The Human Kind

The other day I came across this film. The first frame warned of shocking and offensive scenes.

What was it all about?

Well, the movie consisted of a series of small clips of executions, murders, and assaults. Nasty stuff.

In this never-ending cavalcade of violent acts, individuals displayed an unbelievable barbarism. The absolutely worst sides of the human kind.

How people can be so cruel, unemphatic, and ruthless is beyond my understanding. After seeing this I felt sadness, anger, and disgust.

The film clips made me I ask myself what is human and what is not. For can individuals committing such horrible acts really be humans?

A human is usually described as an intelligent, kind, and social creature. Other human characteristics are understanding, civility, and the ability to feel compassion and empathy.

What really seperates humans from animals is however the ability to think.

The disgusting and repulsive acts displayed in the film contradict all of what you normally associate with a human being.

Can we on that basis conclude that they are not humans?

Well, if what separates humans from animals is the ability to think, then some people are clearly not human because they don’t use this ability. If they don’t think but rather follow instincts and lack the other human characteristics -- what else can they be but animals?

I noticed that the majority of the scenes (pretty much all of them) were from underdeveloped countries.

I don’t know what that means, if it means anything. But some believe that people in these countries lack empathy, compassion, and understanding towards other humans and animals. If so, the ruthless slaughter of wild animals and all the civil-wars and genocides in Africa supports this.

Scientists say the human race has evolved from monkeys and that makes sense.

Some apes are social and intelligent. But just likes humans are monkeys sometimes not so nice. For instance, the chimpanzees, which are very similar to humans, also share our less positive sides and can be extremely violent and aggressive, and even cruel.

Maybe some people -- like our relatives the apes -- simply haven’t evolved into civilized human beings yet, but are stuck in some kind of evolution cross-dimension. Maybe evolution played them a trick.

They can think but don’t.

But it’s not so strange.

All through out history has mankind shown its worst sides, again and again. Even the most primitive stages in human’s evolution were filled with violence. For instance, the Homo sapiens (our race) exterminated all other types of early human beings.

So, violence is rooted deep down in our bones I guess.

Unfortunately, I watched this film. Even though it’s been a while the images are still fresh in my mind. Every now and then they pop out and spoils the day.

I’m ashamed to be the same the same type of two-legged human creature as the barbarians in the clips.

In fact, I’m ashamed to be a human; I wish I was a monkey.

Gimme a banana.