Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract Whether presented as sociopolitical goals or as fundamental assumptions about the world and human beings’ place in it, notions of regularity, order, and stability prove to be key in weaving together descriptive and normative discourses of the human-animal binary. Also crucial is the way we imagine the nature of unarranged worlds, namely, “the state of nature” and “distant antiquity.” As the contrast between Spinoza and the Zhuangzi suggests, gloomy versus sunny imageries of humanity and animality in distant pasts are as much about what orderliness and institutional governmentality represent as they are about one’s attitude toward the “logic of scarcity,” which anticipates competition over resources. The conclusion thus reflects on this key question: To what extent is the fear of social disorder traceable to the elites’ fear of the poor and their projection of an “animal-like” competitive antagonism on the rest of society?