Animal Paper

As humankind, we all know that we are animals but we think we are different from the others. We are being taught that we are the superior over the others and we can control over them. Therefore, although we know we are classifying as the category “animal”, we do not act or believe that we are. There are obstacles that constantly drag us out to make us believe that we are not animals. If all humans accept the fact they are animals and overcome those obstacles, our lifestyle would be a lot different and thus, we would live a good and meaningful.The first obstacle that prevents us to believe that we are animals is the religious belief according to Genesis 1 from the Holy Bible. In the first chapter of Genesis, it describes how God created the heaven and earth, then the light and divided from the darkness, and water. After the following days, God has named the earth “land” and the water “sea”. Later on, God created the plants, days, seasons, years, stars, birds, fish, cattle, and beasts of the earth. At the end, referring to Genesis 1:26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”, and Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” According to Genesis 1 as it describes, it is God who created the human beings and let them have the dominion over everything that he has created. In other words, the God created humans just like him, and we are the king of creation who have the rights to take control. Follow by this belief; it diversifies the differences between human beings and other animals. People who believe in this idea, that they are the superior over the others and therefore, it is reasonable to take control will eventually caused them to make the surroundings only convenient to themselves instead of adapting to where they are. In addition, it leads us to believe that we are God’s preference and we are made to be unique from the others. If the people who believes in the Genesis and practice this idea in their life, it prevents them to believe that they are animals and they worth more than the others. The second obstacle that caused humans to believe that they are different from the other living animals is science. For the infidel, science is certainly one of their beliefs. Scientists spend lots of time figuring out things with evidence and trying to prove it is right. But think outside the picture, it is still a belief with scientific reasons. Although the religious beliefs often seem to be different from the science, based on the Genesis 1, they are basically sharing the similar ideas that human is the king of creation. According to the scientific classification, although humans are part of the web of life and are explained that they are descended from other animals, we are separate from the genus, species, and we are Homo sapiens sapiens. We are classifying as the superior of the rest of the other animals and that we are better. Follow by the scientific classification by putting animals into different groups, it communicates the idea that animals are different even though we are animals which prevents human to believe or even accept that they are animals. Follow up by the second obstacle relating to scientific classification, the third obstacle is the explanation about human is the end of evolution. Based on the scientific theories, human are the end of creation and it is supposed to be the superior of the others. Even though we descended from the other animals, human comes last. This idea is similar as the Genesis, that human suddenly appear and we take control over the others because everything is created for us to have the dominion. All the scientific theories communicates to human that they are born to be different from the animal because they comes last and therefore, it is okay to take up other animal’s homes and destroy the forests to just for the convenience of ourselves. Since we are the final products of the creation, we deserved to treat better than the others and we are created to be the superior because we are more important than the others.

The fourth obstacle that avoids human to believe that they are animals is our daily experiences. We share 95% of our time only with any other humans, but not other living animals. Every day, we wake up and go to school or to our job, then we eat lunch with our friends, and go back to work or school, lastly home with family. All these activities that we have are mostly being spent with other humans. Most of our time are emphasizing “non-animal” tasks such as sitting in a classroom learning, doing homework, or work hard for the future to get a good job. All the “non-animal” tasks are basically going into a box to another. We live in a box, then when we wake up and go into another box as transportation to school, then we go into another box to learn, and then we go back into the box to sleep. We do not really “think” to do most of these things and we just simply relying on our memory to do all the tasks in our daily life. Therefore, we do not really experience new things in our life like the other animals and we are just forming the similar "non-animal" tasks every day.

Perhaps, people who have pets in their house are spending some times with the other animals. But overall, we are not really interacting with the other animals. Even the animals that we interact with, we see them as “pets” to make them obey us. We simply take away animal’s freedom and humanize the dog by putting clothes on them, going to specific place to poop, and etc. All the actions that we did to the other animals have caused us to see ourselves different from the other animals. Now a day, people spend their time mostly on media products such as computers, phones, i-pods, televisions, video games and etc. to entertain themselves. They believe that is the meaning of life because it fulfils their happiness and therefore we don’t need other animals in our life. We see the other animals as inferiors that are around us and we simply ignored them in our daily life because they are not the target for us to compete with. Since our daily life is mostly about competitions and to be better than the others. Other than humans, the other animals are just below our standards because we are the superiors. Thus, we believe that we are different from the animals and we excluded the other non-human animals in our daily life.

