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Jerry Cagle
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The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their
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“Animals under early domestication received shelter, a diet altered by agriculture, and protection from predators through relative confinement. This reduced their sensory needs, facilitating further domestication. As our domesticated animals settled in for a life of reduced activity and stimulation, so did humans. As people provided safer, more sedentary conditions for their livestock, they did the same for themselves. The confinement was mutual. By moving out of nature and settling onto farms, we became in a real sense just another farm animal.”
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
“Climbing, it turns out, is a nearly perfect vehicle for flow, which may be one of the reasons it has become so popular. For the climber, the goal may be to successfully climb a difficult rock pitch without falling. It is a meaningful, challenging goal that requires skill and focused attention because you will fall off if you fail to hang on. It provides immediate feedback. For the free-solo climber, who chooses to climb the pitch without a rope or protection, the goal is even more meaningful and challenging and requires even more intense focus. The feedback is also starkly clear and immediate—you don’t just fall if you fail to hang on; you probably die.”
― All and Nothing: Inside Free Soloing
― All and Nothing: Inside Free Soloing
“our view of ourselves as postevolutionary, purely cultural creatures, standing outside of selective pressures and in control of our fate is wrong. We tend to think that humans evolved, then stopped evolving and started culture. Far from it. The onset of agriculture and the flowering cultures of civilization were themselves enormous changes in the human environment, massively altering selective pressures. Pressures to maintain a hunter’s size and strength and senses relaxed, while pressure to behave cooperatively, expand social skills, and suppress violent urges intensified.”
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
“Caltech brain researcher John Allman says that through agriculture and other ways of reducing daily hazards of existence, humans domesticated themselves. We now depend on others to provide food and our shelter. We’re a lot like poodles in that regard.”
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
“Domestic creatures don’t need to live by their wits. It behooves them to be accepting of their lot, not uppity. Cows and goats don’t seem very alert to their surroundings; they don’t have to be. And neither do the people who keep them. Archaeologist Colin Groves writes, “Humans have undergone a reduction in environmental awareness in parallel to domestic species and for exactly the same reason.” He explains that domestication is a kind of partnership in which “each partner is, to a degree, sheltered by its association with the other.” Groves says security has cost us a certain dulling of senses, explaining that brain changes have caused in humans “the decline of environmental appreciation.”
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
― Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel
Jerry’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jerry’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
420 books
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17 friends
193 books
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3 friends
61 books
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3 friends
1 book
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163 friends
0 books
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38 friends
0 books
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66 friends
0 books
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185 friends
0 books
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38 friends
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Favorite Genres
Art, Classics, Ebooks, Fiction, History, Non-fiction, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, Science, and Sports
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