Literature Turns the Beast into Human
Stories are actually a form of technology. They are tools that were designed by our ancestors to alleviate depression, reduce anxiety, kindle creativity, spark courage and meet a variety of other psychological challenges of being human.”
Angus Fletcher ( professor of story science at Ohio State University’s Project Narrative)
Human beings are made of two components: Physical or Material and Intellectual or Spiritual. A material/visible body is comprised of atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems. Most of this physical body, according to science, is just six elements: Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, and phosphorus.
And these elements reside in trillions of cells and non-cellular components of the body.
However, it is basically the chemical elements that make up the staggering variety of molecules that are combined to form DNA, cellular organelles, cells, tissues, and organs.
As we can see, six (material)elements make up 99 percent of the mass of the human body. And water, with cells having between 65 percent and 90 percent by weight, is believed to be the most common compound.
This is the basic and simple idea of a physical human body, but if we go into details, it will be revealed that there are trillions of tiny cells that connect to create a solid, well formed organism(approximately one to one hundred trillion cells) and also range in size shape, and function: bone cells, blood cells, nerve cells, muscle cells, stomach cells, and so forth.
And the more detailed or deeper observation can blow our mind as it will look more and more like a hugely complex machine beyond comprehension. With the advances in technology, such as computers, computation, imaging, biology, and the completion of the mapping of the human genome, scientists could view and measure even much more but still reach nowhere and thus baffle too. In the words of Jon S. Morrow (Ph.D., M.D. ’76, HS ’77, FW ’80) chair and Raymond Yesner Professor of Pathology, “You’ve got these massively parallel technologies that allowed you to see the whole landscape of processes in large scale.” And still a lot of being learned and discovered with more medical and technological advances.
Further, lying inside a bony shell is also a brain (an organ weighing an average three pounds and central part of human nervous system) which is most complex organ of this already complex body with 100 billion neurons and 10 times more glial cells, (in addition to those in the rest of the body) it is even believed to be the more complex than any other known structure in the universe. In addition to controlling body’s internal functions, it also produces or controls our every thought, action, memory, emotion, feeling and experience of the world.
But a human being is not just a physical being with a physical brain. Usually or in typical sense, term human being seems synonymous with physical body and/or material body. This is a very narrow concept. That is why human beings can not be defined just in physical or biological terms. They also need to be defined in social, intellectual, and spiritual terms. Therefore, term “human being” must have broader meanings than merely a physical being as defined above. And a better term to define them beyond mere physical traits would be “Homo Sapiens.” This consists of a ‘genus’ name and a ‘species’ name. Humans are classified under the genus Homo (man) and under the species sapiens (wise).
Thus defining human being in terms of just physical beings will equate humans or bring them on par with animals (or meat machines) and it will be an insult to the earlier, even though there are many similarities in lot of ways the bodies of both work: both eat, sleep, think, and communicate. Both can hear, smell, taste, feel and see and perceive stimuli from the environment. And animals, it is believed, can, sometimes, even perform these functions better than humans. Furthermore, both have survival instincts.
However, there are also differences that make us humans unique, although some animal lovers (or zealous advocates of animal rights) will frown upon the idea of devaluation of animals and disconnection of us from them. Regardless, one main difference is that humans beings live in organized societies.
Although some animal lovers, will, once again, protest or argue that animals also have social lives as many animals live in social groups with other members of their species because they depend in some way on each other’s activities. For instance, Lions, wolves, whales, dolphins, monkeys, chimps, and elephants all live in groups. But these groups, as some zoologists/wildlife biologists seem to suggest can, at best, be called bands rather than organized societies like those of humans. According to them, animal groups are mainly based on instincts or reflex behaviour, whereas human society is based on reason or rational behaviour. Moreover, there are no duties and rights in animal society.
Then animals living in a society, are unconscious about its membership in it. They also do not have reasoning power. The division of labour existing in some societies like ant and bee societies is not learned but is inherited biologically. Thus society found in the animals is biologically evolved but among human beings, it is through sociological evolution.
Thus humans have consciousness that can’t be considered just the product of physicalism or a brain process. Although, a thesis, put forward by some scientific communities, suggests that it is a brain process, but it is not necessary that a widely accepted establishment view in contemporary modern world is always right. On the contrary, as some psychologists/philosophers also suggest, science only looks at the outer “surface” of Reality — it cannot look into the depth of mind, and so, the real core of being, can’t be just the realm of empirical, testable, physical matter.
