"Our bodies and minds are separate entities," said the speaker, "men have long since battled against their primal instincts and though it is a hard fought battle, it is the only thing that separates us from animals."
This did not sit well in my stomach; I'd heard that same shtick over and over again, and all I could hear was,
"We are not apes, we are not monkeys, we don't like bananas and we don't need to scream and fight to solve our problems."
My mind often retreated into these rabbit holes when confronted with the idea that we are somehow above animals. I've always thought the idea that we are separate from other animals is extremely harmful to our self-worth. It's ridiculous to think that our society is some uber-rich civilization which just has a couple problems, but is right on the brink of becoming something truly great. Culture is a deeply flawed self-revolving cycle of progress towards freedom. Freedom is the pursuit of truth, but people are incapable of detecting truth, and this means that our pursuit of freedom is nothing but a long line of shots in the dark.
I mean, if we were to use a more basic definition of freedom, being that we are able to do whatever we fancy, then we are already free and we always have been. Now, if we think that we should be able to do whatever is right, then we will never be free because again, we cannot detect truth, and therefore we will always live in a world where wrong deeds go unpunished. My eyes focused on the speaker again and my brain started to interpret his words.
"-reasoning is man's greatest gift," he said, "a man's ability to ascertain truth through the intensive use of his mental faculties is what has brought us to where we are today. When George Washington and the founding fathers wrote that all men should have a right to free speech, do you think that they thought this right would only be used for good? No! They knew of men capable of the worst evils, but they also knew that depriving good men of this right was not a worthy cost, and that these good men would power through and inherit the Earth. Ultimately, the good and the reasonable will use these traits to take power from the mean and the miserable. Thank you!"
There was a weak but still unreasonably loud level of applause to send off the speaker who spat bullshit.
"That was Dr. Elliot Jacobs," said a voice through the loudspeaker, "next up, Dr. William Brown on the ethics of interrupted moral institutions!"
I exited my seat promptly with a stack of papers clutched against my chest and headed down the aisle towards the stage. My eyes followed Dr. Jacobs as he exited stage right and made his way towards a backdoor. I picked up the pace a bit, turned around some people seated in the front row, and moved towards the hallways that connected to the door Jacobs had taken. When I reached it, I saw a man in a lab coat swiftly strutting down the mundane gray hall. I shifted the weight of my papers to solely my left hand, then reached into the air with the other.
"Dr. Jacobs!" I shouted.
He stopped in his tracks and his head turned to the right a little, then he slowly turned around completely and looked at me with a slightly tilted head. I jogged towards him and stopped to catch my breath.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"A student who's being forced to research you."
"Ah," he looked up and down at me, "well what do you want?"
"I was wondering what led you to the conclusion that we're not animals."
"It's obvious, isn't it?"
"Is it?"
He sighed deeply. "Animals can't talk."
"Well, we are right now."
"Oh, so you think you're a clever girl?"
YOU ARE READING
The Narrative of an Ape
RomanceA story about a young woman going through college and falling in love with another woman who's lived a troubled life. As their lives become entangled, holes start to be poked in both of their stories.
