These days, intellectuals lament that humans behave as if they were living in the animal kingdom. It means that we have lost our humanity and act like animals. An animal’s primary concern is to eat and survive. In addition to searching or hunting for food, some animals flock together and others fight for dominance over territorial disputes.

Of course, animals also have some admirable traits, such as caring and sharing, but these behaviors tend to be limited to family or individuals within the same group. Animals hardly display compassion for outsiders. Instead, they exhibit anger, aggression and antagonism toward strangers or other species. Sadly, we humans take after animals these days. It is a shame because humans should be better than animals.

What, then, differentiates humans from animals? There is a myriad of traits that are distinctively human. The capacity to use language for communication, for example, or the faculties of common sense and rationality make us better than animals. So do decorum, decency and integrity. We can factor in humility, consideration and temperance, as well. A sense of shame, guilt and regret, too, can join the list. Regrettably, however, we are today living in an era when those admirable human virtues are disappearing, and instead, bestial behavior and belligerence are predominant in our society and around the globe.

Few people would deny that our politicians are primarily responsible for causing our civilized society to revert to the animal kingdom. Some politicians preach that “eating and surviving” is our society’s primary concern. It may be true if we are animals. Yet, humans should be different from animals. Instead of “eating and surviving,” therefore, political leaders should come up with more noble objectives or with blueprints for our nation’s future.

Other political leaders unabashedly deceive the people with lies, populism and hollow political propaganda. They divide the people into two mutually antagonizing groups and tear the country apart by brainwashing people with their radical political ideology. They also oppress the people who do not support them and persecute political enemies ruthlessly. Those politicians religiously believe that they can do anything for their ideology, including killing others who have different ideologies. In that sense, they are no different from dictators who terrorize the country.

There are, unfortunately, many naive people who still blindly and ardently support such malicious, tyrannical political leaders. Some radical supporters turn into fanatic fans for the politicians they like, creating a hostile fandom that resembles the Red Guard during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Sometimes, even intellectuals and writers, too, join the whirlpool of political skirmishes for a position in the government, but end up merely being puppets for wicked politicians.

Just as animals do over territorial disputes, there are some political leaders in the world today who start wars by invading other countries in the name of unification or the restoration of former territories. Others menace the world with nuclear weapons, threatening that World War III is imminent. Sending dirty balloons to another country, too, is not something civilized people would do. In addition, there are religious political leaders who keep massacring people of different religions in the name of God, while conveniently forgetting that Christ taught that we should love our enemies.

In some authoritarian socialist countries, politicians plot election fraud by tampering with or fabricating the number of votes, following Stalin’s counsel, “Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything.” Even in democratic countries, some political leaders brazenly defy democracy and become tyrannical. They do not concede the outcome of an election and are willing to instigate a Civil War to overturn it.

Recently, a renowned Korean poet, Oh Sae-young, wrote to me, lamenting the current situation, “These days, insanity has become common sense, hypocrisy has become a virtue, and the personal vendetta has become ‘justice.' Moreover, fake news has become truth, ignorance has become intellect, and demagogy has become patriotism. Meanwhile, people loathe and antagonize each other, growl at and bite one another. Alas! Humans have turned into animals these days and we are now living in the animal kingdom.”

Another Korean intellectual Cha Yun, Chairman of Chayun Public Relations, too, deplored the political climate of Korea and wrote to me lately, “At South Korea’s National Assembly, we can hear and see our politicians’ yelling, swearing, deriding, insulting and slandering every day. Instead of common sense, decency and rationality, only animal instinct to kill and survive is predominant.”

Had it not been for the agitation of politicians, ordinary people could have lived serenely and happily, caring about each other. Yet, we cannot live in a world without politicians. We cannot abolish the election system, either, even though it has its own flaws.

Still, however, we should try hard to restore our long lost humanity, integrity and decency. We are not animals, but humans, after all.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. -- Ed.