Introduction
Date According to Darwin’s famous dictum in The Origin of the Species, human beings are said to have evolved from a higher form of apes. This theory has been supported by many philosophers and many have gone against this crude concept. However, there is no denying that human beings are not completely divine beings; there are animal instincts in us, like using the five senses to judge our environment and react to it; the desire to be in groups; mating behavior; the mother’s protectiveness of the child; habits of ‘nesting’; not to mention the violent urge for self-defense and self-preservation. Also, our superior reason does not help us with the primitive sense of anger and violence that lurks in us. Like animals, we never forget a wrong done to us. Even if we look at modern trends and civilization, we find it rooted in violence. Fast cars, the need to ‘make a kill’ (Lamb, 224) at video games, reading racy thrillers and James Bond novels, watching movies with gore and violence, the culture of ‘Rock’ bands, perversion in relationships, the need for addictions to escape being human. All these points out the ‘lesser’, ‘physical’ and ‘animal’ side of humans (Lamb, 224).
Human nature in philosophy
Human nature is studied through its unique characteristics like the way humans think, feel and act in different situations and the subjects of sociology, psychology, and sociobiology study these patterns of behavior. However, human nature has also been the subject of philosophy for centuries. Let us take a look at statements made by such philosophers who have found a link with animal nature and humans in the ‘state of nature, (Lamb, 214) which refers to the condition of man before he is imposed upon by society. According to John Locke, human beings were not sinful or corrupt since their creation. Their behavior and needs change according to their social and biological environment.
However, Thomas Hobbes thought that the animal instinct prevalent in human nature makes them “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short” (Lamb, 202). Rousseau agreed with this, terming man ‘The Noble Savage’ who could become animal-like, cruel and violent in the race for survival. The philosopher, Bertrand Russell explained that the sinful nature of human beings is born from the ancestry of beasts of prey. just as animals must kill and hunt for their food and try all kinds of trickery to survive among other stronger species, so also human beings have the gut instinct to fight, snatch and win to survive. Catholic Christianity terms these animal instincts as ‘the Seven Sins’. Aristotle has famously dubbed man a ‘political animal’, a ‘conjugal animal’ and a ‘mimetic animal’ (Lamb, 231).
Animal behavior
All the above assumptions are based on the common fact that animals are fundamentally unreasonable, wild and instinctually violent. However, if we look at Annie Dillard’s work, ‘Living like a Weasel’, we might find that animal existence is considered purer and more intense than human beings, who get deflected by their reason and their social pressures. Annie Dillard has minutely observed a weasel’s habits and especially, its hunting and survival patterns. She describes how the weasel is content to be buried in its holes in the ground, coming up only when it gets the scent of a mouse. Annie Dillard writes, “We could, you know. We can live any way we want. People take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience–even of silence–by choice. The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way, to locate the tenderest and live spot and plug into that pulse. This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel doesn’t “attack” anything; a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity” (Dillard, 1). Thus, it is obvious that there is a certain method about the effective approach of an animal. The survival depends on the success of this approach or process. Any failure of design or fault in the process would lead to extinction for the animal. An animal, like a human, must be reasonable to live.
Conclusion
The thing that most amazes her is the concentration, the diligence, and the intensity that the weasel puts into its hunting process. Annie Dillard recounts a strange encounter by a pond where she was resting at sunset and suddenly, a weasel came out of its burrow and locked eyes with her for a few moments, which grew to be a revelatory and hypnotic experience as the author felt herself ‘becoming’ the weasel for an instant. It was then that she realized that human beings have lost their good animal instincts and the simple and intense way to live. Man is so busy with so many things that the most important aspects of survival lose focus, causing human beings unhappiness and depression. We must live for our goals and be content with attaining the basics for survival. Human beings spend too much time in behavioral antics and thinking about morality which does not figure with animals, making them freer and helping them ‘live’ with vigor.
Works Cited
Dillard, Annie. Living Like Weasels. Seftman. 2001. sheftman.com. Web.
Lamb, Richard. The Class of Human Civilization. Auckland: LBT Pub. Ltd, 2001.