A/N: You, reader, have the chance to play the part of Storm, if you wish. Feel free to give Rogue a grade and/or feedback in the comments.
Rogue
Philosophy
Professor Munroe
Midterm
March 25, 2010
The Inner Self
The belief that a war is brewing between humans and mutants has been the pervading fear in world culture, society, and politics since the discovery of mutant-kind. This kind of divisive thought has not only brought us to the brink of war on multiple occasions, but it also keeps us from seeing the similarities between all people, whether we have tails, wings, or untouchable skin. People like Magneto and the late Senator Robert Kelly think of themselves as polar opposites, because one could manipulate metal and one could not, but they were not as different as they appeared. Both were motivated in their anti-human or anti-mutant actions by fear, and a telepathic study of human and mutant thoughts, though unethical, would most likely reveal strikingly similar modes of thought between the two groups. In the absence of such a study, I will argue my hypothesis based on the understanding of the humans and mutants that I have absorbed through my abilities and the admitted motivations of those who prepare themselves for war.
The inner self is a complicated web of emotions, thoughts, and desires and each person, whether human or mutant, is unique in their mental make up. In contrast, language requires structure and, in fact, forces a structure on our otherwise unstructured inner selves. It is this inadequacy of language that poses the biggest problem in studying the similarities and differences of human and mutant minds. It is possible to express so much more in thought than can ever be put into words, simply because we lack the words. Sometimes words create barriers, as in the case of "mutant" and "human." Mutants and humans are essentially the same in biological respects, but there is no word to unite us in a common category (Grey, Evolution and Mutation: The Dominant Species on the Planet, 24). For example, "tigers" and "lions" are both "big cats." The closest word that we have to such an all-encompassing category is probably "people" – we are all people. However, that definition can vary depending on who uses the word and who they want to include in their definition. The limits of words can also show similarities where there was thought to be none. With his dying breath, Senator Kelly admitted that his anti-mutant actions were driven by fear (Transcript in Xavier Archives, Senator Kelly, 2). Fear of humans is, likewise, something that mutants live with every day. "I am afraid of you, because you can hurt me," is a sentence that could be said by a human or mutant. Mutants live in fear of anti-mutant mobs – humans with closed hearts and closed ears who, based solely on your extra appendages, consider you a threat, despite your panicked attempts to convince them otherwise. Humans live in fear of mutant abilities they cannot comprehend – the girl next door could walk through walls to rob them, the man across the bar could produce unseen knives from his hands to attack them, or they could be impaled by any number of metal objects that their mutant co-worker has decided to send their way. We fear what we will do to each other, because each party can be dangerous.
Fear is just one emotion that we all share and the underlying reasons or this fear, as discussed above, show a deeper connection between mutants and humans: thought patterns. Mutants do not think on a different wavelength than humans, as I am sure any telepath can confirm, nor do mutants and humans form different structures of thoughts in their heads. If humans had a completely different mode of thinking than mutants, it stands to reason that their thoughts would be unreadable by any mutant, telepathically or through absorption. When I absorb a consciousness, I cannot sense a difference between those that are human and those that are mutant. Our thoughts are informed by many things, but there is one common and prominent desire that holds the most influence on the way that mutants and humans think. We all cry out for understanding and acceptance and, while details may change from person to person, the overarching desire to be understood and accepted can be found in everyone.
These theories can be most readily seen in the cases of Cody and Magneto. Cody, a human from rural Mississippi, had the misfortune of giving me my first kiss just as my mutant powers emerged. The shock left him in a coma and, though I had absorbed his consciousness with that kiss, I first had to struggle to understand what was happening to me before I could process what I had stolen from his mind. When I was able to look back on Cody's fragmented memories, I found something remarkable. Cody was not very different from me, despite my mutated X-gene. His thoughts were filled with football and girls, which were not at all like mine, but the thought patterns and miss-matched memories were comfortingly similar to my own jumbled way of thinking. My Ellis Island run-in with Magneto unfortunately proved him to have the same jumbled mind, though his specific thoughts focused on fears of mutant prison camps and hopes for a mutant nation or safe-haven. I would like to be different in every respect from Magneto, but humans, X-Men, and Brotherhood all think the same. We are set apart and individualized by our specific thoughts, whether we think of the Jacksonville Jaguars, the grades we will receive in this class, or the mutant domination of the world.
Evolution has brought the world a new kind of person and we have divided ourselves along the lines of mutant and human. If a war is brewing, as both sides suggest, it cannot be because our differences are too great to overcome. If anything, it is because we are too similar. On the inside, fundamentally, and basically, mutants and humans are the same. We fear each other because of what we can do to each other, but if we would take the time to understand each other and accept each other, as we all want to be accepted, then the proposed war could be avoided.