The distinctions between good and evil creatures

Clearly, the distinctions we make between good and evil creatures change over time. We might move the boundaries that separate allies from enemies, but we still draw the lines somewhere. If we achieved even-handedness, we would view all species as having some role in the biosphere and try to keep the food chain balanced. Our biases, however, are commonly extreme. As our folklore changes over time, popular culture can grow sympathetic and admiring, or else disdainful, as when the Spanish colonist of the Caribbean Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo explained, the sloth is “the stupidest animal that can be found in the world,” and the later English explorer William Dampier sought to correct the sloths’ defects: “ I have tried by whipping them; but they seem insensible, and can neither be frightened or provoked to move faster” (Cooke, 52). War and Peace with the Beasts