The fifth obstacle that eschews us from realizing we are animals is from the philosopher René Descartes’ theory: “I think, therefore I am”. He believes that the human mind and the body are separated, and it is just our mind living in our body. We can see that somehow Descartes’ point is true because we believe that we think and our body doesn’t, therefore, we feel the pain and not our body. His theory simply shows that as human, we often ignored our body most of the time and we do not really use our body “physically”. In addition to that, Descartes believes in dualism, and that other animals do not have emotions and they do not feel pain like we do because they do not have the ability to think. Therefore, they do not have the ability to be aware or conscious. Whereas, us, as human, we do have the ability because we have a tiny person, the Homunculus who lives in our body to function us. Without the homunculus, our body is just an empty flesh that is unconscious. Descartes’ philosophic theory communicates the idea of separation between mind and body, which caused a lot of us to believe that we are different from the other animals because we have the ability to think and they don’t. It also connects to the previous obstacles discussed in this paper that we think we are the superiors because we are better than the other animals and we are being aware of and always conscious about our surroundings. Descartes' mind and body split dualism, make us see object vs. subject. As human, the subject, we treat and see other animals as objects and we do not really care about their feelings. Follow up Descartes’ theory, we see ourselves as the experience, and only our mind really matters, and we have souls while other animals don’t while we see the other animals as objects, the one who experience, the body, or the flesh. By looking at things in either subjects or objects, it often separates us from the other animals which make us think we are different and unique. The sixth obstacle is similar as Descartes’ dualism theory, but is regarding on religious beliefs. A lot of religions believe that instead of there is a mind, we have souls or spirits living in our body and they are separated from the flesh. Without the soul like the mind, our body or flesh is simply empty. While we have souls living in our physical body to function the material system and animals don’t, it communicates the idea of immortality. Since the soul is separated from our body, when we die, our soul would eventually goes to heaven or hell and it has nothing to do with our body. Like the ghost in the machine, our body is just a robot for the ghost to control. Our bodies do not really feel anything but our soul do, therefore they are separated. While the animals do not have souls like the humans do, hence, they do not go to heaven or hell. The idea of human having immortal souls makes us feels that we are different from the other animals, because we get to go to heaven or hell while they don’t. The feeling of immortality specialize the human beings and it comforts us in our life. People who believe in the existence of souls or spirits will eventually see themselves as the superior and they are different from the animals because they deserve to go to heaven or hell while the animals don’t. Just like the previous obstacles, it creates the separation between humans and animals.

If all human kind realize the fact that they are animals and accepted they are, the benefits are that they will live a better life. For most of the females who go to hospital for baby delivery, if all the women notice they are animals and giving birth is natural for them, they should know that they are capable of giving birth just like the other regular animals. If all the other animals can give birth without any help or medications from the doctors, therefore all the other females are able to do this without a doctor, too. But it turns out to be the opposite that most females do not realize the choice of natural birth, and rely on doctors to go over the whole process with no doubt and think it will be less pain with medications.
Another benefit is that if we see ourselves as animals, we will use our body more physically like the other animals. We practice “non-animal” tasks in our daily life and we barely use our body because we think our body does not matter. If we don’t rely on transportation and walk to our destination, our body will be healthier by using our bodies physically. Now a day, a lot of people do not realize the importance of their body and they go on diets and are picky about foods. Unlike the animals, they never pick any special food to eat, and they just know they are hungry and they fulfill their hunger. Humans treat their body as objects and they do surgery to their body to change the way they look and never attempt to accept their true bodies. If we realized our bodies do matters, we should emphasize our physical body and be more active. As the activities we did in class, like the massage we did, exercise in the garden, and other small activities, it shows that we could be happier other than just sitting in classroom learning. This also indicates that we do not need phones, computers, or other entertainments to make ourselves happy. Simply using our body physically like the other animals could help us be happier and healthier.

