Sublime

female mammals, and primates in particular, being able to work effectively in a social environment is much more important for their reproductive success than anything

In himself man is essentially a beast, only he butters it over like a slice of bread with a little decorum.

There was Captain Peter Moore, a small man, Dalí's business manager, on the end of a lead being led by an ocelot

Each of us is sewn by invisible threads into the superorganism. We are cells in the beast of family, company, and country. If those social ties are severed we begin to shrivel and die. There’s more. Hard work and the pursuit of challenge have seldom been demonstrated to hurt us, but we can be damaged powerfully by the lack of control. And without s

The usefulness of this strategy depends on women being able to identify those who might be likely and effective mate poachers and then excluding them (but not others) from their social circles. If a woman indiscriminately distances herself and her partner from potential poachers (i.e., all other women), she is assured of his fidelity but at the cos

As Ehrenreich argues, collective and ecstatic dancing is a nearly universal “biotechnology” for binding groups together.7 She agrees with McNeill that it is a form of muscular bonding. It fosters love, trust, and equality. It was common in ancient Greece (think of Dionysus and his cult) and in early Christianity (which she says was a “danced” relig

Selfish Gene

The simians raised without social contact frequently sat in a corner of their cage, curled into a ball, their eyes staring emptily into space, and chewed at their own skin, gouging themselves until they bled. That is intropunitive behavior.