Assignment 5

 Thoreau sees bravery, intelligence and spiritual depth in the instinctual
behavior of animals. Can it be that some of the character traits we most
admire in other persons are also matters of instinct, as with the animals in
this passage? If character is a matter of insouciant instinct, can we
condemn those who don't have it? Cf. Meand, “We think that sucking it up,
mastering our fears, is a sign of character. But do we think that people
who are naturally fearless lack character? We usually think the opposite.
Yet those people are just born lucky.”

Animals act on instinct, humans do not!

Bravery, intelligence and spiritual depth is according to Thoreau the characteristics of the instinct. He refers particularly to animal´s, because they operate on instinct, therefore he sheds an heroic light on them. In addition Thoreau describes this feature of the animals as flawless and beyond perfection. Hence, he admires them as many other people admire not animals, but perhaps other persons for their bravery, intelligence and spiritual depth.

People differ from animals in many ways, one of them is the missing instinct in humans. Humans have no instinctual features, they are helpless with the moment they are born. There are few unfavorable examples that reveal children in isolation unable to acquire language or appropriate physical movements. More evidence is shown by the behavior of infants that start to breath or suck on the breast of the mother – since particular behavior is explained through reflexes and the muscle system. This argumentation leads to further considerations and requires a definition of instinct and reflex.

An instinct is innate and does not require the ability to consider the action towards environmental demands, whereby a reflex action is an uncontrolled reaction made in a response to a stimulus. An interesting thought is contrived by Lee Stanek, who defines instinct also as “an intuitive judgment or feeling about the best way to act, not based on rational conscious thoughts”,therefore humans are able to posses instinct as well. Based on that we can assume that admirable people often defined as brave, intelligent and spiritual depth execute instinct, too.

People who embody instinct are born lucky. Cf. Menand, “We think that sucking it up, mastering fears, is a sign of character. But do we think that people who are naturally fearless lack character? We usually think the opposite. Yet those people are just born lucky.” According to Meanand we look up to fearless people and not to the brave ones mastering their fears. For example a fearless persons behavior is innate as an instinct, whereby a thoughtful person is marked as unintelligent, fearful and has no spiritual depth. In result, fearless people are useful members of our community and raises the question if we could therefore condemn those who are not.

“If a character is a matter of insouciant instinct, can we condemn those who don´t have it?”

A world that seeks for a hegemony system would support this proposition. A hegemony culture with people, unlikely born lucky, are segregated from fearless people. In a matter of fact, this is not an impossible thought, actually, a similar system with different stakeholder is existing already.

For example an op in the states, fearless and unstoppable, operated by the Trilateral commission. Many members are Representatives of the government or Worldbank presidencies. One of them, David Rockefeller describing the Trilateral goals in his memoirs as following: “Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.” David Rockefeller with his fearless character and no interest in anything else but money – admired by many capitalist; in fact he could only achieve to become a multimillionaire by condemning all other people who lack “character“.This behavior or system is anything else but not intelligent, brave or connected with spiritual depth. In result admirable character can not be acquainted with the action of instinct and needs to be left for the animals.