The third benefit to accept the fact that we are animals is that we will use our mind properly. In our daily life, we do not really use our mind to think and we do things based on our memories such as knowing the directions of the subways, or figuring out some math problems. We do most of things according to our own memories and we don’t use our mind properly. If we realize we are animals, we would not plan, remember, nor daydream all the time. Instead, we should be like the animals that are out there all the time living with nature and experience more than thinking. Although thinking is important in our lives, we should experience more other than doing the same thing like going to school or working our jobs by repeating the same daily basis. Like the other animals, if we experience more, we would be living a good and meaningful life than we usually are.

The fourth benefit is that we would realize that there is no such special rescue in our daily life. For example, you are rushing to school and about to late, when you get to the station and saw the train is coming, you believe that there is someone out there blessing you, to save you from getting late to school. If we notice the fact that we are animals, we should know that we are just like the other animals and there is no such thing called special rescue to save us from danger. We are as dangerous as the other animals and we are not the center of the earth that everything goes in our way. We would also realize that we are the center of consciousness, and we would never be able to imagine how it is like to be unconsciousness like death. It is like a blind spot, that we will never know or be able to see how it looks or feels like. By knowing there is no special rescue to prevent us from dying and we are just as regular as the other animals, we would live a good and meaningful life by providing our own needs instead of relying the others to save us.

After learning the importance of realizing we are animals and we are no different from the other animals, I think it gives me a better insight into life and considering myself as “animals”. Since I was little, I was being taught that humans are animals, but I never being raised or learned in that way. From learning the topics of animals, I think it is not making me realize I am animals, but it makes me accept the fact that I am. I personally think that knowing it and accepting it are two different things in this case. Now that I accept the fact that I am an animal, I think my life will be more meaningful. I personally like the idea of accepting the fact that we are not unique, because in spite of the other non-human animals, we as humans always believe that we are different from each other. Living in the society, I always tempt to be different from the others and be special in some way. But learning this topic in the class, it makes me feel more similar than the others. I think by recognizing that I am no difference from the others, it helps me to avoid myself to be too self-center, which is good, because like the no special rescue, we are not anybody special or we are born to deserve more than the others. By truly understands the concepts that I am not special and I actually have a lot of similarities between each other changes the way I live. I would work hard for what I want instead of just sitting there and waiting for things to come to my hands.

From the previous obstacles, it says that if we live the similar way as the other animals live; we will have a better life. I agrees with the physical body should be more active, but I doubt that if animal really think about the question whether they are living a good and meaningful life or they just live that way. According to the things we learned in class, we know that animals do think and we are actually really similar. Regardless of whether animals think or not, sometimes I look up to the animals’ personality. They do not really plan out what should they do and they do not really learn like us in school. Instead they are always out there to experience things. Even though they know they will get kill at some point or any sooner, they still struggle to live to the last moment of their life. I extremely like their way they see life and I admire their way of living, because I felt that the non-human animals are truly living their life to the fullest.

However, because I am unable to communicate with the other animals, I often find it hard to interact with them. Also it is another obstacle that I think people face that caused them to see they are not animals. I always wish that I would be able to understand the animal’s perspective more and know what they are thinking. From my previous experience working as an intern in the aquarium, I always think the fish’s life is so meaningless just swimming back and forth in the tank and eat. I wonder if the fish is ever bored or wanted to be human like us. Same as the other animals, I wish I am able to know whether if they are always thinking or not. I personally think the miscommunication between human to other non-human animals is one of the biggest problem that cause us to see ourselves different from the other animals because we are unable to know more about them. All the observations that we made on the other animals' behaviors are just our interpretation of how they think and act. Therefore, we cannot interact with them as well as we did with humans. I wonder if humans are able to talk to animals, would it make a difference in humans’ perspective of looking at non-human animals. To add on to the previous benefits, I think another benefit thinking we are animals are that we will take more responsibilities regarding on the environments that we are living in and the issue of global warming. Now a day, people cut down trees and destroy other animal's homes for their own purpose of producing papers, or homes, or other products that we used. Also we destroy other animals habitat by polluting the rivers or lakes. We did so much harm to our environments and we are not just hurting the other animals but ourselves, too. I think if all the human beings realize that they are animals, they will take more responisbilty of the surroundings and the habitats they are living in.