Is human reason always better than animal instinct?
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
"Most Dangerous" Paragraph
As we've discussed in class, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell illuminates the animal nature of the human psyche. General Zaroff, Rainsford, and Whitney each represent separate balances of "reason" and "instinct." Post a paragraph-long comment below that answers the following question by using an example or two from the text to support your thinking:
Is human reason always better than animal instinct?
Is human reason always better than animal instinct?
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I think it is better to have instinct because that can end up keeping you safe from attackers. If you are getting attacked, you're instinct comes right away so you know what to do. But reason takes a little bit of time. That little bit can be the difference of life and death. A bear could be 50 yards away. You're instinct would be to run. You would have a head start and could find a spot to escape easier. But reason wouldn't be reacting until the bear is 25 yards away. And you would still be running or moving in a form. Instinct told you to do that right away. Instinct can save you life better than reason.
ReplyDeleteNo, human reasoning is not always better than the animal instinct. No matter how smart you are, or how good of reasoning you have, you will always be surprised by animal instinct. You can kill or be killed because of your instinct, same with reasoning. But reasoning can lead to your death. No one is always correct with reasoning. with Instinct you do what you are meant to do. You can die with reasoning and instinct, but you can not die as easily with the latter.
ReplyDeleteI think human reason is not always superior to animal instinct, as we even has humans, have some animal instinct as well. There is in fact, having too much human reason, being too rational, like Zaroff. Zaroff has so much reason, that he can even reasonably justify hunting other humans for sport. On the other hand, Rainsford has human reason and animal instinct. He followed his gut about what to do, and what he thought was gonna happen in that jungle. He got feelings that Zaroff and his dogs were coming multiple times, leading him to prepare snares for them, and probably saving his own life. People like Zaroff may have so much human reason that he lack instinct at all, making Zaroff careless enough that Rainsford was able to sneak into his very secure house, and even bedroom, and attack him while he was sleeping. So no, I do not think human reason is always better than instinct.
ReplyDeleteI think that human reason is better sometimes but when you really feel like you should do something then i believe that its ok to do that to! In some situations it is probably better to use reason and use your head but you also want to follow what you think is right. Overall this is a hard question, but i think its both.
ReplyDeleteIn the story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell it proves that neither reason or animal instinct is necessarily better.I do not believe that human reason is always better than human reason. I think that it depends on the case, many times it is better to use reason while other times it is better to use animal instinct. When we use our instinct it means that for some reason you may not know, your body is telling you to do something, but reason uses your mind in a way that if you are trapped in a tough situation, than you can think your way out of it.
ReplyDeleteIs human reason always better than animal instinct?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion human reason is always better than animal instinct. This is because Rains-ford has the power to use things learned on previous hunts an
d use them to his advantage like the Malay Man-catcher. Also humans can think of ways to trick and fool a hunter in the "Most Dangerous Game". Over all this is shown because a human was unhuntable by the general but almost all living land animals were not.
I think animal instinct is just as important as humane reason because they both have ups and downs. Human reason can have a better out come because if you use your brain as opposed to your instinct your outcome can go more like how you planed then if you are to just "go with your gut". But sometimes if you reason to much you can end up psyching yourself out like Whitney did in the beginning of The Most Dangerous Game.
ReplyDeleteHuman reason is not better because many people get crazy ideas in their head. Like Zaroff liked to kill people for fun which is not reasonable. Animal instinct is better because you usually go with the idea that makes the most sense. Animal instinct also tells you that something may not always be right. Human reason is never a good enough excuse to do anything that is bad or cruel. It is just like the shooting that happened yesterday in Washington DC. The man had a grudge against the Navy so he decided to go and kill many people in the Navy building. That is human reason that should not be tolerated.
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ReplyDeleteIn short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, General Zaroff depics that the human ability to reason is always better that the animal instinct. However i feel that the human reason is not always better because, when the human uses reason instead of instinct, they are showing that there gut feeling or instinct is wrong. The Gen. says that humans are the most dangerous game to hunt because of there reason. But if all they use is there reason then they will never beat the Gen. at his own game. See this is why I believe that instinct is a little bit better than the reason.
