not our anxiety, or our fear anymore than we are our calmness or optimism, however powerful any of them might seem. With time and reflection, many discover these are vivid hues of our landscape, but not it's substance. In a way, it seems fitting somehow that such perspectives are difficult to come by. Harder still to apply to the lenses through which we view ourselves and others. 

Taste buds on one end and a crap factory on the other. A brain and awareness so complicated we find people who enjoy pain or humiliation as sexual pleasure. We find some particularly creepy humanoids who get off on causing pain and even death to others. We find lemmings and pied pipers. We find tremendous courage and cowardice. We find masterful manipulators and masses seemingly only too eager to be manipulated. And, as Mark Twain is credited with saying, "It's much easier to fool a man than it is to convince him he's been fooled."

That's me. That's you. Its all true, though in varying degrees about everyone you know and everyone you don't. 

The important thing, especially if such things are true for all of us, is what we choose to do with that understanding. Maybe that's the true beginning of understanding what it means to be human. We are a rather tangled kind of paradox: an enigma of beauty and horror, an oddity with equal capacities for morality and monstrosity. Answers to so many questions germane to this original query may remain forever beyond our grasp. Yet, in our pursuit of broader understanding, we discover and weave together the threads of our shared humanity. In such a way, perhaps the journey itself is the destination. 

If you read this far, I'd love to know what you think. What does it mean to be human? What's the point? What are our virtues and vices? How do we harness the right things and let the wrong things go? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts. I'd also love to know where you are in the world as you read. 

Thank you for your time. I hope you got something worthy of its investment in the reading here.