"Some people are uncomfortable with the idea that humans belong to the same class of animals as cats and cows and raccoons. They're like the people who become successful and then don't want to be reminded of the old neighborhood"

Many people bristle at being placed alongside cats, cows, or raccoons because they depend on a story of exceptionalism to anchor human dignity. The discomfort is less about biology than about status. If we are animals, then our specialness seems threatened; we become vulnerable to the same appetites, frailties, and mortal limits we project onto other creatures. Donahue’s analogy to the newly successful who shun their old neighborhood captures the psychology: upward mobility often invites a selective amnesia that distances us from origins deemed ordinary or embarrassing. Human exceptionalism can function the same way, a status performance that reassures us we are above the rest.

That denial carries ethical consequences. When people elevate humanity beyond the animal continuum, it becomes easier to rationalize exploitation, factory farming, habitat destruction, casual cruelty, because those lives are framed as lesser. We indulge in cognitive dissonance: we cherish a cat while ignoring the cow, admire wildlife on screens while vilifying raccoons in our alleys. The category lines we draw often mirror class boundaries: who counts, who is disposable, who gets empathy.

Accepting our place among animals need not diminish human achievements. It reframes them as an extension of shared capacities, social bonds, problem-solving, care for young, rather than a miraculous exemption from nature. That perspective invites humility: our intelligence is remarkable, but it is not a passport out of the web of life. It also broadens moral concern. Seeing kinship does not erase differences; it tempers superiority with responsibility.

Remembering the “old neighborhood” of our animal origins can be a form of maturity. It acknowledges that the qualities we prize, creativity, cooperation, resilience, have roots in the living world we share. From that stance, stewardship replaces dominion, curiosity replaces contempt, and compassion stops at fewer borders. We are not less for belonging; we are more accountable.