“What was man before the invention of words and the knowledge of language? An animal..”

p, 125
Man a Machine (1747)

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Julien Offray de La Mettrie 42
French physician and philosopher 1709–1751

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Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
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Context: O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
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Endless invention, endless experiment,
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All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
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“Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced.”

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Context: Now, as the inferior animals were all in being before man, there was language upon earth long ere the history of our race commenced. The only additional fact in the history of language, which was produced by our creation, was the rise of a new mode of expression—namely that by sound-signs produced by the vocal organs. In other words, speech was the only novelty in this respect attending the creation of the human race.

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Context: Beckett shows death; his people are in dustbins or waiting for God. (Beckett will be cross with me for mentioning God, but never mind.) Similarly, in my play The New Tenant, there is no speech, or rather, the speeches are given to the Janitor. The Tenant just suffocates beneath proliferating furniture and objects — which is a symbol of death. There were no longer words being spoken, but images being visualized. We achieved it above all by the dislocation of language. … Beckett destroys language with silence. I do it with too much language, with characters talking at random, and by inventing words.

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“I don’t use the word 'pet.' I think it’s speciesist language. I prefer 'companion animal.”

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For one thing, we would no longer allow breeding. People could not create different breeds. There would be no pet shops. If people had companion animals in their homes, those animals would have to be refugees from the animal shelters and the streets. You would have a protective relationship with them just as you would with an orphaned child. But as the surplus of cats and dogs (artificially engineered by centuries of forced breeding) declined, eventually companion animals would be phased out, and we would return to a more symbiotic relationship — enjoyment at a distance.
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