One of the most frequently cited facts of life is that there is only one race, the human race. It is said in order to counteract racism. And it is said to show how much all people have in common — our “common humanity.”
The first reason is good and valid. The notion that there is something significant that divides the races is indeed absurd. Beyond skin color, nothing divides the various races.
But in its latter meaning — that there is one human race, one humanity, to which we all belong, I am increasingly of the opinion that this is not so.
A lifetime of study of good and evil has led me to a wholly unexpected conclusion: There may not be one human race; there may well be a genuine divide among humans.
It seems that there is a certain percentage of humanity that can engage in acts of surpassing cruelty that the rest of us could not engage in. These people really do seem to be members of a different race. Biologically speaking, they are of course human beings, Homo sapiens. But in a fundamental way they are members of another species as well — an offshoot of human being that may still be part of some part of the animal kingdom to which the rest of us do not belong.
I know this sounds silly. For years I myself rejected the idea. But if there really is a sliver of human beings that can engage in acts that the rest cannot, what other explanation is there?
Well, two are offered: conditions and conditioning.
Conditions: Some argue that such evil is a matter of external conditions — that under the right conditions just about everyone would inflict horrific cruelty on their fellow human being. That is the conclusion that Professor Stanley Milgram drew from his world famous obedience test at Yale University.
Conditioning: The other argument against the notion of two species of human beings is that with the right conditioning anyone can be led to do anything to anyone.
I believe both arguments have merit but do not address the point I am making.
Regarding Milgram: The purpose of Milgram's experiment with Yale students — participants were ordered to deliver increasingly painful “electric shocks” to a subject (an actor) they did not see — was to show that people ordered to be cruel will do so because of the ease with which people obey authority.
I have no doubt that there are such people.
But this does not address my two-species theory. Milgram's students thought the “study” was academically sound, they exhibited no joy in what they did — indeed, most exhibited serious ambivalence — and they never saw their subject suffering (they heard him crying out).
The evil I am addressing has little or nothing to do with orders from authority. It is inflicted voluntarily, face to face with the victims and brings the evildoer pleasure.
Regarding conditioning: It is possible that a person raised to be a sadist from early childhood can be conditioned into being a sadist. But the evidence appears to suggest that those who deliberately inflict appalling pain on others enjoy doing so for reasons that cannot be traced to upbringing. They may have had a very normal upbringing, while many who had terrible childhoods exhibit no such sadistic tendencies.
In other words, it appears that there exist among human beings some people who can best be described as monsters — and whose monstrousness cannot be explained.
This theory brings me no intellectual or emotional satisfaction. I have always wanted to believe that all human beings have at least one freedom — moral freedom. Yet this belief is contradicted by the theory of two human species.
The man who put this notion into my mind is Rabbi Leon Radzik, a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered by the Nazis. What he saw as a boy in the Nazi camps few human beings have ever imagined, let alone witnessed. He once described to me a Nazi guard who, upon seeing a starving Jewish boy sucking on a candy wrapper thrown to the ground, murdered the boy by slowly shoving a shovel into the boy's throat — in anger over a Jewish boy having the temerity to suck on German candy wrapper.
I asked Radzik if he had any explanation. “They were monsters in human form,” he replied.
That is what I now believe: There are monsters in human form.
Dennis Prager hosts a nationally syndicated radio talk show and is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He is the author of four books, most recently "Happiness Is a Serious Problem" (HarperCollins). His website is www.pragerradio.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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Dennis, this seeming anomaly can easily be explained by a serious study of demonic influence in the Holy Bible.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Juanito Verde
Tue Mar 3, 2009 6:07 AM
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Sir;...Aristotle said: that the line between vice and virtue divides all of mankind.... So much from the guy who gave us the syllogism and the principal of identity.... Surely he must have known that he spoke falsely, that if humanity could be so easily divided, there was no humanity....You cannot divide dogs as a classification...You cannot divide circles as a classification.... You may be able to qualify dogs or circles; but you cannot divide them as a class.... Your thought that you can divide humanity as good and evil, as with Aristotles observation, builds up the one who would freely judge his equals as good and evil.... Fury the cat as judge and jury could try, judge and convict any poor mouse.... What would we do if the power were ours??? In fact, from my perspective, it is power, and prejudice, and wealth, and poverty; and race, and nation and endless qualities that truly divide people upon false lines.... Let me give you an example...I am not rich, but having enough I feel rich.... No rich man would view me as rich, though clearly many rich begrudge me my comforts.... And many rich are not rich, if you judge them by their behavior, -that having much they think they have not enough.... They are insecure of money.... With the wages of the whole world they would feel poor, so if you would divide the world between rich and poor it would have nothing what ever to do with income, so it would not be a line at all, but a scribble on the page of life....I know you from your words, and I know you look for justification, and tangible justification at that.... I don't...I don't look for excuses to judge my fellow human beings, and Judge not, lest I be judged -unless judgement is forced upon me...But, Judgement is knowledge...Though I have never met a rich person I did not like, I realize it does not work for us...I see slavery and poverty, and avarice, and ambition as all but an iron clad guarantees that ones so afflicted will be an animals, and unfit company for a dog...They are still human; but they are injured, as are most who do violence and injury.... Before we judge others guilty, let us live lives beyond reproach.... One man contemplates God, and another truth, but theology and philosophy are both preferable to politics, where in advance one must reject both religion and truth to make any progress for humanity...Progress for humanity is my goal, so I will let God sort us out... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #2
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Mar 4, 2009 2:51 PM
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Sir;...Let me point out to you that there are people out there who cannot relate.... Let me explain the world to you..... Everything we think of as an idea, or ideal is a form... Every form is also a form of relationship....Our forms of government and economy and religion and community all demand a certain form of behavior and justify a certain form of behavior.... Natural forms of relationship are also forms and they justify a certain level of defense up to war, and beyond...But some people in forms cannot relate.... Some people gravitate to forms because they cannot relate....My neighbor is a good guy, and helped me out...He asked me for a reference to become a sherrifs deputy... I told him NO, point blank.... Anyone who straps on a gun with the thought that they might not get through the day without using it on a human being ought to have their head examined... I don't care if it is justified...It should not be justified, and certainly not in advance of the situation.... But the uniforms often do get filled up by people who cannot relate on a purely human level with others.... They know to kill in wrong, and step by step move into the situation where killing seems natural, through the form, when it is not.... Look at most of the great philosophers in Western history... Most of them were great if we know of them at all.... Few of them could manage the most basic human relationships.... Socrates was married, and all but homeless; living in a culvert.... Nietsche gave himself syphilus in a parody of a love relationship...What I see as the truth, -the relationship, most philosophers gave up first, in the search for truth.... But look at us....Look at how as humanity we cling to our forms....One man takes wealth, and another accepts poverty; but it is only a form....One man stands behind bars, and another puts him there when it is really only a form called law that divides them.... These forms become more important to us as they destroy the relationships within...People sometimes cling to their marriages all the harder when their love is gone...Understand, humanity cannot live without forms.... Humanity has progressed purely by changing our forms.... What Jefferson said in regard to forms in his Declaration is as true today...Humanity hangs onto its forms...But this basic conservatism of people, and the inability of people to recognize when their forms are hurting humanity, and robbing them of their souls, is the common blindness of humanity....We need to be able to see beyond our forms, to see our forms for what they are, and to recognize when they are failing us so we can get beyond them to a new form of relatiionship....Thanks again....Sweeney
Comment: #3
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Mar 4, 2009 3:25 PM
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