What Differs a Human to an Animal?
What distinguishes a man from being a savage, is whether or not they have a sense of dignity and honor. It is a necessity for there to be some form of honor within society if it were to function properly. After investigating the excerpt of “Always on the Side of the Egg” by Haruki Murakami.
Prior to reading this, the only form of honor that I knew was the type in a fight. Where you were never supposed to fight someone that you know you could win, otherwise that would be bullying. However I haven’t had this really put into perspective. After reading this excerpt, it helped reinforce this idea within my values which helps me understand the greater importance of mutual respect in any conflict.
In the article, it is centered around the metaphor of a wall and an egg. He states that the wall will always break the egg, but not the other way around. He states that he will always support the egg in every circumstance. No matter the morality of either party. He states that each egg is fragile, unique, and irreplaceable. That is the beauty of all eggs that need to be valued. To destroy them can never be innocent. In my opinion, in this piece, he was trying to share the message that every human needs a sense of dignity, and it is our duties as humans to respect and protect the dignity of others in order to be a proper human. The effect that this had on me was that it really did put some important values into actual perspective, instead of stating something. I personally believe that it is necessary that every reasonable person should follow this value if they are to not be like the wall. Also from this we can potentially have a better understanding of different systems and their intentions. Since we just established what is essential to be protected, we can deduce what infringes on those values, and whether or not they should be kept. Any system, that is created by man, has to have a sense of dignity, and those who abandon them are systems that must be destroyed is a common theme within this piece which I believe is really applicable to anything, but yet overall uniquely important.
From this experience, what I gained was a new perspective of what dignity means as a broader concept. I feel a new sense of enlightenment from this that I can carry for a very long time.
