The Many Faces of Humanity

"It had fucking better," the first man said, and he struck his charge again. The Umandh let out another groan though the droning never ceased. 

"Look at this, fish all over the Earth-burning floor," he hissed past his teeth. “You fucking beast!” He kicked the spindly creature to the ground between the second word and the last, stomped on its midsection. 

Though it had no face I could see, I was reminded of that day-it felt like ten thousand years ago-when I had watched our gladiator stomp on the face of a mutilated slave in the Colosso. Here it was again: the face of our species, raw and red and exposed.

This quote (along with many others) stuck out to me because it’s a very common trope. The face of humanity is always revealed after some depraved, murderous act, but humanity is more than that.

“We know!” People say, but I rarely ever see anything different. Maybe it’s there, but I gloss over it or forget about, who knows. These are just my thoughts.

I’m not trying to get all “humans are so good and misunderstood man.” I’m just trying to pointing out that exposition on the human condition doesn’t always have to come after sometime bad, but I wonder if that same introspection would be effective after something good. I guess it depends on the writer.

The excerpt’s from Christopher Ruocchio’s book, Empire of Silence, which is absolutely phenomenal (so far. I’m about halfway through).  This isn’t a knock on Ruocchio, because, as I said, it’s very common. Also, on the very next page he said humanity’s other face was revealed after someone committed an act of mercy, but shortly after, we find out it wasn’t mercy, but rather greed disguised as mercy.