What An Egotistical Lot We Are!

Trey Smith

If nothing else can be said about humans, it is this: What an egotistical lot we are! We think so much of our species that we imagine that, if other species spoke and thought as we do, they would be bedeviled by the same real and perceived problems that we deal with day in and day out.

In the past few years, there have been many films with talking animals. Movies like Zookeeper (2011), Doctor Dolittle (the remake -- 1998) and the animated The Lion King (1994) come to mind. Not only do the animals depicted talk just like we do, but they love, despise, joke, strategize, dream and connive just like we do too.

If you've ever watched animals in the wild, it is really obvious that they don't behave like humans for the most part.  They don't operate based on a shared sense of morality.  There is no indication that one species sees itself as biologically or intellectually superior to other species.  They don't amass wealth just for the sake of it and they don't subjugate others to meet their own lustful needs.

As far as I can discern, they don't worship gods either.  

They simply live their lives according to their own innate natures.  We humans could learn quite a bit from them by NOT trying to humanize them.

I have never heard of lions trying lionize us!