ReplyDeleteI think that human reason is sometimes better to have than animal instinct, or animal instinct is better than human reason. The situation that somebody is put into can really change whether human reason or animal instinct is better. In the Most Dangerous Game, I feel that Rainsford showed both characteristics while being hunted and that really helped him survive. Zaroff showed mainly human reason and I feel like he lost because of it. There isn’t a better trait per say, but there is a time when one trait would be the best in a situation. You don’t want to have to reason in life or death situations but you don’t want your animal instinct to come out on a game show or something. It all depends on the situation.
ReplyDeleteI think that human have a way to talk to one an another so they don't fight like animal do. Animal instinct is how animal survive in the wild. For humans they are able to plan and think problems out as for animal they do as they go. The animal instinct are self learned as humans are taught to live. In a way instinct is better.
ReplyDeleteHuman Instinct is better than animal instinct because it humans can think about a situation and see what is best, whereas and animal just has one set way to do something. An example of how animal instinct has failed many times is in Crab Island. Many sea turtles lay their eggs there. not only is that a home for sea turtles, but it is an all you can eat buffet for crocodiles. the baby sea turtles instinct is to get out to the sea as soon as possible. The crocodiles sit at the beach and eat as many baby turtles as they can. In this case, the animal instinct is bad and has cost many lives. An example of how human reason is better than animal instinct is in the anecdote "The Most Dangerous Game." Rainsford has very good reasoning that helps him thing out a plan to help him not get killed. He uses reason to build traps and leave a difficult trail to follow, when animal instinct would have him run and die. To sum up, it is clear that human reasoning is much better than animal instinct because it can make people think and save lives.
ReplyDeleteThe Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell, human reason is sometimes better then animal instinct but sometimes its not. Humans can think faster but sometimes our fear come over come's us. Animals don't let there fear get to them all they think about is getting out of danger.
ReplyDeleteIs human reason always better than animal instinct? I think that it is sometimes. It is because when we give and/or share reasons to do something it has a point. Like in "The most Dangerous game" the human Rainsford has skills that Zaroff doesn't. That would help that animals have better instinct then humans. I think its not though at some points too. Zarnoff shouldn't want to kill people just for fun. But over all I think it is better.
ReplyDeleteHuman reason may not always be better than instinct because humans may have errors in the way they think resulting in a inefficient plan. On the other had instinct is what the body and mind knows what to do, leaving little room for error. Instinct is what you do without putting much thought into yet it may result in a better outcome. Reason could be used but in the situation given, on the spot actions would have been instinct. Reason may be used in some situations but in this case, Rainsford's decision that saved his life was all instinct.
ReplyDeleteIn the story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, I think that human reason is not always better than animal instinct. I think this because sometimes human is reason is wrong and if Rainsford in the story made a wrong decision, he would have been dead. But clearly it is just a story so he had great human reason from experiences and things that he has learned in the past. Animals instinct is normal for them and they react to it. Sometimes it turns out good, sometimes it turns out bad. But at least it still works so it human reason is not always better.
ReplyDeleteIs human reason always better than animal instinct? I would say yes because most of the time we tend to other throw our instinct with logical reasoning. In the story the “Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell it mentions many times how the characters take over instinct with reason. In the binging when Rainsford fell of the boat, his instinct was to swim toward the boat but he heard a noise then saw to that. In this situation he overthrew his instinct with reason to find land. Another example is when Rainsofrd wanted to be nervous because he did not want to die but he went with reason to not be nervous. One last example is when General Zaroff went to look for Rainsford and found him, he could have killed him right there on the spot, but his reason was to let him live. He went reason over instinct.
ReplyDeleteI feel it depends on the situation you're in if instinct or reason is better. In the short story you need instinct more reason to survive. But in school or around populated areas you need reason for most thinks and in rural areas you need instinct. Therefore i think the are equal.
