Psalms 8: “Thou madest him [man] to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas.” The emphasis—that beasts of the field are things—is in the original.

I am only so beautiful as the character of my relationships, only so rich as I enrich those around me, only so alive as I enliven those I greet.

Just as at Auschwitz, or in other situations of perpetual trauma, circumstances can be created in which people are so oppressed and their options so narrowly circumscribed that it pays to exploit others, to make certain that they themselves get the easier job or the last scrap of potato, to make certain they can hop like a frog longer than the peop

We would be better off if we were to act in our own best interest. No one benefitted from my childhood. No one benefits from rape. Hitler benefited no one, not even himself. Who benefits from the production of plutonium? Who benefits from the production of weapons of mass destruction? Who benefits from the use of pesticides? Who benefits from the e

Paliyans, indigenous forest hunters of India, for whom “independence of authority is a treasured right. Neither spouse can order the other, and neither, by virtue of sex or age, is entitled to a greater voice in matters of mutual concern.” It took me another fifteen minutes to find that the Bushmen live—or rather used to, before they were civilized

I thought, of course this is my business. The child doesn’t belong to you; she belongs to herself. She deserves to be treated with respect, honor, love, and tenderness. We all do. I

“Now a question: Pretend we’re children two generations hence, and defend your actions to us. Tell us why we shouldn’t hate you for destroying our world.”

In the eighteenth century, de Crévecoeur wrote, “As long as we keep ourselves busy tilling the earth, there is no fear of any of us becoming wild.”

In Letters From an American Farmer, Michel Guillaume Jean de Crévecoeur noted: “There must be in the Indians’ social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans.” Benjamin Frankli