I wrote this essay for fun over the course of two weeks. All I can hope for is that the ideas remain consistent all throughout the paper. Please comment and critique.

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On the Humanity of Man

In this day and age we define ‘man’ as the representation of the human race without regard to sex. As humans we nobly refer to ourselves as a whole and group our past achievements together as progressions of the human race. However, we also nobly, while reflecting on events that would be deemed as mistakes, forget to tell of how much we’ve set ourselves back. We, collectively, as humans, put the spotlight on achievements, and pull our mistakes off stage. This is natural and it happens every day. However, regardless of whether it’s human nature or not this leads to consequences that we tend to overlook or forget about. We also, collectively, fail to see over our enormous ego, blinded by the enormity of our pride, what consequences our achievements bring as well. For these two reasons, I maintain that for every step forward, ever step towards the “Übermensch” or “Overman” as Nietzsche would say, we take two steps backward, two steps towards our demise. I write this essay to not force an opinion, but make a point; a point on the humanity of man and how it will be the end of us as humans.

It goes without saying that we have come very far as humans as a whole, and I feel that I need no examples to prove so. I also believe, though, that we have set ourselves back twice as much as we have set ourselves forward. While many of you may disagree with me initially, I feel I can prove a legitimate point through examples. First, I will start by listing our achievements. We have begun to conquer the environment. While it remains unpredictable to a certain point, we can anticipate it through highly advanced technology and plan and shelter ourselves accordingly. We have conquered to the point where absolutely every bit of land can be inhabited, provided you have the right technology with you. Speaking of technology, we have advanced that field so much and continue to do so that by the time this essay reaches the ears of my peers, what I talk about will no doubt be outdated. We have gone from telegraphs to telephones in the last century. Instead of writing a letter and hope that whomever it was addressed to receives it within the next week, we can dial a number, or even just say their name into the receiver, and talk verbally with each other. If we want to write someone we can still do so, and the recipient will receive it in a click of the finger. Instead of relying on animals to transport us, or relying on ourselves to self-transport ourselves by means of foot, we can hop into an automobile and drive to the location with the power of three-hundred horses or more. Or we could fly there, a concept that would be seemingly impossible to anyone, absolutely anyone of past times. Instead of writing an essay by hand you can, like me, do it by type in a mere fraction of the time. Need to learn something quickly? This is also not a problem with what may be the most innovative invention of all time; the internet. The options are countless and I need not list them, for you already know them. These are a mere fraction of the achievements that we have, as a whole, brought into this world. The list is limitless and really doesn’t need to be said; therefore I will move onto how these achievements are fool’s gold and not anything at all what we believe them to be.

As I said in my thesis, these achievements are not nearly as progressing as they are regressing. First, I would like to talk about religion. To me, religion is in fact an invention. I do not say this in a condescending way to you many faithful and I think that it is one of the most important and unifying things on this planet. Many of us humans relate to each other only through religion. In fact, the Pope may be the single most influential man on the planet. However, religion comes with an innumerable amount of problems, more problems than positives. The whole middle-eastern portion of the world, namely Israel, is torn by religion. The ironic part is that they believe in the same God, the Muslim and Jewish people. However, each faction will tell you that the other is wrong. Radicals of each side would willingly give their life to end another’s if it meant furthering the progression of their religion. Even sub-branches of religions have conflict. Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, while agreeing on every single thing about their religion save one detail, kill each other daily in a battle that will never have an end and will never achieve any purpose. In Christianity we have Catholics who laugh at Lutherans who laugh at Baptists who laugh at Catholics. Each subdivision thinks the other is wrong, but all agree that Christianity is the right and correct religion. In America, where the vast majority of inhabitants are Christian, one of the first questions to the President-to-be Barack Obama was if he was Christian because many of people believed him to be Muslim. If he had come out and said that he was a Muslim, he would most definitely not have been elected President of the United States. I find this to be a perfect example of how religion is both unifying and condemning at the same time. Other pressing matters were at hand like the war in Iraq, the poor status of the economy, or the multi-trillion dollar debt, and the person who claims to have all of the answers was first asked whether he was Christian. Americans tend to have a bad look at Muslims and a sealed shut mind on religion.

