Are we better than Animals ?

Recently an advertisement hoarding at a bus stop made me think of a big picture that has been troubling me for a while now. I will come to the ad towards the end of this post.

Certain aspects of our society and way of life makes me wonder if, as human being, we are indeed headed in the right direction when it comes to being at the top of intellectual chain and the most intelligent species to inhabit the 3rd rock. Are we really using our sense of reasoning the way one would expect after centuries of civilization. War - and its related aspects come to mind. So much resources and time spent in defense of nations from fellow nations - sometimes to riduculously low levels (think of palestine conflict). So many lives lost in meaningless and ill-conceived wars for no good reason. If animals, living in jungle, fight among themselves for territorial superiority or other reasons, thats a different ball game. Arent we supposed to be better than them. Arent we supposed to use our sense of reasoning. Arent we civlized enough to find out a meaningful way to coexist and share the resources in fashion fitting our human nature and sixth sense rather than extending what animals do to new levels and proving we are no different from them when it really matters.

Pragmatic minds may argue that not all human beings are created equal and what I suggested would tantamount to the much maligned "s-word" or "c-word" - socialism or communism - which is bound to fail. I hear you. [I have already dealt this matter in a previous post of mine on respecting the rules we create for ourselves.] My question then is if we cannot figure out a way to peacefully coexist and share what we inherit in the earth and the only answer is drawing boundaries across the earth and protecting what is inside, WHERE does this art of drawing boundaries stop ? We have tons of different boundaries in a society other than the land boundaries - boundaries that are in mind -boundaries created predominantly by thoughts that are along the lines of "generation ME" rather than "generation WE" - boundaries created by an uncanny ability to glorify petty differences between people to reign one's or one's social group's superiority over the other. This very nature of self-centered insanely-competitive mindset is slowly consuming the very synergy that should characterize a society of intelligent creatures and eventually is making humans feel more and more lonelier. May be the realization on this mindless race for superiority in various fronts with utter disregard for the common good, will come the day when we run out of ideas or aspects with which we can create or demonstrate differences amongst us. May be then we will realize the need to peacefully coexist and share what we have in a manner befitting our position at the top of the intellectual chain.

For what its worth, the ad that got me into this ramble of thoughts was one for a "bailbonds" salesman. The slogan read - "Its better to know me and not need me than needing me and not knowing me". You can pretty much say the same thing about any form of insurance as well - auto, home, renters, life etc etc. And can even extrapolate all the way to time and money spent on maintaining armies for nations. Underlying character in all this is the same - a sense of insecurity and mistrust at various levels of the social strata borne out of the blatant refusal to coexist in a fashion commensurate to our innate but mostly dormant reasoning power.

The pic is of the General Assembly, Security Council and Secretariat buildings of the UN at Manhattan - the organization founded to establish peace and eradicate the insecurity (mostly defense related) and help us co-exist in a fitting fashion in this planet. Interestingly only recently I came to know that these UN buildings are actually  "international zone" and not a US territory.Don't forget to notice the sculpture of a revolver with its muzzle knotted  to symbolize peace (bottom left of the pic).