Stairs

Phillip Chee

Human beings are creatures that tend to symbolize, abstract and modify their surroundings at some point in their biological and social development. Culture in the broadest meaning. Hence, one of the most fundamental aspects of such activity has been myth-making, storytelling, and even modern literature.
Nonetheless, the trap of natural fallacy can be difficult to transcend. When Darwin returned from his sojourn in the Galapagos and published his journals, he sometimes described nature as brutal and violent, or interdependent and complementary. The Victorians saw in the former description a justification for continuing the removal of humanity from nature. But a paradox emerges: What is natural is not necessarily human; what is human is perhaps natural. Yet, why shouldn't we think it might be the inverse: What is human is perhaps not natural; what is natural is necessarily human? For is it right that human violence be institutionalized into war? I find it absurd that I must defend a negative answer: it is an affront to a rational humanity. It becomes one more strand wound tighter into the Gordian knot that still haunts us.

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