What distinguishes human civilisation from animal kingdom is the fact that it is a product of an evolutionary march that has enabled humans to transcend certain confines of the animal world which they are part of. We feel proud that we have risen above animal level and thus are no longer driven solely by our instincts. To know the human situation let’s very briefly try to understand what we share with the animals despite all our ascent to a so-called higher level and what we have that’s exclusively human. We procreate as all animals do. Act of procreation is driven by species instinct i.e. each species has inbuilt tendency to perpetuate itself as it is invested with an innate sense of survival.

Animals go to great lengths to protect their offspring, so do we. Anything that threatens the offspring whether it’s some hostile force from without or some inimical element from within is fought off with full force. But in the animal world tolerance for the offspring other than one’s own within a species group is greater.

Humans, having acquired the ability to reduce the child mortality rate, feel threatened by the children of others because they are perceived as a potential threat. In the survival of the children of others they see future enemies. Thus they try to eliminate such children born in the out-groups.

Animals generally do not kill the offspring of their own species. Scriptures, chronicles and histories tell us how men took great pride in the mass killing of their enemies’ children. One of the imprecatory Psalms (137:9) in the Bible says: “Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” This apparently is about the children of the enemies of God but it’s actually about the infants of those who do not share your beliefs or have different beliefs. Animals do not kill others because of beliefs or skin colour. Humans do. Israel has killed in October 2024 war tens of thousand of Palestinian children in Gaza. The Israeli defence minister declared that Palestinians were animals and thus killing them and their offspring was legitimate. Such actions are not driven by instincts but are born of a conscious choice underpinned by fear and urge to power; fear of being overwhelmed by real and imagined enemies and urge to power to overcome fear in pursuit of hegemony. So humans are far worse than animals on this count.

A group of animals protects its habitat. It fights only when intruders threaten it. It harbours no expansionist desires. Humans do quite the opposite; they covet the chance to grab the territories inhabited by other human groups. The phenomenon of western colonialism is an egregious example of modern history which enslaved and massacred millions and millions and devastated huge swathes of lands. The latest is the burning desire of the USA and Israel to fully occupy Gaza in Palestine which they have already made uninhabitable by bombing it to smithereens. Animals do not occupy territories beyond what is absolutely necessary for them. But humans do because they uphold the concept of lebensraum (living space / ‘the territory which a group, state or nation believes is needed for its natural development’). They take more as less. And this is because of consciousness. Thus they are more destructive than animals on this count.

Racism has a long history. We find the most obvious form of racism in the discriminatory acts that arise from the differences in the colours of skin. The oldest case of such a discrimination has been recorded in the subcontinent; Varuna, the caste system, is based on the division of skin-colours. Fair-skinned Aryans relegated the dark-skinned Indus people to lower status precisely because of the colour of their skin. The system still lingers on into present times as ‘Jativad’. The story of slave trade of black Africans is known to all. White Europeans and Arabs flourished because of slave traffic which consigned tens of millions to the life of misery. The vestiges of such slavery are found in the USA, the leader of the so-called free world, even today. Animals do not discriminate because of skin colour nor they enslave others; they coexist or in case of mortal danger kill or get killed. They are not expansionists like humans. So humans are more destructive than animals on this count.

Contemporary nationalism which is closely linked with the rise of the nation state is rooted in the homogeneity of one particular group or a set of groups underpinned by hegemonic ambitions. It excludes from its protective ring all others than its in-group(s). Exclusion invariably leads to othering which eventually dubs all the out-groups as unfriendly or hostile. Expressions of nationalist hysteria born of narrowness of vision can be seen in wars between nations and on the sports grounds when international matches are played.

In our own country we see mushrooming of petty ethnic and linguistic nationalisms thriving on toxic exclusivism. Riffing the strings of hatred comes easy. Fear and power are deeply ingrained elements in the human psyche that keep humans upset. Urge to power seems to be a primeval force linked with struggle for survival. It seemingly keeps the hostile forces at bay and removes the threat. It is linked with fear that we have inherited from our long stay in the primeval forests where we faced danger at every step creating a permanent sense of insecurity. But that’s not a fully satisfactory explanation for our competitive, selfish and aggressive side, says Jermey Griffith, a remarkable biologist.

The cause of ‘psychologically troubled human condition’ lies more in consciousness than instincts. Activities dictated by instincts have limits but the consciously made choices go far beyond such limits. Animals can be destructive to the necessary extent as dictated by their instinctual impluses. But humans precisely because of being human, being conscious, can be destructive ad infinitum. What we need to be critically aware of is related more with our conscious choices than our instinctual compulsions. What makes us human is potentially far more dangerous than animals. So beware of humans! — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2025