All About Us: The gift that keeps on giving

Humans are the smartest and most developed creatures to exist — to our knowledge. Aside from our thumbs, our intelligence is due to the brain. 

Philosopher Rene Descartes said it best: “I think, therefore I am.” Our ability not only to have thoughts, but express and actualize these thoughts separates humans from animals. The structures formed by humans, both physical and social, are undoubtedly markers of a sort of intelligence not visible in other species. We think, we communicate and we exist.

We’ve created such an insane impact on ourselves, the planet and its other inhabitants. We’ve created social structures to identify ourselves both in connection and separation. We’ve honed technology for the advancement and sustainability of humanity, mass producing and distributing goods that are essential to human life, such as food and water. 

However, humans are unique in that we’re constantly using technology and other means for immediate gratification. With consciousness comes ability, and with ability comes action. These actions can be justified by our ability to communicate our thoughts and the cycle continues. 

We’ve created millions of products for our own convenience and figured out how to travel across and into space. We’ve built astronomically large figures of construction to shelter us from natural disasters, and some even just for aesthetic purposes. But to what end is reaching new frontiers of human ability a worthwhile goal?

I often wonder how much human consciousness should be revered. I feel like we blindly praise human exploits as successes, because we’re designed to think from an extremely human-centric perspective. 

Due to logical justification, humans are pretty much untouchable. Consciousness doesn’t seem like a gift, or something to be praised as blindly as it is. It allows humans to justify anything and everything, even if it’s evil or contradictory. 

Logic is a double edged sword that has hurt humans and others time and time again. Unfortunately, consciousness does not equal morality or empathy. What it does offer humans though is the ability to create morality and form empathy and rationality. With language and communication, humans have created a system in which anything is justifiable, and the more people that agree with something, the more valid it becomes. 

I think about the instances of human atrocity, such as the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Europeans who went on this endeavor had already established concepts such as equality, human rights and autonomy. Just like humans all over the planet, Europeans had made significant steps towards what the modern idea of civilization is. 

But colonizers decided that Africans were not people. And they decided that in this instance, capital and land gains were a priority for the success of who they considered real people. Crazy, right? 

For hundreds of years, the same humans who spouted rhetoric of enlightenment, peace and “civilization” were the ones committing acts that they’d deem inhumane to other people. The same humans espousing Christianity were sinning and often using the Bible as justification. 

For those millions of Africans and diaspora who were tortured, raped, beaten and transported in conditions worse than cattle, is the justification valid? It was valid enough for the millions of people who benefited from the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Thus, here we have a perfect example of, even in spite of clear contradiction, collective consciousness allows humans to justify paradoxical actions.

Are we really that smart? Other species don’t rely on mass self-decimation for the advancement of groups, and they surely don’t have the immense level of stratification regarding standard of living that we have. How do we, as an intelligent species, create, support and justify our own suffering?

The power of the tongue has given us the ability to paint right as wrong, and wrong as right —  no matter how big or small the issue is. And that’s something that I fear about humans. One of our biggest powers is what contributes to the destruction of ourselves and our surroundings. The gift of consciousness is one I feel that we must take more responsibility for. People are not always right.