Oct 21, 2026 05:30 PM
(This post was last modified: Oct 21, 2026 05:38 PM by Magical Realist.)
I would say most of our being human isn't really innate to us. Send a man out into the wild to live for a year and see how long he stays human. Instinctively speaking we are all driven to be animals. I think being human otoh, in the purely categorical and generic sense it's come to mean, is mostly transmitted to us unconsciously by our living in human society which is itself nested inside a human world. The going to the store. The TV shows. The driving in traffic. The political news. The advertising. The movies. The concerts and festivals. The spectator sports. The fast food places and coffee drive-thrus. Our neighborhoods. Our laws. The internet now where we collectively opine and dramatize on every conceivable triviality. We are humanized by our being constantly engaged with humanizing places and routines and events. Our humanity constantly being replenished osmotically from this assimilating system of exclusively cued and public conduct.