All Descended From Monkeys

Vladimir Solovyov's quip 'man is descended from monkeys therefore let us love one another!' (which has, incidentally, definitely gained something in the translation) isn't really a quip at all. We should take it seriously. Not because we revere ancestors so much that the scientific demonstration of a common ancestor to all humankind makes us all brothers and sisters -- on the contrary, precisely because we want to put distance between ourselves and our ancestors. To stop, in a phrase, throwing our own shit at one another, screeching and baring our teeth. Because we want to live differently to the way we used to; to live like human beings.