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MARK TWAIN
on "the most interesting jack ass there is."
Man
is really the most interesting jackass there is. It's his idea, you
see, that the Deity sits up nights and admires him. He's the Creator s
pet... Now you might wonder why.
Well...it's his intellect.
Man is a reasoning animal..such as they claim, though
I believe that's open to dispute. I've been studying this
"reasoning animal" for years now and I find the results
to be humiliating. Well for example I experimented with
a cat and a dog. Taught them to be friends and put them
in a cage. I introduced a rabbit and in an hour they were
friends. Then I added a fox, a goose, a squirrel...some
doves...a kangaroo, and finally a monkey.
They lived together in peace.
Well
next I captured an Irish Catholic and put him in a cage and just as
soon as he seemed tame I added a Presbyterian, then a Turk from
Constantinople, a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas, a Buddhist from
China, and finally a Salvation Army colonel. Why when I went back there
wasn't a single specimen alive.
These
reasoning animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried
the matter to a higher court. Because you see, Man is also a religious
animal. He's the only one that's got the True Religion...several of
them. He loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his
theology isn't straight. Why he's made a graveyard of the globe in
trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness...and
Heaven. The other animals have no religion you know...gonna be left
out. I wonder why. Seems questionable taste.
Man is the only patriot. He sets himself apart in his
own country and his own flag and sneers at the other
nations. He keeps uniformed assassins on hand at great
expense to grab slices of other people's countries and
keep other countries from grabbing slices of his, with
the result that there isn't an acres of ground on the globe
that's under the possession of its rightful owner. And in
the interim between campaigns he washes his hands and
works for the brotherhood of Man....with his mouth.
Man
is the only animal that deals in the atrocity of War. The only one
that, for sordid wages, goes forth in cold blood to exterminate his own
kind. He has a motto for this: Our country right or wrong! Any man who fails
to shout it is a traitor. Only the others are patriots.
Say...who is the country? Is it the government? In a
republic the government is just a servant, a temporary
one. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man
uphold his government when it's wrong. Otherwise the
nation has sold its honor for a phrase. And if that phrase
needs help he gets another one: Even though the war
be wrong, we are in it. We must fight it out. We cannot
retire without dishonor. Why not even a burglar
could have said that better.
Watch an excerpt from Hal Holbrook's "Mark Twain Tonight!" on You Tube.
Man is the only animal that blushes...or needs to. But you just have to remember that Man was made at the end of a week's work.
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