Mark Twain's Rhetorical Analysis

Twain’s philosophical beliefs are most valid because he highlights how animals indeed avoid revenge; they in fact are not even aware it exists. Twain additionally states that humans willingly created evil in the form of cursing, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. “Indecency, vulgarity, obscenity--these are strictly confined to man; he invented them. Among the higher animals there is no trace of them. They hide nothing; they are not ashamed.” Animals, being subjects of nature, naturalize each and every aptitude and sense they carry. Twain, in the contents of his essay, mentioned how, unlike animals, humans tend to kill for leisure; hunters will strike down twenty buffalos, use one for nutrition, and abandon the other to rot to their cores. Twain’s ideal that humans are the lowest of all animals oppose Gould’s belief that unnoticeable acts of kindness redeem humanity; however, Gould’s notion is flawed once questioned on the value of a human life. For example, how many acts of kindness must be made to
Human nature is unavoidable; what we mindfully feel is right will be acted upon. Gould states that “... every spectacular incident of evil will be balanced by 10,000 acts of kindness, too often unnoted and invisible as the ‘ordinary’ efforts of a vast majority.” With that being said, if positivity continues to express its superiority to the wicked, why is there still a demand for people to flood the earth with optimism? Seeing that sin is balanced and overruled by obvious virtue. Has 9/11 ever truly been forgotten? Has the corrupt conduct of the attackers ever sincerely been absolved? Are the “rare acts of evil” that Gould referenced really all that infrequent? Humans are naturally prone to be selfish, to create insensitivity based on that evil, and to imagine and define previously-nonexistent, foolish