ReplyDeleteI would say that animal instinct is better. Because having a plan of what your going to do is better than just doing what ever off of and instinct. The only reason I think that animal instinct would not be the best is because of General Zaroff and when he is looking for Rainsford you don't know what he is going to do so you have to wait and see. Then you would go off of animal instinct. But having a plan and setting one up is going to be less stressful because you just sit and wait. But when Zaroff and Ivan came looking the next day Rainsford just ran and was panicking and didn't know what to do. Then he made a plan and calmed down. So I would say that animal Instinct is better than Human reason.
ReplyDeleteNo human reason is not better then animal instinct because all animal instinct is different in its own way. Animals instinct is all they have to go by if something happens then the animal still has to think about what to do its not all in there instinctively way.But then again the humans can hide and run because they still know what is going on around them they know they are being hunted and the animals don't.
ReplyDeleteThe question "Is human reason always better than animal instinct?" is very hard to answer. It is your and everyone instinct to survive but animals only have instinct which makes them lower on the food chain. But people, human beings, have both reason and instinct. Reason because we are able to calculate and learn new ideas and think of more things that animals can. Like instead of thinking of our next meal and sleeping we might do something productive in everyday life. But we also have instinct because we were once animals ourselves and we haven't lost that part of survival from our genes. Of course animals think but they are only thinking of their way of living which is eat, drink, sleep, and reproduce. We do the same thing only we live with each other all day, we love, and feel. So my answer to this question is, reason because we have come a lot further than animals because of it. Animals are at their same point since the beginning of them.
ReplyDeleteHuman reason is almost always better than animal instinct. An example of this would be in the story when Rainsford fell out of the yacht his instinct was telling him to swim after the boat when he know that he couldn't. That decision was the difference of life or death. If he were to go with his instinct he would have swam out to the boat and probably drowned. But he chose to reason and he decided to swim to shore which may have saved his life.
ReplyDeleteHuman reason is better than animal instinct, but not always. It’s better because human have instincts and reason but not all animals have both reason and instinct. Human reason is our mind, making us smarter and we would know what to do. Every animal is different and have different instincts but humans have different ones. As Zaroff said in the "Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, the reason he hunts humans is because they have better instincts than animals and it’s more dangerous. Even though animals have stronger instincts as in sight, hearing, smell, etc. humans can react and our reason can help us save us from attackers, while not all animals do.
ReplyDeleteIn the short story The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell I think human reason is better to have then animal instinct even though instinct is also great. In the story Rainsford uses his reason to make traps and plan his next move. In the text he makes multiple traps to try and stop the general but he also uses instinct. Rainsford uses his reason to learn from the past about what to do next and to think, like in the story he keeps telling him self to keep his nerve to think and plan. I also think that animal instinct is good to have because like when Rainsford heard the general coming he hides to escape from the general but over all I think reason is more important.
ReplyDeleteI think that reasoning is better the instinct because reason lets you think ahead and think when you need it and you use your head to find out the problems out and you think more thoroughly on what you are going to do. Animals use Instinct its like a that every animal has there has there own way but the each bread has the same instinct like birds for example whenever it gets cold the fly south for the winter each year and they come back its like a repeated cycle it happens over and over
ReplyDeleteI don't think that human reason is always better than animal instinct. I think this because, when an animal reacts it is usually a correct way to respond. While they can not think ahead to the consequences of what they do, at least they react. Sometimes humans think too much, and because they don't act quickly they could end up in a worse situation. However, humans can think things through and for the most part, reason over throws instinct, but I still believe that animal instinct is a very strong thing and, for the most part, will lead the animal into the correct place.
ReplyDeleteI think that human reason is worse than animal instinct because animal instinct, but only if it is in order to survive. Animal instinct means your body is telling you what to do to survive while human reason is debating which is the good way to do things without pain. Human reason would be better if it was to do something that would have to involve thinking, like setting a trap, or deciding witch path to take.
ReplyDeleteI think human reason is better than animal instinct because human reason usually finds a better way to survive than animal instinct. For Example from the Most Dangerous Game Rainsford hide from general Zaroff while animal instinct might just tell you to run. An example of Animal instinct if this happens we might just run and try to get away. Human reason are better because we use our mind.
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