Humanity

There Are Two Kinds Of People.

Those of us who are right, and those of you who are wrong.

Jim Marcotte
Human Parts
Published in
5 min readJun 20, 2024

--

Picture of a group of red pawns together, and a single black pawn set off to the side.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

There are two kinds of people: those who love two kinds of people sayings, and those who hate them.

Personally, I love them. Occasionally there is remarkable wisdom to be found, but more often a snide, albeit laser-focused, commentary on our foibles as a species. Sometimes enlightening, always entertaining.

We humans love to break things down into either/or. It is or it isn’t. But don’t blame it on simple minds, instead blame it on genetics. Survival. Tribal leanings. A dichotomy-based worldview was a useful tool eons ago, one that allowed our species to see another morning.

We were uncomfortably low on the food chain and danger was everywhere. When a leopard dropped from the tree, no neanderthal was debating the proper socially acceptable course of action, or its effect on the environment.

There were two kinds of people: the quick, and the dead.

Danger/not danger. My tribe/my enemy. Run/fight. Complexity kills. Those lessons, and the accompanying reactions, are still with us. Our “reptile brain.” Or “gut.” However, we have evolved (most of us), and don’t need to spear everything we think threatens us, or perhaps we just don’t…

--

--

Jim Marcotte
Jim Marcotte

Written by Jim Marcotte

Optimistic malcontent. Part curmudgeon, part chameleon. Fountain of knowledge/some of it true. Copywriter, licensing agent, marketer, dog person.