This summer I read two articles, one - a very unusual one for them - in the Naples Daily News and one in Newsweek. The one in the paper was called "Science of the Soul" and stated essentially that new research into the workings of the brain implied either that human beings had no souls or that animals had them. It always fascinates me how rapidly some conclusion is always reached about the soul from being reminded that human beings are animals. Except for those who, against all evidence, maintain that human beings have no similarities to other animal life but are a special and entirely separate creation, there can be no doubt whatsoever that human beings are animals - specifically mammals, and even more specifically, one assumes, simians. One of the reasons I have never cared for monkeys much when they are on display in a zoo is that, humanlike as they are, their behavior is so often downright embarrassing. I don't include orangutans in this who seem, playful as they are, to have a dignity of their own. What that may have to do with the existence of a soul, despite similarities of DNA or the responses of brains I have yet to understand.
The other article in Newsweek was about the destructiveness of the human race on its environment and the tendency of the more radical members of the green movement to deplore its existence and wax lyrical about how beautiful the world would be if the human race did not exist. There are times when Naples' own Eddie Filer comes perilously close to this position in his letters to the editor. It is interesting how often this attitude is coupled with a passionate humanitarianism, but then, as Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." Unhappily, as I must confess, it is a hobgoblin of mine, so I merely note this, at least at the moment, without comment. What was especially interesting to me about that article was not so much its revelation of this school of thought with which I was already quite familiar as its ending. After describing this wondrous, pristine world which would exist if human beings had never been around to exploit and pollute it or had become extinct, the final sentence read, "Too bad there's no one there to see it."
On one level, of course, that makes no sense. There would be all sorts of animals around, and one would assume that they were equipped with the usual optic organs, but on another level, if one uses the word see to mean understand and appreciate, the writer may have found the very nub of the argument. He may have glimpsed what is really meant by soul. Consciousness is a terrible name for this sermon. Just about all but the very simplest animals - and I really imagine they, too - have consciousness in that they are able to be awake and aware, at least on some level, of their environment. Sentience would have been better, or perhaps soul would have been best of all. The question is, is there something so different and special about us that we are really qualitatively different than the other animals, and, given our propensities for violence, destruction and just plain mess, why would the highest moral action not be racial suicide? Of course, our basic animal survival instinct militates against that so strongly that it cannot even be a real part of the conversation, yet as we contemplate our sins and follies, list our wanton acts of destruction, and agonize over the human characteristics which seem to promise more of the same, it seems a little odd that our survival as a species should have such a high priority even with ourselves. I believe, however, that there is something well worth saving, and for want of a better word, I will call it soul as did the newspaper article.
We seem to particularly enjoy comparing ourselves unfavorably to other animals. They do not go to war (well, ants seem to, but they're the other exception) they do not kill randomly or enslave others of their species or cherish irrational prejudices or pollute their environment. However, they can hardly be given credit for that. It is in neither their nature nor their ability to do those things. It is not a matter of choice. And should they be in a place where they have no natural enemies they will reproduce to the point that they destroy their environment in the search for food with the same enthusiasm seen in the human being. I do not necessarily think that human beings have a lock on the kind of consciousness that comes with abstract thought, the use of tools, the creation of artifacts, the ability to protect oneself against a hostile environment, even the moral sense. What evolution has done for one animal it may well do for another. At least on this earth, however, it doesn't seem to have done it yet. Perhaps there is only room for one sentient consciousness in one place, which might explain why one species of hominid seems to have become dominant and the others simply disappeared. That it is, however, a true, qualitative difference I think is indisputable.
That is exactly what the article in the newspaper was attempting to dispute. The similarities of reactions to various stimuli in animal and human brains seemed to argue that there was no discernable difference. The brain, however, is not the mind. What the difference is, and what the relationship is, of mind and brain seems almost impossible of discovery. We think of emotional reactions as products of the mind, and yet the brain can be stimulated to feel pleasure or fear or disgust without objective objects of such emotion. That such can be done does not seem to me to alter the validity of such emotions when they are stimulated in the usual way, or explain why a human mind can create a symphony or be enraptured by a flower or a bedewed spider web. Or, for that matter, acquire a horrible weapon and mow down as many other human beings as the bullets can reach.
