24/04/2026
The Innate Carnal Nature of Man: An Essay on Toboso 19
Disclaimer: This essay does not discuss political parties nor endorse any form of propaganda. It focuses solely on the dangers of humanity’s affinity for the morbid and the tragic.
Whether one condemns armed government forces for an encounter that claimed many lives, or believes that alleged insurgency necessitates neutralization, one thing remains undeniable: the virality of the story lies in its blood-curdling end. Put simply, regardless of which side of the narrative one believes, or what version of truth one convinces oneself of while sharing posts online, it is difficult to deny that what captures attention is not the nuance of conflicting claims.
It is not the possibility that some individuals were civilians, allegedly framed after the fact. It is not the recognition that armed conflict often breeds unnecessary tragedy on all sides, extinguishing lives filled with potential. Rather, what makes stories like this impossible to ignore is something far more disturbing: the audience, real people behind their screens, have grown eerily comfortable turning such tragedies into spectacle, even into humor.
Images are shared, edited, and distorted. The dead, people at their most vulnerable, at the very end of their lives, are reduced to tools for argument or punchlines for fleeting amusement. What is often justified as raising awareness or “warning others” reveals something colder beneath the surface. It reeks not of empathy, but of detachment; a quiet, creeping cruelty.
I have never believed that humans are inherently good. Goodness, to me, has always been the result of deliberate action, not an innate blessing bestowed at birth. Yet witnessing the widespread enjoyment of another person’s demise tempts a darker thought: perhaps we are born with something after all. Not goodness, but a carnal inclination toward brutality.
And why is this dangerous?
Because the cycle does not end with one tragedy. The entertainment derived from circulating images of the dead, the collective effort to justify it as moral instruction, and the endless online discourse, it will all eventually simmer down. And when it does, what then?
Who is to say that another tragedy will not rise to satisfy the same primal hunger? Worse, who is to say that such desensitization will not blur the line between witnessing violence and justifying it? That someday, if not yet true, brutality may be excused under the guise of ideology when in truth it is driven by something far more primitive: the thrill of destruction itself.
Mankind, it seems, may not merely endure violence.
It may crave it.
And in that craving, we may very well become the architects of our own undoing.
Art: Jesse Purcell
