HUMAN NATURE ESSAY

Short Essay

Isn’t being a dog, part of being human? What if that’s the best part, the dog part? What if you’re really just a two legged dog?

While I am agree with Nicholas Cage’s character’s point of view that being an

animal, being a creature struggling for survival and occasionally giving freedom to its

instincts is the part of being a human, I also think that the other part of being human is

unique and is not possessed by any creatures other than human beings. The essence of human

nature is egoistic, but the intellect, which provides humans with everything necessary for

survival without struggle and unlocks the ability to build up layers of other beliefs over the

egoistic essence, is therefore shutting up temporarily until the need for the egoism to take

over control arises again. The idealism is possible only when there is no need for egoism to

intervene in order to ensure the one’s survival. I am agree with Freud’s point of view that essentially humans are cruel and

selfish. Under the layers of the society’s influences and education the humans are mostly in

the very same form they’ve evolved from the apes. They are ready to do everything

necessary in order to survive regardless of what needs to be done. Numerous examples stand

as the proof to that. Some of the most famous ones are the examples associated with the

struggle for survival of the concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust. In his book

“Survival in Auschwitz” Primo Levi is describing the process of dehumanization of humans

in the concentration camps. There, put to the most miserable form of life, many humans did

not care whether their actions are morally good or evil; they did everything necessary in

order to survive. The dehumanization is destroying the nature of a human being and

collapsing one’s chain of moral beliefs. So, it is enough to put a man into extreme conditions

to see proof of existence of the egoistic essence.

However I disagree that the “dog” part is the best part of being a human. I believe

the best part, the part that what makes humans different from animals is that ability to forget

what we are in essence, to base the assumptions of who we are on the layers of our beliefs

and to choose between good and evil, to have feelings and to always find someone better,

someone in their eyes perfect to take example from learn. When the egoistic essence is

buried deep enough under the layers of the society’s beliefs, the altruism is able to start

functioning and influencing ones actions.

It is in control of people to pick choices that are either more “humane” or more

“animal”, while animals don’t have any – their only priorities are their lives.

Even though people who in the extreme conditions would kill to survive, in the

normal conditions ( having food and shelter), for no personal gain are doing things that are

benefiting other people. It is when there is no need to kill, steal and fight each other to

survive the humans realise themselves, without getting told or taught that it is wrong to have

sex with children, steal or murder other people. Reasoning skills of humans and animals are

obviously not the same. No other species on this planet feel the tug of something higher,

something greater than itself. A bird will die singing; a well fed dog does not feel shame for

mating with ten other dogs in the same day, a lion who just ate another animal does not feel

an urge to share the remains with other animals, horse feels no guilt as to if the father of the

foal is around. Monkeys do not feel a need to bury their dead. Humans do.

So it is for the reasons above I think that even though being a “dog” is the part of a

being a human, the “dog” part is not the best one and it does not mean being a human is the

same as being any other animal.

Due date: 24/11/2010