The argument that human nature and instinct are the root causes of all insurrection is highly controversial. It may also be considered highly subjective, and to some people, may appear as a gross generalization for something as complex as the concept of ‘insurrection’. However, despite the intricacy and multiplicity of most insurrections, their basic structure or diagram can be described through elemental figures and forces, that is to say, a set of rules.
While on the surface most insurrections seem to be invariably societal and specific to the situation at hand, all of these incidents are in fact composed of the actions of people. Although there may be natural forces that factor in to the conflict, ultimately, it is the decisions and behavior of human beings that create insurrections. These decisions and behaviors may be based on the action and reaction to external stimuli, but there must be some sort of a priori instructions for this to take place. Of course, one can maintain that the difference between humans and other animals is our ability to be self-conscious, thus being able to have morals, and thereby allowing us to create extremely complex social structures. But when one examines social structures of other animals, such as chimpanzees or honeybees, which also live in very complex societies, the least common denominator between humans and animals decreases. This is because we are still animals, and our instinctive behavior is kept ‘civilized’ only by external constraints which we have invented and developed for ourselves over the last 200,000 years.
In his films, director Stanley Kubrick is a virtuoso at examining and expressing examples of raw human nature. While each film may focus on different aspects of human instinct, there is an apparent consistency of this subject matter throughout his oeuvres.
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