The Truth is We Are Animals, and More Cruel

We are humans. Every day we think of ourselves as the smartest species on Earth.

Why? Because…

We can fly in the air. We can travel on the water. We have underground transportation systems. And we send rockets to space.

Then, we write poetry and books. We have polished manners. We have tall buildings. We have shiny gadgets. We have powerful machines. And weapons that can destroy every species on the Earth.

We like to believe that all of these things have lifted us above the wild. That we are “civilized.”

But whatever we say, the truth is: We are animals. And sometimes, we are worse. Most animals are cruel, but we are “more cruel.”

Human instincts are animal instincts

We like to think of animals as “other species.” Something that we watch on documentaries or at the zoo. But if you look closer, you will notice their shadows in your own actions.

Take the fox. It is clever and shrewd. Always looking for a way to win.

You do the same when you negotiate a deal. When you want to avoid a fight. When you find a shortcut to finish a task before everyone else. In your office or business, you wear formal clothes, but your brain behaves like a fox.

Then there is the hyena. Hyenas plan and wait for the right moment to grab their chance. Humans also do the same. For example, when you wait for your senior to leave their job so that you can apply for that position.

The cheetah and the deer are different sides of the same story. The cheetah races to catch the deer. The deer runs to escape.

In our world, sometimes we chase something, and sometimes something chases us. Every day there is a fight to be the first. First to launch a product. First to break news. First to climb the career ladder among peers. That adrenaline rush to become first? That’s pure wild nature in us.

When it comes to lions, crows, and dogs, territory is everything for them. If someone tries to enter it, they fight for it. Similarly, our territories are our properties, our positions at work, our love partners, or our friend groups. If someone threatens them, we guard and push back, like an animal.

The elephant and the whale teach us the importance of deep family bonds. Elephants mourn their dead ones. They remember places and faces for decades. Whales travel together for life.

We humans are also loyal like them. We show up for weddings. We attend funerals. We can’t stop ourselves from being there for a sibling’s crisis. Because, we also care for our herd.

And what about the octopus? It’s a master of disguise. It changes its colors, shape, and even texture to survive.

We also do the same every day in different ways. We hide parts of ourselves in certain rooms. We lower our voice in some situations and raise it in others. It all depends on who is standing in front of us. We change our style. We pretend we are fine when we are not. Sometimes we do such things because we are dishonest. Sometimes it is survival.

We have stopped walking on four legs, but our minds still move like we once did. The jungle has not moved out of us yet.

How we protect ourselves, like animals

Nature has given us four main survival moves.

1. Fight

Sometimes we fight like a mother bird attacking a predator to protect her nest. We fight to speak up in a meeting when everyone else is silent. We fight to defend someone who is being bullied. We fight when someone tries to cross our personal boundaries.

2. Flight

Sometimes it is important to take flight. It doesn’t mean weakness, but because living matters more than winning.

Just as a deer runs into the forest when it hears a twig snap. We humans walk away from dangerous relationships. We leave jobs that crush us. We slow down to let an aggressive driver pass when they honk and shout abuses at us. We move cities to escape toxic environments. When you leave something, it doesn’t mean you are quitting. You are just choosing life over damage.

3. Freeze

It’s the oldest and quietest survival trick. A rabbit becomes as still as stone when it notices an eagle. It hopes that the eagle will not notice it.

We humans do something similar. We freeze when we go quiet in an argument to avoid making it worse. We freeze in a crisis when we don’t know what to say or do. We stay invisible, blending into the background, until the danger or chaos passes. Sometimes that stillness is our safest choice. It’s a way to protect ourselves until it’s safe again.

4. Fawning

In nature, some animals (chimpanzees, wolves, crows, etc.) lower themselves before the strong. They do it to offer submission so they aren’t seen as a threat.

We do the same when we agree with a powerful boss we don’t believe in. We laugh at their jokes that we hate. We act overly polite to someone who holds more power over us. Even children fawn when they try to please their parents. It’s a survival tactic. And humans will keep fawning to avoid conflict, rejection, or any harm.

But unlike most animals, we don’t just rely on the protection we are born with. We also create our own armor. This armor is not made of bones or shells, but of the things we design ourselves. For example, money, status, connection, and influence.

We create rules and laws to protect us. And we rely on friends and communities to support us in times of trouble.

How we harm like animals almost daily

What do animals fight for? It’s usually for survival. For food, mating rights, territory, offspring protection, and self-defense.

But humans? We have taken animal characteristics and made them bigger and far more cruel.

One way we do this is by turning people into “us vs. them.” We divide people. They belong to a different religion. They are from a different caste. Their skin color is different from ours. Their language is different.

