What It Means to Be Human

Being human is many things; it is a simple term for the scientific way of saying Homo

sapiens, it is a television show, and it is a term used to describe someone who has the ability to

empathize and feel emotions. To be human is a puzzling undefined term that exhibits ones

personal belief on what it takes for a person to be human.

Many times people take the term being human quite literally and that literal perspective

is the scientific outlook on what it physically takes to make a Homo sapien. In this case, in order

to be human you must showcase characteristics that are very unique to human beings such as

having an asymmetrical cerebral cortex, the largest brain mass of all mammals, the ability to

colonize new habitats and further expand our population of species at a rate in which no other

species has done, and etc. It is things like those that many people would say make somebody a

human being and while that is true, there is a lot more to being human than simply having these

physical characteristics.

In this world there are over seven billion Homo sapiens accounted for, and of those seven

billion there are arguably one too many who dont deserve to be called a human being, and those

are the sociopaths. According to the Webster Dictionary this is a person with a personality

disorder in which they have an extremely anti-social attitude, behavior, and a lack of conscience.

In order to qualify as a human being you must also have the ability to feel emotions. Without

those emotions you then also have a lack of empathy and without empathy many of them end up

committing horrific acts such as those committed by famous sociopaths John Gacy, Ted Bundy,

and Jeffrey Dahmer. A word many would and have used to describe these serial killers is

inhumane which, according to dictionary.com, is the lack of having humanity, kindness,

compassion, and etc.. That is precisely what they are; they are inhumane, unable to feel

emotions, and do not have the qualities needed to even be labeled as a human being because
endlessly murdering other human beings without feeling the slightest bit of remorse is something

only the inhumane could do. If they were really human then they wouldve felt guilty and sorry

for what they had done, but they didnt, and without the ability to sense emotions such as those

they do not meet the standards of what it means to be human.

In order to be human one must be able to not only meet the physical characteristics of a

Homo sapien, but they must also be able to showcase human nature, and apart of human nature is

the ability to feel love, sorrow, guilt, and all of these different emotions. Without one or the other,

that person can not be labeled as human.