Delusional pain hurts just as much as pain from actual trauma. So what if it's all in your head?
Octavia E. ButlerRead
In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People will create divisions based on differences, whether racial, religious, or otherwise, to justify exclusion or disdain.
Octavia E. Butler's quote explores the innate tendency of humans to categorize and alienate one another, even in the absence of obvious differences such as race or religion. It suggests that the inclination to find reasons for division is deeply rooted in human nature, highlighting a persistent flaw in societal interactions where people seek scapegoats or targets for their biases.
Themes
DivisionBiasExclusionHuman NaturePrejudice
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about social justice, one might use this quote to illustrate the persistent nature of discrimination.
More from Octavia E. Butler
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My characters hope for better lives.
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I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
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When I was 7 and went to the zoo with my second-grade class, I saw chimpanzee eyes for the first time - the eyes of an unhappy animal, all alone, locked in a bare, concrete-floored, iron-barred cage in one of the nastier, old-fashioned zoos. I remember looking at the chimp, then looking away.
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The lovely thing about writing is, well, two things. One, writing fiction allows us to bring an order to our lives that doesn't exist in real life. And two, it allows us to create human characters that we know better than we will ever know anyone in real life.
Octavia E. ButlerRead
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