What agenda? The one which would keep the general public as close to ‘values’ ingrained in them as possible. To maintain ‘harmony’ and prevent rebellion, questioning and instability – even if it is only fair that one must do something untoward in certain positions. Global human behavior is gaining limelight once again. People are realizing what they truly are. We are looking inside. It is almost a massive revolution but we are comfortable basking in ignorance. Behaviors that are uniform across the world are being teased-out to reveal the truly universal human nature, manifestations of our basest raw instinct, and instinctive reactions without any cultural or social bias.
There are many situations that I could lay out in front of you and you’ll be amazed at what your own responses are. Check this one out –A pregnant woman leading a group of people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave. In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless she is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the woman, whose head is out of the cave. Fortunately, (or unfortunately,) someone has with him a stick of dynamite. There seems no way to get the pregnant woman loose without using the dynamite which will inevitably kill her; but if they do not use it everyone will drown. What should they do?
Many of you must have really smart, instant solutions here. And even if you don’t, I was just trying to do the ‘appease thy reader’ thing anyway [Standard protocol for a first article]. Anyway, getting back to the point – if this dilemma was proposed a decade or two ago, we would have taken a decade or two ourselves to make a decision: simply because of the moral conflict stack-overloading our brains, overly analogous to light reflecting orthogonally against parallel mirrors. But I know my friends, that you have the simplest answer at the tip of your tongue already – let the gestating female die.
Did I shock you? No, probably left you a trifle bewildered I think. Well even if I did shock you, you’re feeling nothing compared to what your mother would have when she was your age. Terminating the pregnant woman who’s stuck is the most practical and simple solution. Why? Because we can save several lives at the cost of losing one, right? However horrible, gruesome or perturbing may it sound; most of us contemporaries here went directly for it in the back of our heads!
Why do we get the thrills when our favourite character from a TV show destroys another? Why are we always on a constant pursuit to pleasure and to satisfy our carnal desires? Why do we want to beat everyone else to get to the top? Why do we lie, deceive, cheat and con for our benefit? It is because we’re hardwired and biologically programmed to do so.
What I’m trying to say here is that, we are possibly at the beginning of an era when we shall not be politically correct anymore. We could be lifting the façade that we have germinated for centuries, the façade that defines us as a civilised species with a carefully cultivated social order. We could reveal a long-established masquerade and return to our baser, rawer origins. Being ‘animals’ could no longer be unacceptable.
There are less justifiable choices for us to make all around us. The fact that every time we’re hit by a train of complex moral calculus is calming as much as it is panicking to us. We love to believe that there is still a lot of humanity left within us human beings. Oh what a conceited race we are!
We judge, comment and throw righteous opinions around like we have an upper hand over everything and everyone. But the truth is: We have always been animals. And we have always been scared to admit it; because the last thing we want is a justified license to destroy each other.
But hey, it’s working well for us until now, isn’t it?