Daily Inspiration Quote by Neil LaBute

Neil LaBute’s line lands like a shrug with a knife in it: not “we can be cruel,” but “we are” - and “fairly” does the sly work of understatement. It’s the director’s version of a content warning delivered deadpan. LaBute isn’t diagnosing human nature from a philosopher’s perch; he’s framing an aesthetic program. His films and plays (In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things) thrive on social situations where civility is less a virtue than a costume, easily dropped when desire, status, or boredom enters the room.

The intent is both permission and indictment. By calling us “a fairly barbarous bunch,” LaBute lowers the moral ceiling: don’t expect redemption arcs or soft landings. The phrase “bunch” is casually collective, almost buddy-comic, which makes the barb sharper. It implicates everyone, including the speaker. No villains with special pathology - just ordinary people performing small violences with plausible deniability. That’s the subtext: barbarism doesn’t require blood; it can look like flirtation, “honesty,” a prank, a critique delivered at the right angle to bruise.

Contextually, it fits a late-20th/early-21st century cultural mood in which self-interest is normalized and cruelty gets repackaged as authenticity. LaBute’s work often treats modern intimacy as a battleground of power, where the most frightening thing isn’t monstrousness but how quickly the group agrees it’s normal. The line isn’t misanthropy for its own sake; it’s a challenge to the audience’s appetite for comfort, asking whether our manners are morals or just lighting.