Humanity and Bestiality
In the movie "Alpha: The Wolf's Homecoming", many people questioned a plot, why did the wolf obey the little protagonist's orders so easily? Just because the little protagonist is an abandoned person, and the injured wolf is also abandoned, is it easy for two abandoned lives to come together because of their emotional proximity to each other and sympathy? This is not the most important reason. What is the most important reason?
The answer is: human nature and animal nature.
Human nature includes: emotion, wisdom, skills and rules, and develops in the direction of human social civilization.
The animal nature includes: strength, bloodlust, food and greed, and develops in the direction of primitive natural instincts.
Mencius said that "at the beginning of man, his nature is good", which emphasizes the human side of man;
Xunzi said that "at the beginning of man, his nature is evil", which emphasizes the animal side of man.
The background of the movie "Alpha: Homecoming with Wolves" is humans in Europe 20,000 years ago. At that time, it was the early period of human evolution. Humans were still in the period of fishing and hunting civilization. They relied on the simplest tools to collect and hunt for life. At this time, people and The animals have only just separated, and they still retain many of the characteristics of each other. If we go back to the past, people and animals are actually the same. At that time, people and animals were a combination of human nature and animal nature. As humans walked upright, used tools, and used fire to eat cooked food, humans began to diverge from the animal kingdom at this time, but they didn't go far. As described in the movie: the tools used are just the simplest polished stone tools as the spear head of the javelin; the protagonist and the wolf are in the cave, because they caught a rabbit, the protagonist wants to make a fire and eat it, but The wolf was very hungry, and it wanted to eat, so the protagonist took a bite of raw meat first, and said, "I haven't eaten it yet, you can't eat it, I'll give it to you before you can eat it." This is actually determining the relationship between the human and the wolf's status. . This is the case in the wolf clan, the head wolf has the highest status and has the priority to enjoy it. The protagonist is only a child, but he already knows the status of the animal kingdom. In fact, it is because humans are also part of animals and naturally understand the rules of survival among animals. Therefore, when the protagonist is abandoned and the injured wolf is abandoned, the two quickly reach an agreement and form a master-servant relationship. This is not long after the separation of human nature and animal nature. Although man develops in the direction of human nature, the animal nature has not subsided much at the same time; the wolf develops in the direction of animal nature and also includes human nature. Human nature and animal nature coexist, so it is easy for people and nature to get along, so it is easy for people and wolves to reach an agreement.
The werewolf described in the movie "Twilight" is the best combination of human nature and animal nature. Usually it is a human form, with more human nature than animal nature, and "emotion" is the main thing; once a battle occurs, it immediately changes from human form to wolf shape. At this time, animal nature is more than human nature, and "power" is the main thing.
In the Mongolian "Wolf Totem" culture, the prairie people believe in the rationality of the existence of prairie wolves. Although human nature and animal nature are separated, they still respect each other.
In the movie "Alpha: The Wolf's Homecoming", in the process of gradually forming a master-servant relationship between humans and wolves, human nature and animal nature also influence each other. For example, when people and wolves are together, the human nature gradually weakens and the animal nature increases. It turned out that a young protagonist with no power to tie the chicken did not dare to kill animals at all, even if it was a wolf who just wanted to hurt himself and was injured, but he gradually learned the animal nature. So he smashed rabbits, killed wild boars, hunted saber-toothed tigers, etc., and his bestiality was obviously enhanced. When a wolf is with a man, the wolf's animal nature is weakened and its human nature is increased. For example, when a wolf sees an old man who was frozen to death and starved to death, he did not want to eat human flesh. Under normal circumstances, wolves are hungry. Although they will not eat live wolves, they will eat dead wolves, not to mention human corpses. When the last injured wolf in the movie sees the human race, the wolf has no fear, no wolf nature, no wild nature, and no animal nature; there is only mother nature, which is human nature. And after its wolves were born, they quickly transformed into members of the family. At this time, the animal nature rapidly degenerated and became domesticated domestic dogs. Therefore, in the last Easter egg of the movie, there are many animals that are unknown whether they are wolves or dogs, and they hunt with people. This has become a domestic dog that successfully tamed human nature to overcome animal nature. Human nature and animal nature reached a balance at this time.
With the development of the times, the degree of human civilization is getting higher and higher, the human nature gradually overcomes the animal nature, and the human animal nature gradually develops into what we call the instinct today, that is, the original animal nature. Since humans and animals are separated, an antagonistic relationship is formed. The speed of human "skills" progress is much higher than that of animals, so animals are forced to shrink their activity space and deteriorate their living conditions. , or the "greedy" powerful rat and cockroach madly reproduce and develop - the animal can survive and develop, in short, the animal gradually develops in the direction of the animal. The more severe the persecution of humans, the stronger the animal's animal nature. This is also why "human apes" have developed in two directions, forming "human" and "ape" respectively, but the apes, baboons and orangutans, no matter how closely related they are genetically to humans, will never be able to develop in the direction of humans in the future. . Because the humanity in them gradually loses, and the animal nature gradually dominates the body.
With the development of society today, we can see that the animal nature is less in humans, and the animal kingdom is forced and restricted by humans, resulting in more animal nature in wild animals. Animals in captivity have weakened animal nature, and because they are restricted, they will no longer produce human nature. The domestication of the tigers and lions in the circus is not the restoration of their human nature, but the human use of their animal nature, such as restricting them with "food".
Due to the natural selection of history, wolves have also developed in two directions. The first is the wild wolf. The more and more powerful animal nature becomes the wolf in the wild, which is a dog with little humanity. The domestic dog is a wolf whose human nature obviously overcomes the animal nature, that is, the human nature is far more than the animal nature. In fact, wolves and dogs are genetically close relatives. Wolves and dogs gradually developed in two directions, which is also the best example of the separate development of animal and human nature. Even though they have the same blood, they have become opposites because they are old and dead. Human nature looks down on animal nature, and animal nature is naturally unwilling to accept human nature. Just like the existence of traitors during the Anti-Japanese War, ordinary people and traitors would not understand each other. It is estimated that the wolf must think that the dog is a "wolf rape", and the dog also thinks that the wolf is a "dog rape".
In the long-term evolution of human beings, human nature has increased, while animal nature has weakened. The scene that led to seeing the protagonist eating raw meat in the movie "Alpha: The Wolf's Homecoming" is no more shocking than the scene of wild survival expert Bear Grylls eating raw meat in "Wild Life". A wounded young man has to take care of a wounded wolf, and the process of survival must be very difficult, but the portrayal in the film is far less difficult than Tom Hanks in "The Aftermath". The reason is that modern people are far away from nature, their animal nature is weakened, and it is more difficult to get along with nature. When they rely on nature again, even if they solve a small problem, it is very shocking.
In the movie "The Rise of the Apes", the apes are considered to be a relatively slow-evolving human race, and they are also humans. Like some tribes in Africa today, long-term progress was slow and repressed and enslaved. If there is no "skill" support and "emotional" guidance of the humanity of the international community, once they control the weapons of mass destruction, they will intensify their revenge against other races. Because of their late evolution, their understanding of "civilization" is very superficial.
During the development of human history, human nature and animal nature originally existed in the same body, and the human nature and animal nature of early humans could still influence each other. But with the development of human history and the improvement of civilization, human nature and animal nature have developed away from each other.
Therefore, to understand human nature and animal nature is to understand the process of human evolution.
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