Now, let’s get hypothetical and say that Obama was Muslim and did come out and say so, and was not elected. Let’s also say that he did have all of the answers to America’s problems, but was shunned for being Muslim and instead a President who farther demolished America was put into place. That scenario is not at all a stretch of the imagination as it could very well, one-hundred percent happen. Would that advancement of religion not be a much bigger regression than progression? You may tell me that this example is all hypothetical, but who is to say it has not already happened? It is imperative to believe that some time ago, somewhere someone was shunned, ignored, or even killed for not being religious, or believing in a different religion. This is documented, this has happened. The proof is everywhere in the form of the Holocaust, or Galileo, or tons and tons of other things. Who is to debate me that one of these people shunned, killed, or ignored, may have held the answer to all of the world’s, all of humanity’s problems? It is inarguable because you cannot prove me wrong. Thus I conclude that our innovation of religion as a uniting, inspiring, and progressing idea has actually, in fact, regressed us more than it has progressed us even though the evidence of so isn’t apparent.

If you aren’t convinced by the first article, then read on. For my next point I would like to bring up technology. This covers many areas and I’ll scratch a few of the biggest topics.. With the invention of the modern computer we get a new easier, more efficient way to communicate, learn, write, and, most of all, we have a more effective way to handle life. Computers can do anything from let us send a picture of our dog that no one actually cares about to our sister living five hundred miles away, to running factories and manufacturing necessary objects, to socializing with friends in online video games. At first glance it seems that it is impossible to argue these things bad. Well, I am here to argue just so. To me, technology is going to be the biggest downfall of man. In just ten years we have gone from communicating with each other from across the country from the comfort of our homes on corded phones to being able to stand almost anywhere in your country of choice and make a phone call to someone else anywhere in the country, or even world. We have gone from working children ten hours a day in factories, to having one man running and controlling a factory at his fingertips. We have gone from people learning from books and life experiences to learning from the internet. We have gone from sailing across the ocean on ship to rocketing into outer space. We have gone from warring with each other with muskets to rifles to machine guns to massive nuclear bombs capable of destroying entire cities. Our technological growth is exponential. Look what we have accomplished in the past ten years and think of what we will accomplish in the next fifty. After reading these examples I am sure at least some of you have at least begun to question our accomplishments, but now let me further persuade you.

Yes, the internet makes it easier to learn and is becoming the primary factor in educating children these days, but what will it become in the next twenty years. Will we have to go outside to learn? Will we have to open a book? Or will we just sit in front of our computer monitors and let our minds slowly numb as we take in this information? What I am getting at is that I believe the invention of the internet will, in effect, reduce our needs to go out and experience life and meet up with our peers and discuss openly what we believe. While collaborations will always take place between higher educated individuals, the ones perhaps filling our minds with the information, I feel that the most important ones are the ones of the common people. If the common people are taking for fact what we read on the internet and just decide to give up their will to believe and find out what is true for themselves, who is to say new ideas will ever spawn? Some of the best and most influential ideas were taken from the ideas of the common people. Take away the common person’s need to discover and learn for himself and we have a person that will in fact not progress us in any way shape or form, and in fact, by not getting out and learning for himself, regressing us.

Next, I would like to point out our newfound dependence on technology. I believe that while geniuses emerge every single day with philosophies or scientific findings to solve our problems, the general intelligence of the world is drastically dropping. While you may see the invention of the internet as a tool useful in farther educating us, it actually adheres to the furthering ignorance of the human race. It deliberately dumbs down the world for us and lets us learn what we want to know, and even discourages us to learn things as we can simply look up anything need be. Technology, in general, does this for us. Technology does things we don’t want to. Technology lights our fires. Humans today are the offspring of technology. The current generation would be lost without it, and I believe that in effect we have lost a whole generation of knowledge because of this. Say that tomorrow, there is a fatal flaw somehow and internet all over the world seemingly stops working. Not only would ninety-nine percent of the world, excluding countries not granted these privileges like southern Africa, but ninety-nine percent of our world’s brilliant workforce would be diverted to fix the problem. This takes ‘putting all of your eggs in the same basket’ to a whole new, grand scale. And I believe doing so, while maybe doing what we think is progression, is the spawn of regression. If the aforementioned scenario did in fact take place, the human race would be dumbfounded. This is a prime example of regression.

