Animals vs. Humans

In Mark Twain's essay, "The Damned Human Race", he addresses the question of Darwinism and the possibility of the human race evolving out of different animal species. Through comparison,  he confirms the idea that men have come from a species other than human. Instead of evolving and becoming greater, man has devolved over time into a species far different than any other living creature. The idea that man has not come from other animals is also brought up, as men are far more savage than an animal would ever be. We exercise certain beliefs and actions that animals do not have. 

Twain notes that all humans are of the same race and are equal to each other, yet they do not treat one another as equal, but inferior. Humans are all slaves that own their own  slaves. With no one being treated as equal, the belief of kindness and equality is not taught and the cycle continues. If humans came from animals, why don't we have the same way of thinking? How did the idea of inferiority come into human thought and culture? 

When one is not called "slave", there is still unfair treatment: not in the form of words but still the idea of dominance over one another. Twain noted that humans are the only species to rape and be unkind to each other without cause. Toni Morrison provides an example of this in Beloved. The main character, Sethe, is a slave at Sweethome Plantation. While she is of equal status to the other slaves that work there, they still treat her with cruelty by attacking her when she is pregnant and taking her milk. Though this is done out of hunger, the cruelty is evident in the fact that they chose to hurt a person that was just as hungry as them. They could've searched for food elsewhere but Sethe was an easy target. 

Unlike humans, animals do not kill without cause. No species would kill another animal unless they were starving. They also would not hurt their own children in desperate times but instead look for other solutions. In her own desperate time, Sethe sees only one answer to the problem of having her children become slaves. She kills one of her kids with the intent of murdering all of them.  This is a distinct difference between humans and other species. The point of unnecessary harm goes hand in hand with the idea of humans being wasteful. Humans waste other lives and materials to feel powerful, as they do in the wars that only humans participate in. 

Animals are far more sophisticated, at least in Twain's eyes. They know the worthiness of life and everything Earth holds whereas humans tend to take it for granted. 

Gratitude

I am named after Christmas, a time of year when the holiday spirit is in peoples' hearts, as is the spirit of giving. It seems as if around the holidays, people really take a look around them to appreciate what they have and notice what others do not have. This leads to a feeling of obligation to give back to charities or volunteer at hospitals. The kindness exudes out of everyone: smiles exchanged to strangers on the street, making everyone feel closer together. The rest of the year, this sense of community dissolves. While donations are still made to charity, not as much is given. Suddenly, there is no time to volunteer. Strangers are feared instead of smiled at.

            

Personally, I like to keep the holiday spirit in me all of the time instead of going back and forth between two mindsets. I think it is easier to feel grateful year-round when life cannot be taken for granted and you have been given some kind of battle. This Christmas will be my first "cancer-free" Christmas in 2 1/2 years. The hardest part of these years has been watching my family worry day in and day out. The days when I felt good enough to get up and walk around were the days that put a smile on their faces and now I have reached the time of endless smiles. In our house, the love and appreciation found around the holidays is present everyday.

Around Christmas is my favorite time of year because the inner gratitude of everyone comes out. Everyone has something to be thankful for and happy about and should acknowledge that year-round, not for just two months a year. I think our world would be more welcoming if we did not shut ourselves in and forget to think with our hearts as well as our heads.

Advances in Society

The world of technology is constantly expanding. It adds on to all aspects of our lives, whether it be communication, travel, cooking, or just about anything else. Technology is a vague term defining mechanical objects that can do our work for us, and faster. The problem with that is manual jobs become antiquated, replaced by machines. People lose jobs and unless they're well-versed in engineering and can become one of the minds creating or operating new systems and machines, they have nowhere to turn.



I know my way around the Internet and how to set up a blog, but I've grown up around computers. The people working the jobs that are disappearing haven't been around all these new forms of technology. They've been too busy working to learn everything there is to a cell phone or computer. Now the life they've built will be broken down by technology that has no need for a job, can't get paid, and can't raise a family.


Although there are downsides, there are many advantages to how advanced our society has become. Automatic cars that don't require a driver are extremely helpful for blind people who cannot drive themselves. These cars could be seen as a threat to chauffeurs and driving companies but they're meant for private use. They wouldn't put taxis or driving companies out of business because it would just be another car on the road, not another business to compete with.


Cell phones are another example of technology with no direct harm to the public. They provide us with quick communication to anyone, anywhere while functioning as a computer at the same time. With these, it's easy to stay in contact with people across the globe. The downside is that while we can see into each other's lives with social networks on the Internet, we don't make as much of an effort to really get to know people. We feel that we already know everything about them because we see their online version of themselves but that is only what they want people to see, not who they really are. Without cellphones and social media, we wouldn't make so many assumptions about those around us. We would give them the chance to be themselves and we would be able to get to know them in person, not through a website.


Whether technology's role in society is positive or negative is a matter of opinion. Everything has both a good and bad side, it just depends which one you look at. Society and technology will continue to advance and evolve so the only way to survive is to understand the changes and work with them, not against them.