Are We Dancer By Paul Iori Summary

Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. In Paul Iori’s last essay, “Are We Human or Are We Dancer?” he stated that what makes us human is the ability of free will. Without free will people are puppets moping through life without any joy, happiness, or euphoria in life. But, with free will we can do whatever we want whenever we want. That seems a bit animalistic. We can choose to steal and murder if we truly desire to. The only was to be truly human is to live with free will, but with the strain that society puts on us. Without the constraints that society puts on us we would act like cavemen and go back to our most primal instincts, which is inhumane.

Society

Gods have free will, but they are not human because of the all the power they have that the average person simply does not have. In the “Odyssey”, Calypso keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years. She is lonely and uses Odysseus as a toy to “play” with. In his previous essay he stated, “We do have free will and that’s what makes us human”(Iori 3). Calypso was not controlled by anyone to keep Odysseus on her island for seven years. She freely chose to keep Odysseus there because that is what she wanted. She kept him there to use him for herself. Even though she had this free will, she is not human. She kept a man from his wife and family for seven years. Odysseus has not seen his family for more than ten years, and yet she keeps him on the island for her own amusement. That is not human; no one in his or her right mind would make that decision. She was selfish with her actions. To be human also requires sacrifice. People sacrifice themselves, to help others out. There is a reason why people help a stranger with carrying their bags even if it takes them five to ten minutes out of their lives to help them or why people donate hundreds and thousands of people in need even if they do not even know them. People help other people out not because it is the most convenient thing to do, but because it is deemed by society as the right thing to do. People do an

Children have free will and even though they are young humans, they have very inhuman characteristics. They are very imaginative, but do not use their senses past utilitarian needs and they do not have a filter while talking. People can say that children are the most human. They have not been affected by society yet. They live in their own little worlds and are very innocent and naïve. They have no influences upon which can be construed as the most human you can possibly be because you are living primarily off instinct. But, this is actually inhuman. It is interesting when you see a child play, they are very imaginative, but they often play “work” or “house”. They want to be adults even though they are many years from working and having a family of their own. Children try to disassociate themselves from the inhumanness of being a child by trying to act like an adult. Their play and imagination, which only children do, is becoming an adult and becoming part of a society and trying to escape their own little worlds that they have been living in for the past couple years. Children also have no filter. They can go around making fun of anyone they want without thinking they ever made a mistake. This is very inhuman. If a person went around their whole lives going around making fun of people; they would most likely not be accepted by society. The constraints of society develop and mold children into fully functioning humans. They do not go