“All human beings are animals, of course. But you, having lost your sense of values, are trying to fill that gaping hole with a particular set of instincts—that’s why you’re an animal. When animals cannibalize each other or persecute outsiders or create outcasts or commit suicide, or patricide, or infanticide, or fratricide—all these apparently abnormal acts are nothing more than a regression to a base animal instinct, when you think about it. Animals learn from their environment and their circumstances and pass their learned behaviors on to their children, who inherit what they can from their parents. But when environments and circumstances change so that they appear to contradict what we have learned—well, that’s when learning goes out the window, and animal instinct kicks in to produce these behaviors that we call ‘abnormal.’ Whenever there’s an outbreak of killing within a species, this is usually the primary factor.”
“Are you saying that it’s abnormal for me to have a gun?” Boiled asked.
Suddenly, Faceman’s eyes narrowed, and he threw the question back at Boiled. “So, when I said ‘abnormal,’ you immediately associated the word with your gun, did you?”
Boiled didn’t answer.
Faceman smiled and continued. “Abnormal behavior could be, for example, the ill-treatment of other members of your own species. There are some animals, for example, which, for various reasons, toy with weaker beings before killing them. Even their own children. There are some cases where they rape their own children repeatedly, or eat their children. Besides that, there are countless cases in which animals engage in group suicide, or end up eating each other or killing their own parents.”
Faceman uttered this entire speech with his usual, apparently disinterested, tone. Boiled stood and listened without emotion.
“Let me give you another example. In the savannas of a protected nature reserve, when the numbers in a herd of herbivores grow beyond a certain level, the herd engages in conduct that can only be described as provocative. Namely, they find a carnivore and deliberately pass close by, encouraging the carnivore to chase them. When, eventually, one of the herd falls by the wayside at the end of the chase and falls victim to the predator, the others in the herd stop and watch as their fellow gets ripped to pieces. Scientists have analyzed brain wave patterns that, in these situations, indicate that the surviving herd members are not just excited, but also
It was as if Faceman was methodically retrieving the data stored in his mind, selecting the best piece of information to impart next. “And what about the lowly insect that’s organized into the most regimented sort of society. Take the bee—in every hive, there’s always a particular bee that isn’t assigned any role. It isn’t allowed to do anything, and it just gets ignored by the other bees and dies. The existence of such a pitiful creature is usually explained as being a necessary measure to keep the population fluctuating, but essentially what’s happening is that the majority are finding an outlet for stress by creating an outcast. It’s a type of amusement. Then, there are the activities that are supposedly unique to human beings—take war, for example. Your former line of work.”
Boiled said nothing. He stared at Faceman, a dark glint brimming up in his eyes.
“You think that human beings are the only animals to wage war? Think again. It’s actually fair to say that pretty much any animal with a herd instinct will wage war one way or another. From insects to herbivores—all living creatures wage war. Ants, for example, will attack a rival anthill and raid its food supplies. They even occupy the other’s territory, enslaving the surviving ants. This sort of action is an exceedingly common animal impulse, in fact. So, you see how it is? Human beings are a long way from escaping their animal instincts, as I’m sure you understand clearly. In which case, what exactly is the difference between man and animal?”
Faceman took a breath here to better enunciate his next phrase. “The creation of values,” he said. “On one hand, animals have come up with all sorts of reasons—besides simple predation—to kill each other. On the other hand, over time human beings have come up with a notion of valuing life and death. It’s not that life has any value in and of itself. It’s that human beings have come up with a notion of value and applied that in various ways to the idea of life. In doing so, man started to resist total domination by his baser instincts and managed to give birth to a society overwhelmingly stronger and more complex than any other, surpassing all other creatures and ascending the pinnacle of life on earth as master of all he surveys.”
