We’re still animals. Look no further than the daily news.

This was my initial thought Friday while watching video footage of the vicious beating by Memphis police officers that led to the death of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols.

My overriding reaction was beyond the obvious issue of police brutality. Beyond the renewed protests for police reform. Beyond the racial subtext that both Nichols and those cops are Black.

This was my initial thought Saturday while viewing news footage of the deadly Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East. My reaction went beyond its historical context. Beyond its religious zealotry. Beyond the border rights issues that have cost so many lives.

This was my initial thought Monday while reading about yet another mass shooting in our country. Again, my reaction went beyond the empty clamor for gun control laws. Beyond the knee-jerk “thoughts and prayers” recitations. And beyond the cold fact that by the time you read this column, there will likely be another mass shooting — somewhere.

Like I said, we’re still animals.

Our species is in its infancy despite our gradual evolution and technological advances. We remain primal beings tethered to our biological beginnings. We continue to fight with each other without apology or justification. We weaponize whatever we get our hands on.

We’re no better than the hominids during the Dawn of Man sequence in the science-fiction classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The primate protagonists used old bones to defend themselves and to kill for survival.

Our ever-evolving society remains monolithic in one crucial way — we continually define ourselves by our natural capacity for violence. It’s in our collective DNA. It’s at our very core. It’s in our primitive consciousness.

If you don’t believe me, just look around us. Look at the daily carnage in our world. Look at the vicious attacks. Look at the barbaric brutality. Look no further than the headlines in this newspaper.

This dark aspect of humanity has existed since we became sentient beings. It’s our existential struggle as a species.

This was my initial thought Tuesday when I read about the “SCORPION” unit of the Memphis police department, an acronym for Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods. The unit was initially designed to target street crimes, but it was recently disbanded after committing a heinous crime on the very streets they patrolled for public safety.

Critics insisted, “This is what cops do.”

I disagree. This is what humans do, I say.

We are the scorpion in the timeless parable about the frog and scorpion. If you’re not familiar with it, a deadly scorpion wants to cross a river but cannot swim, so it asks an innocent frog to carry it across.

The frog hesitates, afraid that the scorpion might sting it, but the scorpion promises not to, pointing out that it would drown if it killed the frog in the middle of the river. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both.

The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung its only vessel to cross the river despite knowing the deadly consequence. The scorpion replies matter-of-factly, “Sorry, but I couldn’t resist the urge. It’s in my nature.”

Similarly, it’s in our nature to be vicious, to be violent, to be deadly, to be ourselves.

This biological aspect of us raises its primordial head every day in countless ways. It takes place so often we have become numb to its existence in our daily lives. We’ve likely watched thousands and thousands of horrific examples of it on television or the internet or the silver screen. It’s everywhere.

Some of us have witnessed such brutality in person. Others have been victimized by what equated to eons of aggression for self-preservation.

For my job, I’ve written about this underbelly of the human race for more than 25 years. Ruthless murders. Senseless violence. Horrendous acts of ferocity under the guise of humanity.

We rationalize it. We criticize it. We pray to overcome it. Nothing stops. We repeatedly pick up old bones and turn them into new weapons. We think nothing of it. In fact, we pride ourselves on it. Only the weapons have changed.

Knives. Guns. Bombs. Tanks. Missiles. Rockets. Chemical weaponry. Biological weaponry. Nuclear weaponry. There are simply not enough kinds of bones for us to kill each other with. It doesn’t matter which year, which decade, which century or which millennium.

It’s as constant as a sunrise. As inevitable as a sunset.

Humans or hominids. Great apes or extinct primates.

We’ve come so far. We’ve come nowhere at all.