For instance, there is a common tendency in contemporary discourse to reduce humans to rational calculators—reducing the person to the brain and the brain to a fleshy computer. A practitioner in artificial intelligence might say that they have trained their AI in the same way people train themselves. But even for complex systems, like AI, they use percentages, variables, and weights to determine some solution. When we have computers that seem to do very different things—a basic calculator versus an AI that answers your questions about pop culture references—they are working the same way underneath the surface. Different computers only really vary quantitatively, in how well they calculate, and any other perceived differences are only a different skin on the same underlying logic. If we focus on this “human as computer” mindset we may become blind to the fact that humans vary more in our “basic programming” than different computers do. Individual humans have many qualitative differences between us. 

By picturing human individuals as different animals, we can underline the qualitative differences between them. Neither a fox nor a donkey is simply better or more powerful than the other. We cannot arrange them along a single axis. They are robustly different in their ways of being in the world. Reynard the fox, who is built for speed and cunning, cannot act in the world in the same way as Baldwin the donkey, who is built for bearing burdens. Chanticleer, the stubborn rooster, must be loud and grandiose. Humans may not have individual biologies, but we all know that Richard and Barbara can be as unlike one another as Reynard and Baldwin—and not simply as unlike as a PC and a Mac or (a more dangerous error) a TI-84 and IBM’s Watson. As logical creatures, we bear some resemblance to the logical processes we have created, but as living creatures we bear resemblance to the other living creatures in our world, too.

But while all animals are equal, not all animal metaphors are. Perhaps a more appealing metaphor for human nature than computers is that of a beehive. Beehives are beautiful and logical, with their honeycomb and their efficiency. Indeed, the beehive is a great model for accomplishing a single goal. But that is exactly why the beehive is a poor model for human nature. Bees are able to survive and work together because they are single-minded—each bee has a role in the hive, and it exists only to achieve that role. The hive has a hierarchy of roles, from queen to drone, and nothing matters other than the hive’s primary goal of continued survival. Do bees accomplish an impressive amount, quantitatively speaking? Absolutely. But they lack the breadth of human purpose. Humans do not exist only for the singular purpose of continuing society. Rather, human natures differ enough that different people are made to accomplish different goals and multiple goals, and we do not exist in an absolute hierarchy. 

The animals in the Reynard stories have complex relationships and depend upon each other for more than just their survival. Life for the animals is more than accomplishing their job in order to keep the kingdom alive. Cookie the mouse depends upon Tybert for emotional support after the loss of his family, and Tybert depends on animals like Cookie for his restaurant to stay in business. Wirke the bull depends upon his friend Cuthbert the hare, both for the purpose of bettering the defensive structures around the animal capital and for saving his hide, so to speak, from exile if not execution when his place in government is threatened. In a society focused on one thing, say, making honey, any accomplishment other than making honey is only a distraction from if not a detriment to the needs of the whole. Human flourishing, however, depends upon the natures and vocations of every person. People have roles in achieving different common goals, but no person is defined only by one of those goals.

Animal fables offer a lens for understanding different human natures that aligns with the Apostle Paul’s metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12. Paul first describes the different gifts, services, and activities of individuals while emphasizing the same God is behind them all. He then gives us a metaphor that people are members of one body, with different roles to play but a strong interdependence. If we were like computers, we would be a body composed only of heads, which could not function. If we were like a beehive, we would be a body that could walk, but no part nor the whole would truly flourish–the hands would not use their skills of crafting and the mouth would not sing. In the animal kingdom, though, Reynard can only be crafty and clever in the midst of the other animals. He depends on them for survival, and they depend on him. While Reynard chooses to use his abilities for his own selfish goals, we can imagine a world where Reynard uses his wit and his charisma to guide and inspire the animals to live in harmony. We can imagine “The Everything Fox” ending with Reynard alive, working out peace treaties between animals, instead of dying drunk and leaving society in ruin. The folktales of Reynard demonstrate the consequences of selfish desire and the difficulty the body can have in working together. Our response to this should be to recognize our differences as strengths. We should embrace our own roles as parts of the body and appreciate the roles of others, even if we struggle to understand them.