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.
Interpretation
Humanity inherently carries the potential for violence and conflict.
This quote by Jeffrey Kluger suggests that the nature of being human comes with the capacity for both good and evil, implying that violence among humans is not due to external circumstances but is a fundamental aspect of humanity itself. It prompts a profound reflection on human nature and the moral complexities that arise from our very existence.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the nature of humanity during a philosophy class.
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.
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?
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.
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?
They believe themselves Lucifer's equals, Cain, all these pitiful little gnats. But there is only one that we have ever owned to be our superior. There is but one greater than us, and to him... to him we no longer speak.
Can one alter oneΒ΄s chief feature?" asked someone else. First it is necessary to know it. If you know it, much will depend on the quality of your knowing. If you know it well, then it is possible to change it.
To use for our exclusive benefit what is not ours is theft.
When death comes, he respects neither age nor merit. He sweeps from the earthly existence the sick and the strong, the rich and the poor, and should teach us to live to be prepared for death.
I am convinced that human life is filled with many pure, happy, serene examples of insincerity, truly splendid of their kind-of people deceiving one another without (strangely enough) any wounds being inflicted, of people who seem unaware even that they are deceiving one another.
All the principles of heaven and earth are living inside you. Life itself is truth, and this will never change. Everything in heaven and earth breathes. Breath is the thread that ties creation together.
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