ARE THERE ONTOLOGICALLY

SUPERIOR HUMAN BEINGS?

  

The question as to whether there are superior human beings may not actually be a new one. It may not be a new one because the issues surrounding it never started today but has existed for a very long time. But the question comes back again because with the way things are going, it is as if some human beings are superior to some others. When we look around the world, we see many pictures of segregation based on race and much discrimination too. Not only does this take place at the international level, but it also takes place at the domestic level.

At the international level, we see the whites humiliating the blacks with the thought that they are better. The commonest of this is the European degradation of the Africans. This is the issue of their perceived superiority over the blacks who are inferior to them. The whites give many reasons why they hold such a belief. One of the reasons they give is that they are the rightly evolved human beings while the blacks are the wrongly evolved animals following Darwin’s theory of evolution. Hence the racists scholars nearly denied the humanity of the Africans just because they are not the whites. And so going by this premise, they conclude that they are ontologically superior to the blacks.

Another reason they give for this belief of theirs is that they can reason well more that the black man. This is a follow up to the proclamations of one of their celebrated anthropologists Lucien Levy-Bruhi, who had told a reading world that Africans are people with pre-logical mentality. What a good Comment! Consequent upon this claim, they added that because they have their philosophy and whereas the African’s have none, they are superior to them. And so when the debate started around the 1930s about the existence of an African philosophy, it was like a joke to them.

Moreover, in their bid to show that they are the superior human beings, they begin to cite their scientific inventions. With the level of their civilization, they argue that they are superior to Africa.

 

The whites give many other reasons beyond the above to validate their claim that they are ontologically superior to Africa. For them, their superiority is ontological and since there is nothing we can do about it, we are just and will remain inferior to them.

 

Outside the international level, at the domestic level, there are some pictures of racism. Taking Nigeria as a case study, there is this belief that a particular race in the country is meant to be ruling the country. The Hausas claim that they were born to rule, and as such no other race should rule the nation. This is one of the traceable causes of the crises we are having today. For them, when it comes to the art of leading, only their race knows better.

 

The foregoing is some of the pictures of racism noticeable in our world today.  The belief in the superiority of one’s race over the others which influences human interactions has caused more harm than good. Not just that it has caused more than good, but the belief is held and supported boldly. Hence, I ask: are there ontological superior human beings? Besides human achievements and engagements, are there superior races/human beings in the world? If we all had the same colour, language and culture, can we still talk about some superior human beings? Are there those who from their very existence are superior to others?

 

The answer to this question cannot be in the affirmative. This is because to say that will mean that the creator of the universe is very partial for him to have made some superior to others. Or for those who do not believe in creation but in evolution, to say that some are superior to others will mean that the evolution in its ontological nature is not complete. This is because if the evolution process was perfect and complete, there is no reason to say that some human beings upon evolution became superior to others.

 

Moreover, we cannot hold on to the various reasons the Europeans give as evidence of their being superior to the blacks. The issue of scientific inventions and high level of civilization cannot be attributed to their being superior. And we cannot say that God blessed them more than others. Instead what we can rightly say is that their gift of intelligence which God has given everybody is well-harnessed. That is, they are making good use of their intelligence which is just but a gift from God. We can also say that they are just lucky that those things are working for them. This does not in any way mean that the non-Europeans especially the Africans are not harnessing their own intelligence; for the Africans are making progress in that area. It is just that the environment of the Europeans favours them more than our own.

 

Also the issue of whether the Africans can think is not an issue because in various aspects, it has been shown that the Africans thought in the past, are thinking at present and will continue to think in the future because thinking is an aspect of human nature. And so the argument that the Africans cannot think is void.

 

In addition, the Europeans cannot claim to do everything or to be superior in all things more than the Africans.  At least when it comes to physical combat, there is up to 95% probability that the average Igbo youth will win that of the European.

 

In essence, what we are saying is that no matter the reasons the Europeans give, they are not ontologically superior to the Africans. In fact, the Africans can even say that because their skin is strong and that of the whites are weak, they are ontologically superior to the whites.

 

Thus, we cannot conclusively say that there are human beings who are ontologically superior to others. Everybody is created equal irrespective of race. What we can only say is that when it comes to human practices such as inventions, developments, etc. some are superior only in that aspect. But as of presenting these human practices as evidence that some are ontologically superior to others, we cannot take it. God made all humans equal and endowed them with different gifts and talents. The talents and their produce are accidents to the nature of human beings. They cannot be treated as substance. And so we do not need them as pieces of evidence that some races are better than others. In talking about superiority of human nature, we must go beyond the empirical to identify the evidence that a race has to in validating its claim of being superior to other races or races.

 

Thus, the only evidence we need to validate the claim that some human beings are ontologically superior to others has to be ontological too. Only metaphysical evidence is required by any group of people who claim that they are ontologically superior to some others.  Until this is given, we cannot accept the claim that some human beings are superior to some others ontologically.

 

 

NWANYANWU CHRIS.