The moment we label someone as different, we quietly move them out of our circle. We become less empathetic toward them. We stop considering them as a person in our minds. They become a “symbol.”

And when someone is only a symbol, it is easier to harm them without guilt.

In nature, a predator kills someone from rivals to warn others. In our world, we use a similar strategy. We scare many people by hurting just one. By doing so, we send a message to everyone else: Stay in line, or this will be you. It could be a public firing. Beating someone. A smear campaign. Or a legal threat. The act is not damaging by itself; it’s the fear that it instills in the crowd who are watching.

What about public shaming? We have turned it into entertainment. In the animal world, punishment is quick and direct. And it often happens within the group. In ours, we make it a spectacle. We drag people into the center of the room to humiliate them. Teachers slap children in front of classmates to “teach them a lesson.” Bosses scold employees loudly in meetings so everyone hears their mistakes.

And we do the same when we are online. We post, share, mock, and replay someone’s lowest moment like it’s a form of weekend fun. What could have been a brief conflict becomes a viral circus.

When we are in a group, we harm more. Our “pack mentality” kicks in. Animals stop when the intruder leaves. But we humans push it further. Offline, it happens in schools when a group of classmates bullies a child until he or she breaks. When relatives gang up to shame someone who doesn’t follow tradition. When neighbors gang up to isolate a family. When communities use caste, color, or status to humiliate someone into silence.

And when we are online as a group, the distance makes it even easier to forget there is a human on the other side. We hide behind anonymous usernames and fake profiles. It gives us the leverage to become as cruel as we can in the “comments” section.

Whether online or offline, cruelty grows faster when it has an audience.

Then sometimes, cruelty becomes worse

Cruelty does not stop at the individual or group level. Humans are the only species that can turn harm into something much bigger in scale.

They engage in wars, genocides, mass rapes, and ethnic cleansings. They don’t do these because of anger. They organize such crimes. They plan and carry them out with terrifying precision.

Whenever there is a need to justify blood, humans know how to use:

• Armies
• Mobs
• Propaganda
• Politics

We have seen entire communities burned. Perpetrators have violated countless women not for lust but for strategy. Someone slaughtered children to erase a generation.

Think about the Holocaust (1941-1945), when the Nazis murdered around 6 million Jews using gas chambers and shootings. All this happened because of racism.

World War I took about 40 million lives, and World War II claimed 70 to 85 million.

In 1971, during the Bangladesh Liberation War, Pakistani forces killed about 3 million people and raped around 200,000 women as an act of ethnic suppression. In 1994, the Rwandan Genocide saw 800,000 Tutsis slaughtered out of ethnic hatred.

No animal has ever done this. Only humans have the capacity for such mass murder and cruelty.

Animals end their fights once they make their point. Humans drag cruelty out for days, months, even years.

“When humans act with cruelty we characterize them as ‘animals’, yet the only animal that displays cruelty is humanity”
— Anthony Douglas Williams

How we can heal like animals, but better

But if humans can harm more than any other creature, then we can also heal more.

Our mind has the cruelty to build armies, but it also has the empathy to build relief camps.

On one hand, we have the energy to spread propaganda; on the other, we spread kindness, too. Sometimes we become a mob that destroys. Sometimes we become a crowd that protects someone.

Animals protect their own, but their circle is usually small. It can be a pack, a herd, or a pod. Wolves feed their own pups. Elephants mourn most deeply within their herds.

And yet, even in nature, we can see something larger. For example, dolphins rescuing strangers, elephants pausing over the bones of the unknown dead, and primates like bonobos sharing their food beyond blood.

But when it comes to helping others, we humans carry this gift on a far greater scale.

We can grieve for strangers. We send help across oceans. We fight for their causes (online or offline).

Whenever there are earthquakes, floods, wars, or pandemics, you see humans acting at their best. Strangers carrying the injured on their backs. Strangers giving blood to strangers. Volunteers feeding thousands. Communities opening their doors to those who have lost everything.

Yes, history is filled with wars and massacres. But it also carries proof of compassion at scale. Peace marches that ended empires. Movements that toppled apartheid. Revolutions that began not with weapons, but with voices, songs, and prayers.

When we care, we can stretch ourselves far. Beyond skin color, tribe, economic status, or nation.

When there is a better nature in us, we make outsiders a part of us. Most of the animal world rarely does so.

The truth we must face

The truth is, humans are not fallen angels — we are animals with the power to choose.

Our instincts are wild, but our choices shape who we are. We can use strength to protect, not destroy. We can turn tribes into places of connection, not division. We can pause before blindly following the crowd.

Every time we choose this way, we rise above our raw nature and move closer to the humanity we dream of becoming.

The choice is yours.