The Lowest Brain Capacity

   Due to the fact that we have just finished our satire thesis papers I decided I wanted to focus on one of the readings from that unit. Although we didn't read "The Lowest Animal" by Mark Twain as a class, I wanted to talk about some problems I personally had with the essay because it was the story I wrote my paper on. After reading "The Lowest Animal", it was easy to tell that Twain was commenting on the brutal nature of man and his innate corruption. Using satire, Twain stated that man was the "lowest animal" and had descended from animals due to his tendency for evil acts that "higher animals" wouldn't be possible of committing. However in claiming this I find a slight issue. Twain feels that man is low because he commits acts of injustice with a certain malice that animals don't; however these acts that man commits upon man; murder, thievery, and adultery, are apart of human nature and have been occurring since the dawn of time, due to the fact that man is able to rationalize what he is doing and go through with it whether he thinks he is wrong or right. Animals on the other hand commit these acts, or sins as some see them as, and get away with it in Twain's mind because they simply do not know better. Is it okay then to claim man is worse because he has the brain capacity to understand right and wrong whereas animals simply do not? My answer to this question is no. I feel to compare a man's wrongs against an animals wrongs would be like comparing a strawberry to a red pepper. Yes both are red and you can eat both, but beyond that they are on completely different wavelengths. To say a man should be held to a higher standard simply because his brain has a higher capacity for knowledge and evil is ridiculous at least to me, when comparing it to an animal who would never be able to understand the differences between right and wrong, charity and crime. This however, is solely how I feel on the issue between man and animal. 

   In the case of man compared to man I think certain exceptions can be applied. For example a young boy may steal bread from the neighbor next door to feed his starving family but another young boy may steal bread from the starving family. In both cases we know stealing to be wrong, but in the case of the boy trying to steal for his family we tend to have more sympathy and we see the second boy as wrong or corrupt. Ultimately I wanted to address this issue because I feel today we see a lot of people trying to argue they "didn't know better" when trying to get out of trouble: as in cases like the shooting of Michael Brown and recent drone killings of innocent people, when it is obvious that these cases are null. When a human takes another human life, they know what that means and they have the brain capacity to understand death. I feel that these people who make these decisions; to prey upon innocent people, to hurt the helpless, and to take from the needy; these are the people who should be considered the lowest animals of all.