Aswad
Posts: 9374
Joined: 4/4/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
As a feral human I take umbrige at that remark.
As something in between feral and civil, I hold that thick skin is a fine thing if one can't be bothered to consider a statement in its proper context. But, fine, I shall clarify the supposed umbrage to spare you the onus of taking it. Bear in mind for the duration that I do not see the term 'animal' as negatively connoted, nor see being 'civilized' as a merit. Indeed, methinks the latter could- in its colloquial use- be considered domestication, as I will now expound.
Defining 'animal' as a point in a terrain of the states of a human, we may obtain a domain of classification by introducing two vectors in this terrain. One leads to civilization. The other, to domestication. I posit that both divergences from the animal state can be said to extend equally far from the origin. Arguably, in the evolutionary span of our species and those with which we have been entangled since the neolithic dawn, men have been led down one path, animals down another. Women have varied substantially, being originally treated as livestock in the era of interest, but the modern western culture has seen the genders converge again.
I posit the principal difference between the two divergences is to whom one is domesticated.
The livestock slave, of a sort akin to what I referenced in the post at which you took umbrage, is domesticated to the individual, as were at one point all women and many men. The 'civilized' are instead domesticated to the collective. It is interesting to note that even the physical markers are present. For instance, just as many of the distinguishing traits of a dog- as compared to a wolf- are retentions of juvenile traits, so too are humans increasingly spending their lives in a physical state of adolescence in direct correlation to 'civilization', and increasingly favoring juvenile traits in most areas of social selection.
You and I may perhaps favor a point closer to the middle of the aforementioned triangle, and might find either form of domestication undesireable for ourselves, but to the vast majority of the modern western population this state is simply what is called being civilized, and it is held nearly universally to be a good thing. I disagree, not just with the value judgment, but also the attendant implication that civilization is something it is negative to 'lack'. I also get that a majority will mean to convey a negative value judgment when applying the term 'animal' to a human, but I try to take it as a complement (correct observation, different valueset), rather than be offended. From your post, I take it our difference, then, is in what connotation was read (or, in my case, written) into the words in the post you replied to. Hopefully, this has clarified my position.
If those two assumptions hold, then it would seem that our differences are resolved.
IWYW
- Aswad.
_____________________________
"If God saw what any of us did that night, he didn't seem to mind.
From then on I knew: God doesn't make the world this way.
We do." -- Rorschack, Watchmen.
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RE: submissive user names- What does the term pig slave... - 
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