“Man’s inhumanity to man…”

THE WORDS BURNS BURNT INTO OUR LANGUAGE: “Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn!”        Robert Burns (1759-1796)        Scottish poet and lyricist        “Man Was Made to Mourn: A Dirge” (1784), stanza 7        The phrase “man’s inhumanity to man” was coined in this poem, written by Burns in 1784. It was included in his first book of poetry, Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, also known as the Kilmarnock edition. That volume, published in 1786, made Burns famous and contains several poems that gave us immortal phrases, including: “man’s inhumanity to man,” “the best laid schemes of mice and men” (from “To a Mouse”) and “to see ourselves as others see us” (from “To a Louse” ).        “Man Was Made to Mourn” reflects Burns’ antipathy toward the social and economic caste system that had been imposed on Scotland by Great Britain, which created a huge, poor, disenfranchised underclass and benefited a relatively small number of wealthy landowners and businessmen. The poem also seems to subtly reflect Burns’ support for Scottish independence — a radical position at the time.

A MODERATE MUSLIM'S VIEW OF ISIS: “The story of ISIS is not about Islam, it is about the universal human story of cruelty and man’s inhumanity to man, whether it be ISIS, Nazism, fascism or pure hatred of others. Intolerance and arrogance mixed with power and politics has caused most wars.”        Alia Hogben        Executive Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women        In an op-ed published by The Kingston Whig-Standard, October 8, 2014        (Cartoon by artist Steve Greenberg)

THE ANTI-APARTHEID ACTIVIST’S ANTIDOTE: “There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.”        Alan Paton (1903-1988)        South African writer and anti-apartheid activist        From his essay “The Challenge of Fear,” originally published in the Saturday Review, September 9, 1967

THE ANARCHIST’S ANTIDOTE: “Revolution is the negation of the existing, a violent protest against man’s inhumanity to man with all the thousand and one slaveries it involves. It is the destroyer of dominant values upon which a complex system of injustice, oppression, and wrong has been built up by ignorance and brutality.”         Emma Goldman (1869-1940)        Russian-born social activist and anarchist        In her book My Disillusionment in Russia (1925)

A FEMINIST’S PERSPECTIVE: “Given the reality of female oppression, how women treat each other matters more, not less...I am not saying that woman’s inhumanity to woman is on the same level as man’s inhumanity to woman; it is not. But women have enormous influence over each other; we have the power to encourage each other to either resist or to collaborate with tyranny.”        Phyllis Chesler        Pioneering feminist and Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at City University of New York        In the introduction of her book Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman (2009)

THE ANIMALS’ PERSPECTIVE: “Man’s inhumanity to man has received a lot of press, but man’s inhumanity to animals is worse, by far, if such a thing can be imagined. It is remarkable that animals will have anything whatever to do with us.”        D. V. Barrett         In the book Little Thoughts, Big Oughts (2001)

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Related reading…

A man’s (and a girl’s) best friends...

THE ORIGIN OF “MAN’S BEST FRIEND”: “The best friend a man has...is his dog.”        George Graham Vest (1830-1904)        American lawyer and politician        These words are from Vest’s summation in the trial of a sheep farmer who shot and killed his neighbor’s dog, Old Drum. The trial was held at the Johnson County Courthouse in Warrensburg, Missouri on September 23, 1870. Vest’s client, the broken-hearted owner of Old Drum, had sued the farmer for compensation. Vest brought the jury to tears when he said:        “The best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith…The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.”        The first six words of that paragraph, combined with the last three — “The best friend a man has...is his dog” — is traditionally credited as the origin of the dog-lovers’ saying we know today: “A dog is a man’s best friend.” (Sometimes given as “A man’s best friend is his dog.”)  You can read more about the Old Drum case in this post on my This Day In Quotes site.

THE MARX-FLAVORED VARIATION: “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”       Groucho Marx (1890-1977)        Legendary American comedian        This quip has been credited to Groucho since the 1970s. However, as noted in a post on the great Quote Investigator site, it doesn’t appear in his movies or written works and a similar joke was published in the February 1954 issue of Boys’ Life magazine, so he probably didn’t coin it.

THE INTENTIONALLY CREEPY VERSION: “A boy’s best friend is his mother.”        Actor Anthony Perkins, as the character Norman Bates, in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Psycho (1960)

THE UNINTENTIONALLY CREEPY VERSION: “Whoever said, ‘A dog is man’s best friend’ must have been a single fellow. As helpful and useful as all of God's creation would be to man, none of these animals were socially, intellectually, or sexually compatible to man.”        From “At The Beginning: A Study of Marriage”         An article posted on the Christian “electronic magazine” called “The Expository Files.” (Which are not related to The X Files…Or are they?)

THE GIRLS CLICHÉ IMMORTALIZED BY MARILYN: “A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, But diamonds are a girl’s best friend.”        From the song “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” written by songwriters Jule Styne and Leo Robin        This great song comes from the 1949 Broadway musical Gentleman Prefer Blondes, which was adapted from the 1925 book Gentleman Prefer Blondes, written by Anita Loos. It was introduced by Carol Channing in the original Broadway production. But for many people, the most remembered and iconic version was performed by Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film version of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

THE COUNTERQUOTE TO THE GIRLS  CLICHÉ: “Whoever said diamonds are a girl’s best friend never had a dog.”        A dog-lovers’ quote of anonymous origin that has reached meme level status in the Internet.        (The girls in the photo are my wife BJ and our dog Barbie Boo.)

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Related reading and viewing…

“I am not an animal!”

FAMOUS MOVIE QUOTE: “I am not an animal!  I am a human being!”        John Hurt as John Merrick, “The Elephant Man”        In the film version of The Elephant Man (1980)        Based on the 1977 play by Bernard Pomerance

THE PENGUIN’S COUNTERQUOTE: Danny DeVito (as The Penguin): “I am not a human being. I am an animal!”        In the movie Batman Returns (1992)

NIETZCHE’S VERSION: “I am not a human being. I am dynamite.”        German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)        Ecce Homo (written in 1888, published in 1908)

THE PRODUCERS’ VERSION: Gene Wilder (as Leo Bloom): “Actors are not animals. They’re human beings.” Zero Mostel (as Max Bialystock): “They are? Have you ever eaten with one?”         In Mel Brooks’ movie The Producers (1968)

MST3K VARIATION: Tom Servo: “I am not an animal. I am a rubber model!”        One of the quips Tom made on Mystery Science Theater 3000 while watching a stop-motion dinosaur in the 1951 movie, Lost Continent

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