It appears to me that there's not just a broad failure to define words and concepts, but distinguish "human" from "animal" in particular. I have a pretty strong opinion on how different these words are. I hear, often enough, attempts to rationalize behavior that turn them functionally synonymous. When something seems abjectly cruel or irrational, don't you know, it's just human nature.
I thoroughly disagree with this taken-for-granted space and colloquial sensibility. I think "human" has everything to do with conscious and deliberate behavior. Insofar as someone knows they are being cruel and are gleefully, maliciously intent on carrying that cruelty out, that's human. If something catastrophic and terrible plays out because someone is too stupid or afraid to know how to otherwise navigate, the animal shines.
If you are able to hold this distinction in your head, you can start to approach what it would take to hold something accountable. For the last couple of months, I've been in charge of overseeing children, new staff, and learning how those who have otherwise been in charge operate. Every level has a unique way in which you should try to problem-solve or describe how it manifests.
You don't blame children for being children, for example. They are considerably more animal than human. On their best day, they may be operating at 5% to 10% human, to the degree they more or less comply with the dictates of hopefully adult human structures and directives. They don't have the dexterity not to habitually spill things. They don't have the prefrontal cortex for significant impulse control. They don't have the perspective that might temper tears over otherwise innocuous situations.
At the staff level, you have what I often conceive of as overgrown children. They've been socialized to a degree that can reliably get you something "passable." Cs get degrees, and I don't believe society has the capacity to rise above a "C" level. It's more of a toss-up if you're going to get more human or more animal out of any individual on any given day. It's the space where you can contemplate "the masses." It's like K in *Men in Black*: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." They crave direction, someone to blame, and are wired to look for ways to take liberties.
A human is an avatar of every spectacular and atrocious thing we've ever done. It's employed as our King Excuse to eschew personal responsibility because "we" went to the moon and "we" learned how to cure disease. "We" also "other" people, repeat history, "don't care," and are forever capable but seemingly unwilling. "Oh, the humanity!" The iconic phrase inappropriately applied to all of the screams in horror and visceral reactions to man suffering a misfire of his technical prowess.
When adopted into a personally responsible and accountable self-conception, human is what separates you from your animal self. Humans are patient, kind, or forgiving for their own sake. They are optioned into as a continuous series of choices and rest within a perspective of consequences. It's not an accident, magic, nor matter-of-factly assumed you're going to be one way over another. You're steering a ball of potential, or you're not.
My cats aren't mean or nice. They're cats. They'll be sweet and cuddly until the precise moment they aren't. They don't have deeper nuances and motivations beyond how they happen to react in that moment. They suffer no anxiety or embarrassment for swatting at each other, scratching me, demanding food, or shitting where they aren't supposed to. They aren't "trying to destroy my couch" when they claw at it. They are a fairly mindless force I either navigate and shape or suffer.
In order to recognize the palpable difference, you have to engage in the work of accounting for your self-awareness. You have to dig up the nature of your motivations or depressors. You have to unpack scenes from your life and figure out whether it was mostly something you engaged in for your own fair-enough reasons or mostly something you suffered because it was all that was available. And then you have to keep doing that work the rest of your life as often as you can.
This is what used to distinguish real leaders. They actually, genuinely, actively did the kind of work that would give them the perspective to approach complex problems from a reasonable human place. You don't accomplish things worth keeping on "vibes." You think them through. You compartmentalize. No human, ever, has had anything less to deal with in their life than you or me, and then they went on to create whatever it is they did that made them known to us.
I use that thought to help temper my capacity to catastrophize. Even if someone, practically, occupies a position of power and influence, it doesn't mean they are necessarily a leader. They might be the consequence of the sea of C-students being of inevitable animalistic consequence. Will bad things happen and a lot of people die unnecessarily? Certainly. Is "the world" any more or less asking of you something different than it does every day in how to properly deal with it? We've gotten "here," however you wish to conceive of modernity, through fighting and reactivity to the places those in power are trying to drag us back to. I think history rhymes instead of repeats. We're probably going to react to totalitarian rule like most people most of the time throughout history, but this time with more guns, means of communication, and memes comparing Nazi salutes to other, obviously Nazi salutes.
"It can happen here." "It" is anything too-smart yet unwise animals are capable of. Of course it can. Animals don't surprise me anymore than kids do. I get surprised by individuals awakening to their own potential. I get surprised when someone goes above and beyond, out of character, for their class or otherwise box they tend to shuffle themselves in. I see people give up all the time. I see people stay silent. I see people shy away from even the most innocent and basic forms of organization, asking for help, or steps towards bringing a peaceful resolution to a problem. All of the best things can also happen here, or anywhere you practice what they cost.
I suffer the most when I overburden my sense of agency and control. Noam Chomsky talking about how most of your life you live in a totalitarian state has been resonating in my head for days. You can "choose" to work or starve. I tried, desperately, to create circumstances where I would allow myself more choices than not, and I still find myself slipping back onto totalitarian hamster wheels. I still have to ask myself if I'm reacting to my circumstances or celebrating my tastes and preferences when I pick a show to attend. I have to locate my personality and perspective within my work contexts to ensure I'm still kicking and screaming for more than what's on offer.
I've never found reality TV particularly compelling for this animal vs. human reasoning. Would you watch 30 minutes to an hour of dogs barking? Have you convinced yourself there's something interesting happening? Of course not. You're like my 10-year-old who vibes with fomenting drama and smirks when she's getting screamed at by another girl. Trump has the same shit-eating grin. So did my little brother growing up. When all you have is the reactive place of the rest of the animals to dictate for you any remote capacity you would otherwise have to a situation, you drift between gratifying emotional rushes for their own sake. They become the times, in and of themselves, that take over in lieu of exercised reason. They're apologized for, excused, celebrated, and ultimately righteously justified.
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