The truism humans are animals is revolutionary because western culture denies it

Evidence

The contemporary human and environmental crisis underlines the cultural centrality of the reason/nature story, and the urgency of resolving the western network of dualisms. Much modern environmental wisdom from such thinkers as David Suzuki has as its main theme the message that humans are animals and have the same dependence on a healthy biosphere as other forms of life. On the surface, it is puzzling that an apparent truism should find so much resistance and should need to be stressed so much. But the reason why this message of continuity and dependency is so revolutionary in the context of the modern world is that the dominant strands of western culture have for so long denied it, and have given us a model of human identity as only minimally and accidentally connected to the earth. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 51

Categorization

• XREF: Why ‘humans are animals’ meets resistance — connects to continuity/difference theme and to the eco-justice pedagogy framing that treats connection-to-earth as a contested claim. — connects to: Rejecting reason-nature dualism must not banish the mechanical to a new lower class — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 504; Humans reframe their animal biology as culture to deny mortal embodiment — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 611; Cultures regulate body functions to deny their animal nature — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 553 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Humans reframe their animal biology as culture to deny mortal embodiment #expands (0.85) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 611
• Cultures regulate body functions to deny their animal nature #exemplifies (0.82) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 553
• Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human #expands (0.78)
• Pre-modern peoples understood humans and animals as one reversible cycle #contradicts (0.75) — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 435