A Load of Shit

"What makes shit such a universal joke is that it's an unmistakable reminder of our duality, of our soiled nature and of our will to glory. It is the ultimate lèse-majesté". John Berger's essay begins by describing the experience of burying a year's worth of his household's excrement. What follows is an extended reflection-at once philosophically detached and profoundly engaged with the inescapable stuff of life-on shit as an emblem of what it means to be human: on our simultaneous kinship with and profound difference from all other animals.