Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.?

Question

Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.

- Mark Twain, American writer

What does it mean ?

Answer 1

I believe he's saying that only men (humans in general) do things that would make them blush. We don't work on instinct, like animals, so we've created things that are taboo or embarrassing, and those usually cause blushing.

As it's Twain, it might be a jibe at the horrible things that humans can do to each other; animals are less complicated, so they have less scope for things like emotional harm.

Answer 2

we don't KNOW for sure that man is the only animal that blushes. however, taking Twain's word for it, here goes -

human's have the largest [relative to body size] brain with high level of intellectual And moral development & thinking capacity. the morals ingrained in us right from birth enables us to distinguish Right from Wrong. so when we have done/said something that our conscience Knows shouldn't have been, our blood rushes to the cheeks resulting into a blush. it is the overt reaction to our inward embarassment/guilt. the realization/understanding that our action is not socially or morally acceptable & may even have some consequences generates the Need to blush.

never thought of it before, but seems to me our 'conscience'/superego is connected to the blood vessels in our cheeks via the brain & nervous system !

hope this helped ;-)

Answer 3

  man means  human he descibe man as an animal

animal means human is the first creatures ..  

Answer 4

Humans are the only animals that are/should be embarrassed about our behavior. I'm pretty sure that's what he meant.  

Answer 5

I think it means that Mankind are the only species on earth that can embarrass themselves so much that they need to blush because we are so bumbling and stupid lol

It's kind of hard to explain =S

x

Answer 6

Mark Twain was being coy.  He's saying that man is the only animal that lushes.  Fine, we'll take him at his word.  That's not the important part anyway.

He's the only one that needs to.

Well why do we blush?  We blush when we are ashamed or embarrassed.  We feel that way because of our exaggerated self interest and ego.  Since  only mankind is arrogant enough to feel that way, we are the only animal that "needs" to blush."