Being Human

I just finished reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I seldom read novels but when I do I tend to really enjoy them. My friend Rebecca loaned me the book and she said she was intensely affected by it. So am I. This is a postapolcalyptic novel from Oprah's Book Club, and it seems to be getting some pretty rave reviews. McCarthy also wrote, All the Pretty Horses, and No Country for Old Men (I just saw the movie and it was great) among others. The Road is a story about the love shared between a father and his young son as they struggle to survive in the gravest of circumstances.

One of the issues dealt with in the story is cannibalism and it has propelled me deeper into one of my current contemplations on what it means to be human. I've been perplexed lately when I hear something about man's inhumanity towards man. What does it mean to be inhuman when after all, humans seem capable of just about any atrocity? I saw a quote recently that said humans are innately inhuman.

I've pondered cannibalism before. We've all heard of The Donner Party and other instances of people eating human flesh to survive. Is making the choice to engage in cannibalism inhuman? Does eating the flesh of another human being destroy compassion? I've always thought that I would choose to die before I'd choose to eat human flesh but I've never been starving and faced with that decision so I don't really know for certain. I bet though that it's a place I just wouldn't go. I don't even like eating the flesh of animals but I obviously would to survive. I'm very curious about it and wondering if there is something innately "evil" about the practice. By evil I mean something not suited for a human being and yet something only a human being would be capable of doing.

And I suppose there is a huge difference between the different forms of cannibalism such as the cultural normalcy of indigenous tribal warfare, modern criminal cannibalism, and then that of necessity (in a crisis survival situation). Even with cannibalism from necessity there is a difference in the eating of the flesh someone who has already died as compared to killing someone for the sole purpose of eating them. What a morbid topic. Really though this contemplation moves me way beyond the initial issue that spurred it.

Is this all about free will? Humans are obviously animals and yet we are just as obviously more than animals. Does our human potential come from a higher nature that allows us to seek enlightenment and does this all rest on the choices we make? Is human life on the cusp between animal and God? Are only humans capable of the choice between good and evil?

In The Road, there are the good guys and the bad guys. The bad guys have chosen to kill and eat human flesh in order to survive. The good guys have chosen to carry the fire of the human spirit with them and starve if need be, to survive. I find it's not always that simple, the choices I face every moment to be a good guy or a bad guy. I must always remember that I'm carrying the fire. I must never forget that.