Unit 2: “Who is the Future?”
Prompt: “What do you think distinguishes “animal” and “human?”
Response: I would say that complex emotion and, in most cases, having a conscience are what distinguishes “animal” from “human”. Animals, while capable of understanding and showing emotions such as affection, grief, anger, etc, are not so reliant on them to make decisions, in my opinion. Instead, instincts tend to be the primary driving force for many animals, while humans generally possess more complex thoughts and emotions, and as a result, act upon these. We have ethics and morals, and the instincts that we usually rely on to determine our decision-making seems to be self-preservation (hunger, thirst, evading danger, etc) and caring for/nurturing our youth.
Expansion: I used human ethics and morals as one of my points in my response to “what distinguishes animal from human”, but did not consider how this might tie into other concepts or areas of study we have looked at this semester, the most prominent being the future. Ethics and morals have been altered and developed throughout history and even prehistory, with societies rising and falling as a result of the standards they held themselves and others to. There is, of course, a hint of irony with regard to the idea of societies rising while possessing “ethics” and “morals”, especially the traditional western ones who participated en masse in colonization. We as humans tend to section ourselves off from being animals due to our supposed morals or ability to function as communities while also improving every aspect of our existence. For hundreds of years, however, horrific acts of violence have been perpetrated by the very nations pushing the idea that they are “civil” and right in colonizing countries. Perhaps the greatest example of this is the continent of Africa, which has known incredible tragedy at the hands of Western European powers and the “ethics” and “morals” they allege to live by. This shows that maybe we are not quite so different from animals as we believe, at least when it comes to the concepts we like to believe we are engrained with.
