I ask the question in the figurative rather than the literal sense of course. We are all undeniably homo sapiens sapiens, wise or knowing man. The question is whether we actually merit the moniker, whether we deserve all the good things we like to say and believe about ourselves.
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
People often go on and on about what a loathsome species we are, how the earth will be better off without us, and there is ample evidence for that. There’s another view though, for which the evidence seems just as substantial.
I think the truth is that we each have the potential for good or evil in more or less equal amounts deep in our DNA. Which of these potentialities manifests depends on the moral choices that we make. It’s like the Cherokee legend of the two wolves.
An elderly Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life.
He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me, it is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil---he is fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, competition, superiority, and ego.
The other is good ---he is joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.
This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too."
They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win, Grandfather?"
The Elder simply replied, "The one you feed."
As individuals and as a nation, we have choices to make between war or peace, torture or compassion, justice or lawlessness. I lived to see the (partial) triumph of the Civil Rights movement, the much-belated ending of the Vietnam War and the well-deserved downfall of Richard M. Nixon. I came to believe that with time would come progress, that our path would ever be onward and upward. I was wrong.
The past eight years has shown by stark example how easily we slide backwards down the slippery slope of evil, cruelty and madness. Depending on how we choose now, we will either become more fully human or continue to descend to the level of beasts. I wouldn’t bet any money on either outcome, but I know which side I’m pulling for.
With special thanks to the Killers, the Chinese Buddhist Art Dance Troupe, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.
I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions. This will be the day when we bring into full realization the American dream - a dream yet unfulfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man's skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and resources are held not for ourselves alone, but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of the human personality.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
Robert F. Kennedy