Ideologues think you're an animal

Depicted above is a dog whom I was sitting last week. For the purposes of this post, let us call him Sparky. Sparky is a puppy of some manner of sheepdog, so he is a hyperactive psycho who needs to run around for hours a day. I really like Sparky and I try to make him happy any way I can. For him, this involves letting him run around. This can be difficult because he thinks he can just run up to every human and get affection for trying to climb up their leg. It is positively adorable, but also awkward.

Over the course of this particular dogsitting shift, best job ever by the way, I thought about happiness and fulfilment, particularly in the context of dogs. It is very easy to make dogs, and many other animals, happy. Some permutation of food, space, and human affection usually does the trick. All their needs can be met by material things of this world.

Humans are not like that. We need more than just things. Humans need something above and beyond, something or someone to believe in. For most people, this is met by either religion or some cause du jour. Religion and spirituality are obvious examples of this, and the people who have neither will usually chase something else for meaning and purpose. The owner of this dog, for instance, is an atheist vegetarian. And boy is she devout to the vegetarianisms! It is impossible to even have her try even a bite of the awesome Al Pastor that my friend made. She is considerably stricter than any people of faith that I know.

All tangents aside, the point is that humans need something supernatural. St. Augustine said something to the effect of "Our hearts are restless until they rest in God". Other examples of this need for something more litter the arts, to a point where it becomes undeniable that this need is universal to humans. Every isolated tribe that explorers run into has some manner of spirituality going on, for instance. Animals, however, do not have this need. Give Sparky a park, some food, and an affectionate person, and he is as happy as he will ever be.

Not only do all humans share this need for the supernatural, but there is no animal that needs the supernatural. I would go so far as to posit that a need for something more is a good way to determine the humanity of a life form. But some would disagree with me. There are many people, some of them very influential, who believe that humans can be entirely satisfied by the material.

For instance, Marxist theory holds that all human problems are caused by inequality in this world, therefore allowing them to be ameliorated by creating equality, one mass grave at a time.

On the not-so-other hand, Marxism's equally insane but nominally opposite reaction, libertarianism, holds that all human problems are due to structures imposed on these humans. Leave them alone and they will spontaneously develop happiness and fulfilment.

As a matter of fact, most ideologies present their worldly proposals as the way to happiness. However, this world cannot make humans happy. Humans need the supernatural. Humans need God the Father of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, specifically. But that is not the point of this post. The point is that there is one category of creature that can be made happy by this world and its things: animals. Anyone who thinks you can be happy without the supernatural considers you an animal, effectively. This also explains why so many of the various ruling classes have such obvious disdain for the people they rule over. At some level or another, they consider their underlings to not even be fully human. This conviction, even if verbally denied, rears its ugly head sooner or later.

TLDR beware anyone who does not think you need the supernatural. They think of you as a mere animal and will treat you as such.