What Makes Us Human

Last night I was having a very good intelligent discussion with my friend Cole (he shares my music blog with me). We were talking about what happened 20 years ago, yesterday. Of course I am referring to the Tiananmen Square Protests, and their culmination on June fourth. This event is one of the most covered stories in history. The Chinese government has been covering it up for 20 years now even though the rest of world knows the history. I sent Cole a picture of "Tank Man" because it is (in my opinion) very inspirational. Well, Cole agreed and he made a comment that went something like this, "That guy fought every natural instinct we have as humans. Every instinct in his body." That made a click in my mind. It was as though a light bulb turned on in my head. To explain what the realization was I have to tell another story.

As many of you know I have a bit of a grudge against animal rights activists. Well because of this my animal rights friends and I have very good (if not heated) discussions about a variety of topics concerning animals. Well a place where the discussions get stuck is when we start to talk about how humans are animals. My stance on that is always that we may be part of the animal kingdom but we are not animals. My usual defense behind that is how humans are capable of rational thought and they always just return with how we are a barbaric race. Well, because of my discussion with Cole I found another point to back my defense. Other than rational thought, there is another human attribute that separates us from the animals, and it is shown perfectly in this picture...



Courage, in the face of certain death. The ability to stand up for something you believe in an instance when you know that you are going to die. Being able to fight off every survival instinct in your body to do something that might not even help your cause. This is what makes us human. Looking past the here and now, and looking to what will make a better future.