History Main / HumansAreFlawed

* Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy describes a parallel world in which Neanderthal man became the dominant species, and in almost every way homo sapiens compares badly. The Neanderthals live in harmony with nature, having a lower population and no pollution. Further they have [[ApeShallNeverKillApe no crime, violence or war]], and (possible AuthorTract) no religion. The effect is to highlight all of humanity's flaws by describing alternate-world humans that have none of them.

** {{Transmetropolitan}}. A lot. Especially towards the end, where Spider constantly drops that, despite being a bastard and some sort of weird figure for the masses, he's still human like everyone else, along with all the great and the extra-evil that humanity does on a daily basis.

** To borrow from ''RedDwarf'', referring to JohnFKennedy:
--->'''Lister:''' I thought you said he was a great guy!
--->'''Kryten:''' He was.
--->'''Rimmer:''' He was also an inveterate womanizer. His affairs were legendary. They never came out while he was alive.
--->'''Kryten:''' All great men have a weakness, an AchillesHeel.
--->'''Rimmer:''' His was just... further up.
** To be fair to JFK, at least part of his infamous womanizing was due to the daily testosterone pills he took to keep his weight up. Medically, JFK was a huge mess... he had contracted measles, whooping cough, chicken pox, and scarlet fever, all by the age of 3, leaving him susceptible to other upper respiratory infections and bronchitis. He was far-sighted by age 13, suspected to be due to diptheria. He had hypothyroidism and pernicious anemia caused by APS II (an autoimmune disorder). He had severe spastic colitis by age 17, which was treated by steroids, which in turn led to other complications that are side-effects of steroid abuse, such as a duodenal ulcer, adrenal gland dysfunction, and back problems that required him to wear a back brace (by 1947 he had been on steroids, though not continuously, and one of the side-effects of that much steroid use is osteoporosis). There's more, but it would take an entire page to list them all. And yet... he was arguably one of the best Presidents.

-->'''Rio:'''Yeah... even if [[spoiler: the world will end someday]], until then, all that we have here with us is our future.

* The fact that hominids weren't physically equipped for any particular ecological niche -- no fangs for hunting, no claws for digging, etc -- and had to make up for these shortcomings is considered a key driving force behind our invention of tools. Likewise, the fact that we ''can'' be selfish, duplicitous bastards may have accelerated the human brain's evolution toward complexity, as after a while there was nothing more challenging to try to puzzle out than another human's real intentions. So naturally HumansAreFlawed, because dealing with those flaws ''made'' us human.

* The fact that hominids weren't physically equipped for any particular ecological niche -- no fangs for hunting, no claws for digging, etc -- and had to make up for these shortcomings is considered a key driving force behind our invention of tools. Likewise, the fact that we ''can'' be selfish, duplicitous bastards may have accelerated the human brain's evolution toward complexity, as after a while there was nothing more challenging to try to puzzle out than another human's real intentions.

* Of course, one can empirically observe many flaws in many humans. But this is a less strong claim than ''humans are inherently flawed''.

** [[spoiler: Gabriel]] agrees, but gives us commendation for still trying.

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* This brought up in Chapter 28 of ''GunnerkriggCourt'', where Kat the roboticist is depressed due to finding out that the creator of the Court's robots also [[spoiler: cooked up a plan to kill [[IfICantHaveYou a woman who didn't love him and his creations]] to protect the [[ScienceVsMagic technologically-advanced court from the magical denizens of the Giliti Woods]]]]. Her irritation is interrupted after she finds a baby pigeon and takes it to her friend Paz, an animal lover who works with [[UnfortunateImplications lab rats.]] Kat has a breakdown after learning all the [[HumansAreBastards bastardly]] things the Court does, but Paz reminds her that the Court is also capable of recognizing its flaws and changing them:
--->'''Paz:''' The Court isn't a big monster that does as it pleases. ''Es'' a collection of '''people''', working to do what they think is right.
* OrderOfTheStick takes an interesting stance on this - when Roy dies, he's told that since he's mortal, it's not really reasonable to expect him to stay perfectly straight-and-narrow all the time, and making the effort is what's really important. This is repeated when he's allowed into the afterlife even though he didn't fulfill his father's Blood Oath; because he ''kept trying'', he gets a pass, where his father consciously abandoned the quest, and is thus stuck in limbo until a member of his family defeats Xykon. Thus it's less "Humans suck because they are flawed" and more "Humans are flawed, but that's okay, because it doesn't have to define them."
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** Also helps that some of the differences between humans and Peacekeepers are the much better abilities to deal with heat. Basically if it's hot out everyone else on the ship will die...

* OrderOfTheStick takes an interesting stance on this - when Roy dies, he's told that since he's mortal, it's not really reasonable to expect him to stay perfectly straight-and-narrow all the time, and making the effort is what's really important. This is repeated when he's allowed into the afterlife even though he didn't fulfill his father's Blood Oath; because he ''kept trying'', he gets a pass, where his father consciously abandoned the quest, and is thus stuck in limbo until a member of his family defeats Xykon.

* [[spoiler: [[JustShootHim Nah]] ]]

[[YouSuck Humans suck]]. [[MostWritersAreHuman We're]] flawed in our [[AMindIsATerribleThingToRead mental]], spiritual, and physical aspects, and to top it off we're [[HumansAreMorons a bunch of morons]] and [[HumansAreBastards bastards to everyone else]]... and especially to ourselves.

* Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax trilogy describes a parallel world in which Neanderthal man became the dominant species, and in almost every way homo sapiens compares badly. The Neanderthals live in harmony with nature, having a lower population and no pollution. Further they have no crime, violence or war, and (possible AuthorTract) no religion. The effect is to highlight all of humanity's flaws by describing alternate-world humans that have none of them.

* In ''{{Resident Evil}}: The Darkside Chronicles,'' [[MysteriousWaif Manuela]] comes to the conclusion that the ability to feel pain (mental/emotional pain at our mistakes, in particular) is what makes a person human, and that's a good thing.

* Lucifer in {{Supernatural}} believes this, calling us "broken, aborted fetuses."