Traditionally, the essential defining trait of humanity, what distinguishes us from the other animals, is free will. Whereas animals are fixed in their behaviors beyond a limited range of options, we may choose, for better or worse. I suspect the contrast has been exaggerated, that animals are not so limited as they are said to be. Animal behavior has always been interpreted reductively out of bias, out of a need to establish human superiority and to rationalize animals’ killing and mistreatment. But there is still a limited truth to it. Or so we think until we look around us and see millions of people possessed by herd mentality in a way that no animals would be guilty of. Not that it is a new observation or a new phenomenon: in Swift’s
October 7, 2022
October 7, 2022
October 7, 2022
Traditionally, the essential defining trait of humanity, what distinguishes us from the other animals, is free will. Whereas animals are fixed in their behaviors beyond a limited range of options, we may choose, for better or worse. I suspect the contrast has been exaggerated, that animals are not so limited as they are said to be. Animal behavior has always been interpreted reductively out of bias, out of a need to establish human superiority and to rationalize animals’ killing and mistreatment. But there is still a limited truth to it. Or so we think until we look around us and see millions of people possessed by herd mentality in a way that no animals would be guilty of. Not that it is a new observation or a new phenomenon: in Swift’s