Let's play with a muddled mess of thinking that I haven't even come close to thinking all the way through. I say from time to time that all humans are animals and some of us are people. It occurs to me that not only have I not very much elaborated, but that I haven't even mentioned that it isn't at all an original idea. It was original when I came up with it, but probably only because my culture retains some realism even as it has largely succumbed to the rather novel ideas of universality and blank slate sorts of theories. I'm not sure where analytic philosophy came from, not the source of its opposite, but let's just toss out that analytics is the effort to express, as clearly as possible, what IS; and its opposite is to express, as generally--universally--what OUGHT to be. I think it was Hume who is credited with making the "is-ought" distinction. God help me, I think it was Marx who set the foundations for why I say that all of us are animals, and some of us are people.

I'm currently trying to wade through Plato's Republic. Plato is often said to be an idealist, but I'm not so sure that's true. His character Socrates is an idealist and Plato uses the starry-eyed asshole to explore the idea of what ought to be by exploring the myriad ways by which a brilliant, ignorant, skeptical prick (Socrates) might poke holes into dogmatic cultural renditions of the stories of what IS. Socrates (the brilliant prick) uses a scorched earth version of critical questioning, and critically, critical theorizing, to demonstrate that most of our experts--as well as most of us generally--don't know shit from applebutter about either what is OR what ought. All of us are animals, existing within a complicated framework of reality--one we'll never really know the Whole Truth about--that IS, and some of us are people trying to figure out and formulate an idea of--and then instantiate--what ought.

The degree to which each of us is people depends on many, MANY factors, ranging by ability, environment, and give-a-shit. Some of us are simply too dim to do much more than maybe get hungry and then feed. We're all animals in that regard. And even those most base of us--some, anyway--both breed and contribute where allowed and facilitated. Some of us--to lesser and greater degrees--attempt to envision and work toward a better station. Some even do it on behalf of posterity, and some manage to do it in tribute and gratitude to their forebears.

All of us are nails, hammered into oblivion by reality, lucky to have left behind a seed. Some of us plant trees so that generations to come may sit in their shade. Some burn away the choking rubbish and undergrowth of the forest so that new trees can flourish. Some of us endure the flames and become the scarred old trees that eventually fuel the flame of renewal.

Some of us are people.