Another effect of technology is what it’s doing to not only us humans, but what it’s doing to the world on which we live. Now, this is most certainly a touchy subject, but I believe the evidence of our harm on the environment is blatantly obvious. Yeah, we’ve heard arguments that global warming is a natural cycle in the Earth’s climate, but I feel that the argument that we are the cause of the Earth’s problems is far more convincing. Also, going with that, it seems that absolutely nothing is being done. Now, through technology, we are effectively destroying our planet and not doing anything about it which I believe is indisputably a sign of regression.

Now that I am done with my spiel about technology let’s move on to our humanity itself. First, let’s take a look at general human nature. Lying within our human nature is the force that drives us into groups. By this I mean that humans, like animals, form packs. These packs could be anything from an African tribe, to Democrats, to Germans as a whole. The fact remains the same that groups of people with similar ideas will always group and strive for the same goal. For example, like-minded revolutionaries in France eventually grouped and caused the French revolution, as groups of like-minded Englishman formed together, revolted, and eventually traveled across the seas to claim the Americas for their own. It is human nature for these things to happen not only because groups of people with similar ideas form, but because it is human nature to disagree and form new ideas. As Nietzsche would argue, these people are the ones that progress our race to something greater. To him, the ultimate being is one that formulates his OWN ideas and forms his own facts with no regard to what anyone else has to say. And, as said in the son ‘Renegades of Funk’ by Rage Against the Machine, these people come in the form of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Chief Sitting Bull, among others. These people refuse to conform, as Nietzsche would urge one to do, and as ‘Rage Against the Machine’ where the ‘Machine’ could be anything from a government, to a moral standard. These renegades revolt, and these renegades lead, and these renegades lead us to greater things, because it is human nature to follow and it is human nature for groups of similar-minded individuals to follow one another. However, this goes both ways. Many people only follow the ‘renegade of funk’ because they think they like what the renegade is saying, thus, ultimately, giving up their own ideas and following another, as Nietzsche would argue is wrong; However, whether Nietzsche likes it or not, followers and supporters remain vital to humanity. Things like this are painstakingly obvious in society today, or there wouldn’t even be such a thing as a country or club even.

By now you are more or less wondering where I am going with this. Well, I will tell you in a moment, after I point out another aspect of humanity. As it is within our realm of being to formulate our own ideas, disagree with ideas, or even follow ideas, it is also within the humanity of those who formulate and disagree to force upon others what they believe and feel is right and no one can really explain why. Why did America declare war on Middle Eastern countries and force democracy upon them? Why does communism exist? Why do people argue in the first place? Now I would like to tell you where I am going with these statements. First off, if it is true that it is within human nature to disagree and formulate new ideas, and it is within our nature the desire and will to force our ideas, or convince others of our ideas, then there will always be some sort of conflict, and there will always be at least one person that goes against the popular belief, or ‘rages against the machine’, thus inhibiting our ability to progress, and thus regressing us by either consuming our time detaining this person, or by taking away followers of the popular belief and converting them to the renegade’s belief, also inhibiting our progression forward and inadvertently, in all actuality, regressing us. Secondly, combine this with the human’s dependence on technology and our infatuation with it, and you have what we saw some time ago in World War II: Nuclear warfare. This may seem out of nowhere to you, but this is what happens when you take everything I’ve said to its limit. It is human nature to forcibly place our ideas into the minds’ of others. Combining that with technology, the ultimate ‘force’ would be death and the ultimate death is mass death. This is seen all throughout the world, and has repeated itself all throughout the course of history. Thus, I conclude this paragraph maintaining that general human nature is, in itself, one of the key motivators of regression.

Now, I really hate concluding paragraphs, but here is what I hope that you’ve taken from this essay. What you see is most definitely not what you always get, and our progressions are our ultimate regressions and will in effect be the end of us. Any of the things I mentioned above can and have lead to, in one way or another, conflict. Conflict stops us from going any farther as whole and can stop us from going any farther at all. It is also in our nature as humans to rebel, fight, follow, and force. It is inevitable, really and I hope you can all see my point. Oh, on the humanity of man and how ironic it may be. It is in our humanity to follow and it is in our humanity to disagree. It is in our humanity to progress, but in reality it is our progressions that regress us, and that is what I would deem The Humanity of Man.