The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human.
Jeffrey KlugerRead
Humans have a fraught relationship with beasts. They are our companions and our chattel, our family members and our laborers, our household pets and our household pests. We love them and cage them, admire them and abuse them. And, of course, we cook and eat them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the complex and often conflicting relationship humans have with animals.
Jeffrey Kluger's quote highlights the multifaceted and often contradictory nature of human interactions with animals. It points out how we simultaneously embrace animals as companions and family members, while also exploiting them for labor and food. This duality reflects our emotional connections as well as ethical dilemmas regarding how we treat those beings that share our lives.
Themes
HumansAnimalsRelationshipLoveExploitationEthics
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about animal rights, one might cite this quote to illustrate the complexity of human-animal interactions.
More from Jeffrey Kluger
All quotes →Marriage is a lot of things - a source of love, security, the joy of children, but it's also an interpersonal battlefield, and it's not hard to see why: Take two disparate people, toss them together in often-confined quarters, add the stresses of money and kids - now lather, rinse, repeat for the rest of your natural life. What could go wrong?
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There aren't a lot of ironclad rules of family life, but here's one: No matter how much your parents deny it - and here's betting they deny it a lot - they have a favorite child. And if you're a parent, so do you.
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There are a lot of obstacles in the way of our understanding animal intelligence - not the least being that we can't even agree whether nonhuman species are conscious. We accept that chimps and dolphins experience awareness; we like to think dogs and cats do. But what about mice and newts? What about a fly? Is anything going on there at all?
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