From the author’s website, “Monkey, Defined.”
In the context of this book, a monkey is defined as a person that chooses to collectively seize, by unearned means, the property, material or intellectual, temporal or spiritual, of its rightful owner. The means employed may be fiat, guilt, force, theft, fraud, subterfuge, or anything other than a willing and negotiated exchange of value.
In our modern world, each person is given the opportunity to make a conscious choice whether to be monkeys or men.
Conspicuously absent from this definition is race, birth, gender, heritage, cultural influences, or any factor other than that singular deliberate decision.
But men choose to live their lives upon their own merit. It is this very spirit of independence of thought and action that makes men the prey of the monkey collective.
As such, monkeys abandon their claim to the rights of men.
But monkeys could just as easily choose not to, and become men themselves.
http://www.starvingthemonkeys.com/MonkeyDefined.html
The three-legged stool of understanding is held up by history, languages, and mathematics. Equipped with these three you can learn anything you want to learn. But if you lack any one of them you are just another ignorant peasant with dung on your boots.
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Lazarus Long, Time Enough For Love