What is man? A gift or just another animal?

We are all aware of the myriad issues which divide left and right in this intensely ideological age. Some are quite consequential, some trivial.

But I think it is useful to look at the roots of this divide, and I think there are two that underlie all, which are inextricably linked. Does God exist? What is man? The answer to the first largely determines the answer to the second, but today I want to look at the second. What is man?

On the assumption that God exists, then it logically follows that man, and everything else, has been created by God. The Bible speaks eloquently on the subject. “So God created man in His own image … male and female He created them.” And, “You made them a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor.” Under that understanding, man, male and female, are unique, and hold the highest possible perch just beneath the divine. Not only that, but God gave us dominion over everything else in Creation, since we are his image, and share, to our very limited extent, in His understanding and ability to create. This is the foundation of “orthodox” Christians, Jews and Muslims, and explains many of the ideological, theological and political stances, the “right,” which logically follow.

However, ever since the French Revolution (from which the terms “right” and “left” originate), the left has denied that God exists, often quite militantly and lethally, and therefore have a profoundly different answer to the question, “What is man?”

A popular book, published in 1967, under the title “The Naked Ape,” makes clear the distinction. Man is just another animal. Granted, man can speak much more eloquently than other animals, and certainly can engage in higher order thought, and has a much better grasp of economics, but these are all matters of degree. Man, in himself, is just another result of a few billion years of evolution, essentially no different than a clam. It’s all a matter of degree. Your basic ape sits on a much higher branch (literally and figuratively) than a clam on the evolutionary tree, but that’s simply an accident.

If we are no different from any other animal, then we may be treated no differently than any other animal. We are born today, die tomorrow, so what is our purpose, beyond eating and reproducing — the same as a fruit fly. We experiment on fruit flies, so why not experiment with man? Farmers use selective breeding to develop better cows, so why not selective breeding to develop better men?

The 20th century has seen the development of that thought to its logical and deadly conclusions. The late Margaret Sanger was a champion of eugenics (Greek for “better birth”). Clearly certain types of men were better than others. Darwinism, so many thought, clearly showed an upward march of better and better creatures, so why not help the process along?

Planned Parenthood has its roots in contraception as a solution to too many people of the wrong sort. The Supreme Court upheld forced sterilization, in case contraception didn’t work. The Nazis took this to extremes and settled upon annihilation as a much quicker means to the same end. After World War II revealed the horrors of eugenics, the idea was quietly dropped — although it is still there, bubbling just under the surface.

Abortion is a handy way of dealing with unwanted babies. “Right to Life”? Don’t be absurd. That which is in the womb is a fetus, a clump of cells, a “conceptus,” to be treated any way the woman carrying the “trespasser” sees fit. Grandma getting too old and out of it? In parts of Europe just call the folks in a van and they’ll come and take care of the situation.

What is man? If he comes from God, then he must be accorded the respect with which God has imbued him. If not — as Orwell’s "Animal Farm" suggests — then just another animal to be treated according to his usefulness by whoever is running the farm.

Charles Milliken is a professor emeritus after 22 years of teaching economics and related subjects at Siena Heights University. He can be reached at milliken.charles@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: Charles Milliken: What is man? A gift or just another animal?