Humans

I have not yet read in the news about disharmony within a band of gorillas; insincerity or dishonest influence in any pride of lions; conflict within a herd of elephants, much less resulting from trivial differences, neither have I ever seen dissension in any parliament of owls; bad blood between a colony of ants; disunity within a swarm of bees, or a troop of monkeys contained by hostility.

It appears that progressively more, these creatures are doing well in getting rid of all their seeds of moral evil. The only aggressive conduct by one breed against another is usually motivated by the need for survival, safeguarding of the family unit or the expansion of territory; they don’t just hunt and kill for the heck of it.

If you’re used to watching Discovery Channel documentaries or a bit au fait with zoology, you’ll realise that these animals have this natural conduct of doing things that may appear to be individually detrimental, but they’ll still do it because it is beneficial to the survival of their relatives, or for the spread of their genes - a perfect portrayal of altruism.

The other day I saw a video of some well behaved dogs praying before eating, and I was wowed by their pace of evolution. Ironically these dogs were trained by man. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we’re devolving or there is no sense of altruism in humans, because not all men are impassive to the welfare of other men, but for the most part and amongst all the creatures that I know of, man is the only creature that has refused to transcend egoism, regardless of his superior intelligence.

I am on no account against the declaration of “human superiority”, but for my part, if superiority or intelligence means preaching mutualism in spite of allegiance to division, teaching the importance of “tender loving care” when you know you’re on the side of bitterness, taking honest differences of views to mean hatred, or when X’s discomfort or misfortune can develop into Y’s delight, then I'll more willingly want to remain inferior and stupid.

If I could work the world the way I wish I could, rather than just doing experiments on these animals, we'll also give trial to their altruistic lifestyle, for I believe man’s ability to think and to invent is useless if these thoughts and inventions cannot stimulate social well-being….and if you think this opinion is an unfair criticism, for the reason that ‘Allah gave man dominion over all the earth’, bear in mind that I am also a Believer, and “Allah forbid that I should be among the foolish (ignorant)”