Showing posts with label Pratchett. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pratchett. Show all posts

Monday, August 16, 2010

If not human, what else?

If there's one message that really sticks in my head after reading Pratchett's books, it's that the human race truly is the most astoundingly monstrous of all, not least because we don't realise it most of the time.

When someone does something shockingly cruel or twisted, we like to say how inhuman he or she is - but that doesn't make any sense, because no other living thing that we know of could possibly do such things. Oh, they often rip each other's guts out, sure, but the intent behind it is completely different. They do so as part of their natural programming. Only human beings could be so sick as to hurt other beings in the way we have done, so malicious as to do so deliberately, so ignorant as to do so in high spirits, and so arrogant as to call such acts "inhuman".

So what is "human"? Are only kind, caring acts of goodness human? Only what is morally right is human?

The drawn-out, cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a woman with her child watching from a ringside seat is every bit as human as a donation to disaster victims. It would be nothing but conceit to deny that. With the good... comes the bad.

Results're in two days. I can't breathe.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

wisdom...

"Hey mister, jigajig toot sweet all same Number Three."

...is knowing a foreign language. Hahahahah.

I do so love the works of Sir Pratchett - favourite Discworld inhabitants being Esmerelda Weatherwax, Gytha Ogg, Havelock Vetinari, Mustrum Ridcully, Tiffany Aching and (as if anyone could ever, ever forget) the Nac Mac Feegle.

I Shall Wear Midnight will be out in September! OH, THE AGONY.

OH, THE EXCESSIVE CAPITALISATION.