For instance, as one neuroscientist puts it, “the content of our experience of the world is not entirely generated by our brain. What we understand to exist out there — nation states, the moon, language, the banking system, money, grandparents — has all been provided to us by the cultural and conceptual framework we are surrounded by in the form of language and human knowledge. Our identity as having a role in human society is as much created by the society around us as by ourselves. The true conscious world we inhabit is a shared world that is distributed across 7 billion brains, including a few hundred in our vicinity and the civilization they participate in.
Much of what we experience as true comes from outside our direct perception. Major world events such as the moon landing or the 9/11 World Trade Center bombing, were not directly experienced by 99.99% of human brains. It came to people through arrays of pixels on TV screens, arrangements of ink on paper, and sound waves. In this way, our true conscious world is a collective construction and we tap into a piece of it while contributing back to the collective through the stories we share, posts made online, etc.. Our full conscious experience exists not inside ourselves, but inside human society and culture. We borrow pieces of the collective conscious experience, much as one might borrow books from the local library. Our conscious experience belongs to us much less than we think it does.”
Moreover, animals have no concept of death and thus have no life purpose. Awareness of one’s own mortality, according to some philosophers, means understanding that you will inevitably die, that this is an unavoidable consequence of being alive. Understood like this, it is unlikely that non-linguistic animals can be aware of their mortality, because the notion of the inevitability of death seems to require knowledge accumulated and passed down through generations.
Immanuel Kant, in “Critique of Practical Reason” writes: The moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality.”
For Kant, morality is not defined by the consequences of our actions, our emotions, or an external factor. Morality is defined by duties and one’s action is moral if it is an act motivated by duty. And, as stated above, animals have no sense of duty or rights.
In other words, for being moral one must be able to have a conscious choice. Although some animals have a sense of right and wrong, but, as many animal behavior researchers suggest, “at the heart of animals morality is the emotions,” and these motions may be rooted in instinct and hard-wiring, rather than conscious choice.
From the above it can be safely concluded that we, the humans, also have consciousness or mind and not just a brain. Having consciousness also means being awakened and Awakening can be described as a process of remembering who we are and connecting with our spirituality and oneness with the universe. It also means being aware without clinging to anything and separating oneself from one’s thoughts, emotions and physical senses. And this state can hardly be achieved by animals. Thus the mind is to the spirit as the brain is to the body. The brain is a physical organ, capable of directing the physical body. But the mind is a metaphysical and thus eternal entity, more related to the spirit. The two are integrated in us, but are not the same thing. As brain is a physical thing thus it can be seen or touched, but mind is intangible and pure vibrating energy and is defined as the sum of the cognitive abilities that enable consciousness, perception, memory, thinking, imagination and judgment. It may also be defined as the conscious and unconscious mental activity of a person and thus can’t be seen or touched.
And this mind or consciousness distinguish us humans from animals or beasts. And the more consciousness/awareness we have, the more human we become.
Here comes the role of literature. Literature ( especially prose, fiction, drama, poetry, and including both print and digital writing) plays a crucial role in creating and developing consciousness/awareness and, as a result, turning a beast (physical/biological being) into a human (spiritual being). Thus the impact of literature in all ages, especially in modern society, is undeniable. It not only functions as mirror that reflects the culture, beliefs, and values (both good values and ills) of a society, but also influence and shapes society and social change by portraying societal norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors as well as contradictions. Thus it has the power to transform perspectives and facilitate societal progression.
On the top of that, literature also allows us a window into places, people, and situations we wouldn’t be able to experience otherwise. Literature can transport you to another time and place without ever having to leave your room or spending money.
Moreover, the influence of literature on society, it is said, is felt both directly and indirectly.
The Epic of Gilgamesh (the ancient Sumerian poems dating back to c 2000 B.C.) is known as the world’s oldest literature and a great Babylonian poem that even predates Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey by 1500 years. It is a sort of quest for meaning of life. It tells us that fear of death is probably or really a fear of meaninglessness. And in near past it was America’s best-selling poet from East, Jalaluddin Rumi (born in a one-mosque town in 1207 in Balkh, Afghanistan), who drew together everyday images with complex but appealing universal ideas. He talks about divine love in vivid human terms and thus his poetry has crossed cultural boundaries because it is based on the religion of love. Rumi also ponders over the question of life and death and gives and reaches at a compelling conclusion:
And nearly all humans have to ponder over this question: What is the meaning and purpose of life? And literature is nothing but endeavors to find the ultimate truth and purpose of life.