I have been asked whether I believe that animals have souls, and my answer is no, but then I'm not at all convinced that human beings have souls in the usual meaning of the term. I do not think that it is a something, the seat of the individual personality, that is in us when we are alive and continues to exist independently, in that personal sense, after we die. When we die, it seems to me, we really die, and remain only in the memories of those who knew us and in the continuing effect we have had merely by our existence on the universe. Nevertheless, that body that exists when we are dead is not the person whom we knew. The person has left it. It has seemed to me too that in such tragic cases as Alzheimer's disease it is again the soul that is lost, that something more, that aspect of the mind that is more than the electrical stimulus of the brain to create certain effects.
Animals, too, have individual personalities, abilities, characteristics that make them unique in the same way that human beings are unique. Yet it seems to me that there is a something more that they lack. It is not the usual things that we think of - abstract reasoning, the ability to use tools or to convert other things to our use for things other than food or shelter. Some years ago I was chatting with a man who said that in any conflict between a human being and an animal he would be on the side of the animal because it was innocent. It was a remark that absolutely clarified matters for me, and my response was that while he had put his finger on the gist of the matter, it was the very thing that made me put human beings on a different plane - our ability to sin. We are held responsible and hold ourselves responsible for the evil that we do. We are punished for crime, we are shunned or shamed for evils that cannot be punished, and we consider ourselves responsible for moral outcomes. There are theologies that say we are naturally doomed to evil unless there is supernatural intervention, and there are secular ideas of determinism that tell us we are not responsible for what we do, but we are seldom swayed by these ideas even when we think we believe them. We know beyond intellectual knowing that we are responsible for our actions and moral choices. We also know, as did the man I was talking to, that animals are innocent. If they do something that we think wrong we may have to restrain them or even destroy them if they are incorrigible, but we do not even think of holding them accountable as we hold human beings accountable. On the contrary, as in the case of a vicious dog, it is not the dog but the master who trained it whom we blame. It is this sense that makes us say that the world would be better off without us and question our own worthiness to survive. Without it our greed and our destructiveness would not be something for which we could well be blamed.
There is, I think, another something more, something that makes us fully human and qualitatively different, and that is our creation and appreciation of beauty. It is by no means universally the same. What is lovely to one may be quite hideous to another. Years ago I had a print of my favorite painting, "the Blind Guitarist" from Picasso's blue period hanging on my wall. Somehow in one of my many moves it disappeared and I have never ceased to regret it. A guest came in and said, I think involuntarily with no motive of rudeness, "That's the ugliest thing I've ever seen!" Some people have no ear for music or like kinds that seem maddening to me. Some people like Mediterranean architecture in southwest Florida. In support of the National Endowment for the Arts someone is perennially quoted as saying (approximately) that a government that spends no money on the arts cannot be considered civilized. I'm not sure that's the best way to do it, but I think of the many people who have cast contumely on the county for indulging in beautifying brickwork on the Golden Gate flyover. I think they are wrong. Using our resources to beautify our lives is at least part of the soul of humanity. Some people don't think anything about a highway can be beautiful except, if we're lucky, the natural beauty that it traverses, but there was a bridge across the intracoastal waterway on the West Bank Expressway outside of New Orleans that was one of the loveliest things I've ever seen. I haven't dared to check to see if it's still okay after Katrina.... And, of course, there's always the Sunshine Skyway, especially late at night in a mist....
It is not that I am blind and deaf to human evil. We have just had the commemoration of the day when sixty-two years ago we dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and I do not say that we were wrong to do so, but we little knew what horror we wrought. There are terrorists who think nothing of murdering as many others as they can in a distorted idea of religious martyrdom. We fight unjustifiable wars, and we use and abuse our planet in such a way that it may no longer sustain us. We oppress and harm others, human and non-human in many ways, and I sometimes despair. Yet think of the other side of it, when our evil seems overwhelming. Great and marvelous are the things that we have wrought upon this earth. Amazing things! How in the world so long ago did they build Stonehenge and the pyramids! How did the Roman's create those engineering achievements with Roman numerals and no zeros? Think of the marvelous, intricate mental structures of mathematics and philosophy, and Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring"! People have walked on the moon and you, even you, can surf the internet to find a reference for almost anything that interests you. Many people seem to think that only something in its original natural state should be admired, but I appreciate what growers have done for roses, their range of size and color and even scent, and even vinca, just a few years ago, only came in white and purple.
All these things and more seem to me to be what I mean by the products of the human soul, and make us well worth saving. It is true that without us in many ways the world would be better off though not even all of nature is lovely. I'll bet the punk tree isn't even pretty in its natural habitat. I think, though, that if it is not too late we will hold ourselves accountable for this lovely planet on which we live and will hold its loveliness as necessary to our survival. After all, without us, who would there be to see it?