(Tutor’s Name)
(Assignment)
Mark Twain, one of the most important figures in the American literature, through his essay “The damned human race” throws light on the mankind’s useless ethical outlook. Twain sarcastically points to the fact that humans carry out evil deeds while claiming to be the only species to have moral sense. According to him, man is not a developed creature but the least evolved species in several respects. He says that the birds, the fishes, the insects, the reptiles, etc “are links in the chain which stretches down from the higher animals to man at the bottom” (Twain).
The key objective of Twain’s essay is to point out man’s mistakes in moral decisions and thereby making readers mull over their own moral perceptions. Satire is the tactic he deploys to make this piece interesting and convincing. His essay is successful in terms of readability, and it has the potential to evoke moral thoughts among readers. In other words, those who read this piece of writing would think about their own moral flaws and may decide to manage better moral perceptions thereafter.
In the beginning of the essay, Twain maintains a false credibility that reflects the pseudo authenticity of the entire human race as a whole. One may mistake Twain for a scientist for the way he starts his essay. Twain finds no difference between the fundamental characteristics of various societies. According to him, man is greedy and cruel regardless of the race, region, ethnicity or sex. The basic tendency of man is to destroy the nature and thereby make his own survival difficult. To illustrate, man is the only species that kills for pleasure whereas all other creatures hunt for food. He substantiates this theory by an example of a buffalo hunt. If man spots seventy-two buffalo at a time, then he would kill all of them and leave them decay except the very small portion required for his food (Twain).
The theory is applicable to the entire human race, and Twain maintains that he is well conversant with this cruel nature of man in the contemporary world. He says, man is the only creature that takes revenge. According to him, “the passion of revenge is unknown to the higher animals” (Twain); because “man is the only one that harbors insults and injuries, broods over them, waits till a chance offers, then takes revenge” (Twain).
MarK Twain has widely used metaphorical analogy and pathos throughout the essay to sustain the logic of his argument. His examples are apt to the context that they encourage readers’ logical reasoning. He indirectly blamed man’s corrupted values with regard to war and human rights. He wrote the essay in a biased manner to evoke readers’ emotions. He employed satire to address the evils he witnessed. However, he was cautious that he did not hurt the readers directly, for he knew that direct attack would lessen the real value of his writing.
It is relevant to compare the thoughts of Mark Twain with those of Martin Luther King, Jr, the well known American activist. King is well known for his leadership in the African-American Civil Rights Movement. King has great role in the history of modern American liberalism, for he eliminated the evils of racial discrimination and restored African Americans’ voting rights. He achieved this goal by organizing the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In his famous speech, “where do we go from here?”, he purports that a man who is concerned about justice, brotherhood, and truth cannot advocate violence (King). In his own words, “through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth” (King). King was obviously influenced by Gandhi’s ideology of peace and nonviolence. He knew that violence would only trigger hatred. Hence he advises his audience to take up love as their ultimate weapon to fight injustice and other problems.
King reiterates the idea that only love can bring solutions to life problems regardless of their intensity or nature. However, when he speaks about love, it is not any ‘emotional bosh’ he indicates. Instead, he proclaims love in its real and deeper sense because it should balance the hatred he has been experiencing in the society. According to his words, “If you are seeking the highest good, I think you can find it through love” (King).
King goes further saying that since we start loving others, we tend to raise questions as to “where do we go from here, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?", "Who owns the oil?" etc. (King).
King maintains that neither capitalism nor communism is perfect in terms of brotherhood. Therefore, he rightly puts it “the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism” (King). He believes that only by synthesizing the virtues of both the world can achieve better results. Referring to a biblical context King says that ‘America must be born again” to achieve higher status. In order for doing it, it should abandon its conventional way of slavery and discrimination. The nation has to move further to achieve the anticipated outcomes not only in terms of economic position but also with regard to brotherhood and fraternity. He terms this idea as ‘divine dissatisfaction’ and says “let us be dissatisfied until those who live on the outskirts of hope are brought into the metropolis of daily security”(King).
Through his various campaigns, King played a substantial role in attaining various civil rights for African Americans. For instance, King played a key role in bringing racial separation in schools to an end. His golden achievements include the elimination of racial discrimination in employment sector and the assured minimum wage for all workers. Today, like white people, African Americans also enjoy all American constitutional rights equally, and this achievement could be attributed to the life of King.
Both, the ideas of Mark Twain and Martin Luther point to the moral flaws of human race. Although both are convinced of the fact that mankind requires moral development, they take up different but unique methods to convey their messages. As mentioned earlier, Twain’s writing mechanism is satire in its nature and he indirectly but brilliantly attacks human fallacies. On the other hand, King’s speech is direct and more persuasive as his audience is exclusively Americans. Twain addresses the global audience, and therefore, he maintains wide and general examples digestible to all.
With regards to authenticity of thoughts, King’s arguments are more convincing because they address real life issues and present proven examples. It does not mean that Twain’s views are irrelevant. Twain’s arguments are clear enough and falls under a special category of writing style. Through satire he criticizes violence and war whereas King through his persuasive speech does the same. In total, both personalities converge at the point that human race has to develop a lot in terms of moral sense.
Works Cited
King, Martin Luther.” Where Do We Go From Here?” (1967). web. 26 April 2016. http://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/social-justice/where-do-we-go-from-here
Twain, Mark. “Damned human race”. web. 26 April 2016. http://www.skeptically.org/logicalthreads/id14.html