In recent history, Miss Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti slavery novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin’ was directly responsible for a movement against slavery in literature and life in USA of those days. And Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and many other like them had an indirect influence in creating in society a feeling for regulating and removing social wrongs, calling for necessary reforms. Then there were other influential writers like Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Jane Austen, George Orwell etc, whose writings had an immense social impact and an enormous influence on a huge number of readers as well as writers worldwide.
Below are some prominent examples:
William Shakespeare ( who is considered the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist) also wrote about timeless themes such as life and death, youth versus age, love and hate, fate and free will, to name but a few. His famous plays (Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, , King Lear, Julius Caesar, The Tempest) portray recognizable characters in situations that we can all relate to — including love, marriage, death, mourning, guilt, the need to make difficult choices, separation, reunion and reconciliation. And this renowned English playwright and poet of 16th/17th century, who crafted timeless works that continue to entertain audiences worldwide, is even relevant today.
Then poets like William Blake (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), William Wordsworth (The Prelude), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner), John Keats (Ode to a Nightingale) also strove to capture man’s mystic relationship with nature after the horrible effects of industrial revolution which was the result of so-called scientific development causing a major destruction of environment , abuse of children and women in the names of jobs, senseless urbanization, and exploitation of nature.
Similarly great Russian novelists, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy both were worried about the decaying spiritual and moral values in 19th century Russia. Alienation is the primary theme in Dostoevsky’s wonderful novel “Crime and Punishment” and is considered psychological literary fiction. The protagonist of the novel is a former student named Rodion Raskolnikov, who is quite miserable because of his poverty stricken life and thus commits a murder of a pawnbroker for money but apparently was doing a good deed for the rest of humanity. In other words, he was removing an element from society that had decreased its utility. However, in spite of good intentions, he can’t avoid the punishment. Ultimately, Dostoevsky goes on to suggest that actual punishment is much less terrible than the stress and anxiety of trying to avoid punishment. Criminality, Morality, Guilt, Helplessness, Poverty, Suffering, are main themes of the novel.
Raskolnikov bases his murder on the idea of utilitarianism. He thinks moral decisions should be centered on what would be the best for the greatest number of people. In this way he justifies the murder of the old pawn broker. He feels that by removing her from the society he did a good deed.
This is an idea of utilitarianism and the exact philosophy used by the likes of Hitler and Benjamin Netanyahu to use brutal force and commit the mass murders and genocides of innocent people with a perfectly intact conscience.
Leo Tolstoy’s novel is also a monumental work of historical fiction that chronicles the impact of the Napoleonic wars on a diverse group of Russian aristocrats. The characters in War and Peace search for meaning in a complex, chaotic world. The novel gives us the lesson that an open minded soul, patriotism and a sense of justice won not only in the war of 1812, but also in life: the heroes who were guided by moral postulates and the voice of their hearts became happy.
In nutshell, from Homer (The Iliad and The Odyssey) to Gabriel García Márquez, and Shin-Leqi-Unninni (who is believed to be the author of Epic of Gilgamesh) to Rumi there is long list of literary giants who gave us ideas that grab the attention of the world and change the world’s perceptions forever.
Thus it can also be said with certainty that world literature is a treasure trove of human expression, capturing the essence of cultures and societies around the world. Its significance lies in its capacity to facilitate cultural exchange, broaden perspectives, explore universal themes, intellectually enrich readers, preserve cultural heritage, foster global dialogue, and contribute to the moral and spiritual development of individuals worldwide. As a dynamic and evolving force, world literature continues to shape the collective literary consciousness of humanity.
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References:
i) Emsley, John (2011). Nature’s Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements. OUP Oxford. p. 83. ISBN 978–0–19–960563–7.
ii) https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/What-Chemical-Elements-are-Found-in-the-Human-Body.aspx
iii) https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Human_body
iv) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/
vi) https://www.livescience.com/24802-animals-have-morals-book.html
vii) Albrecht, Milton C. 1954 “The Relationship of Literature and Society.” American Journal of Sociology 59:425–36.
