Sometimes I look at the people around me, and I realize we’re just monkeys wearing clothes. So much of our daily lives revolve around the same things as our presumed primate ancestors. Dominance, competition, hierarchy, sociability, and grooming. We are social animals, and the social element permeates all things. Why do musicians or actors perform? For the love of music or drama? Maybe, but mostly for the love of performance. The desire to be paid attention to. If it was for love of music they would play and listen only for themselves. We live in a social world. Most of our activities engage our social activities: blogging, reading books about fictional others, watching others on television, eating with others. Society has a life of its own and imposes its own order outside the individual. For proof of this, observe how difficult it is to violate fundamental social taboos. Try showing up to work naked, for example. We cannot be true individuals and remain in society. All social groups have their own rules. It’s just a question of which group to belong to.
We don’t have to listen to the same story society tells us, even if we like it so much that we’ve built it into the social fabric.
“We sit here staring at your pomp and pout Outside the bars we use for keeping you out”
Good article. I’ve read a few of his Uplift books I think.
I think it gives good info about the writer. And nothing
No need to be oblique, *sshole.