By Mandeep Prakash
The Western Philosophical concept of Man essentially includes Human beings as part of Animal world. However the ancient western philosophy is grounded in the belief that ‘Aadam’ and ‘Hawwaa’ lived in ‘Jannat’ before they committed the Eternal Sin by consumption of the fruit of knowledge. Thus the ancient belief necessarily held Human beings to have been created specially by The God Almighty in His own image distinguishing Human from other Animals.
There are Animals which live in highly organized community very closely resembling the Social orders followed by Human beings in different parts of the world. Instances are that of Ants which are insects, the Monkeys, the Packs of wild Dogs of South India, The Organized Operation of the Prides of Lions, The herds of Elephants, the pecking order of various birds and once again the Honeybees etc. Nature is replete with many such instances where the members of Animal kingdom live in an Organized Social order working in a clock like manner which appears like society but human society does not work in such mechanical manner. Humans work in reciprocities manner. Humans work on logic and not instinct. Society therefore works on the quid-pro-quo utilitarian principle. But today State has taken over most of the roles earlier played by the society.
It is no big surprise that the scientists born and brought up in the Western world have always endeavored to prove that Human beings evolved from chimpanzees or Monkeys. They are so enchanted with the striking similarity of the body form& its organs between the Human beings & Chimpanzees, that huge efforts are being put in to train chimpanzees to do certain routine Human tasks in order to prove their point. Yet we have not seen any chimpanzees walking out as Human beings at least in the last 10 Thousand Years.
The other concept is of Adam and Eve Descending from the paradise incurring wrath of God Almighty; equally commanding the faith of followers of The Old testament , the New Testament and even the Quran, tends to propagate that the man has come into existence on the face of earth because of the indulgence in the eternal Sin and therefore “ The Man is born Sinner”. The Man is guilty ab initio. The Ancient Western Philosopher believes in the inter play of the Forces of Death –‘Thanatos’ and the forces of life the Eros’ to be the daily driver of Human behavior and the humors of the body that characterize the resultant conduct. Therefore there are people who are sanguine (blood), choleric (yellow bile), melancholic (black bile) or phlegmatic. Another spectrum of personalities are plotted between ‘A’ types – the Anxious types and the ‘B’ types –the laid back types.
However interestingly the modern psychologists of the western school have had their own theories about The Man. while they believed in a specie consciousness as well as individually consciousness in the words of Carl Jung’s analytical psychology essentially indicating the social Nature and the modulation of ‘Persona’ accordingly by conscious perception of the individual and then responding to the nurture and Nature that Surrounds him from the neonatal stage. Thus a human person develops a multifaceted Personality where different traits are prominent in different situations.
On the other hand the Psycho analytical approach came out with a Persona driven by sexual urges- conscious and sub conscious compensatory mechanisms and the dynamic interaction between Id, Ego, And Super Ego. One of the most significant descriptions of the Man as a whole is depicted in the Maslow’s Pyramid which describes Human being to be longing for Self Actualization at the Pinnacle from the basic satisfaction of the primary need of Food Water & Shelter at the base of the pyramids.
The Modern Medical Science which has its roots in Western Modern Science deals with the Man as an organism who works physiologically – stands anatomically and is inherently a walking bag of Bio-chemical processes. Hence the Western Philosophical abstraction considers Man as a sinner –Born sinner in the divine eyes for whom Lord Jesus allowed Him Self to be crucified on the cross and that on the Dooms day the Man shall be brought out from the graves and his sins and good deeds shall be accounted for to assess whether he can regain the lost Paradise. The Man still remains another Animal though Maslow has ascribed desires and aspirations to The Man distinguishing him from the other Animals; yet the distance between the Homosapiens and Pan- Troglodytes [primates chimpanzees] is believed to be little. The march from chimpanzee to The Man is attributed to intellect.
The cardinal element must be understood as the individual consciousness that is highly developed in Human beings but is only at elementary level in other animals where specie consciousness prevails stronger. The individual consciousness that drives the curiosity and thirst for betterment of one’s own self and those one thinks to be his own. Thus the Man is an organism quite similar to the other members of Animal world especially The Mammals and then parochially to the primates and yet distinguished by a high level of developed Individual self consciousness with craving to Own /possesses and protects what the Man owns & possesses. The Man is, thence, a social, possessive and intellectual ANIMAL.