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About this quote

What does it mean?
The quote criticizes the view of humanity as a single monolithic entity with a unified future.
In plain terms
Humanity is not one single group with one future.
What can you take from it?
Avoid seeing humanity as a single uniform entity with one future.

Where it applies

  • political theory
  • social analysis
  • ideological debate

Putting it to work

  • question collective narratives
  • analyze political rhetoric

Questions to consider

  • What myths about humanity do you hold?
  • How is diversity recognized?

Another view

Some collective identities are necessary for social cohesion.

More from Simone De Beauvoir

  1. I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.

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  2. It was said that I refused to grant any value to the maternal instinct and to love. This was not so. I simply asked that women should experience them truthfull…

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  3. Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it. Psychiatrists have told me that the…

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