By: Dr. Adnan Bozan

What makes man more savage than a lion, more treacherous than a wolf, and more repulsive than a hyena that feeds on carrion? It’s not just hunger, sexual desire, or even the struggle for survival; it is something deeper: the ability to invent evil, to refine it, and to disguise it with the masks of law, ethics, and civilization.

Other animals do not know betrayal; they do not stab in the back, and they kill only out of pure instinct, linked to their physical survival or biological reproduction. The lion does not kill for amusement, nor does it kill for an idea. The wolf does not invent ideological narratives to justify slaughtering the pack. Even hyenas, in their savagery, do not deviate from the laws of nature; they adhere to what we call "the law of the jungle"—which, while harsh, is kinder than the laws of man.

As for man? He is the only creature that builds the guillotine in the name of justice, starts a war in the name of peace, and expels a people from their land in the name of the nation. He is the creature that can kill with a smile, destroy while reciting prayers, and rape while writing poetry about love.

Man does not follow a single instinct; he is a conglomeration of conflicting, raging, fragmented instincts. Every predatory beast in nature has a single, defined instinct, with a clear and final goal. As for man, he carries within him the wolf, the lion, the hyena, the scorpion, and the snake, and does not stop at the limits of the body; he adds to it the mind, language, and symbols, giving him the ability to justify his evils, excuse his crimes, and market them as virtues.

In man, the strong does not only devour the weak, but also creates a dramatic stage for this process: he writes about it, promotes it, mythologizes it, and then teaches it to his children as a civilizational achievement. He is the only creature that kills history first, then rewrites it as he pleases, turning the executioner into a hero and the victim into a terrorist.

War, that bloody play which man excels in directing, is not a moment of madness; it is a manifestation of his original essence. He does not wage war only out of hunger or self-defense, but out of ideology, honor, pride, God, oil, and racial superiority... All of which are justifications that no other creature understands. Other creatures kill to live, while man kills to convince himself that his existence has a message, that his madness has a purpose, and that his madness is sacred.

When the lion preys, it does not write a political statement. When the wolf attacks, it does not hold press conferences. As for man, when he bombs a city, he issues a humanitarian report with pictures of the victims, and shares it on social media under the hashtag: "For a Better World."

Thus, man was not the "rational creature" as he likes to call himself, but rather "a creature excessively immersed in madness," for he possesses the mind not to tame his savagery, but to master it, beautify it, and justify it. In man, the mind has transformed from a tool for thinking into a machine for creating terror, and language has turned from a means of communication into a veil that hides the most horrific forms of savagery.

Is man an animal? No, he is the betrayal of the animal. The animal does not hide its fangs, it does not disguise itself in a mask. As for man, he lives in a theater of disguise, wrapping his savagery in law, his crimes in ethics, and his debauchery in the sacred. Therefore, he is filthier than all animals, for he is the only one who killed his innocence with his own hands, then covered its corpse with the flag of his nation.