It hints at the true state of human knowledge.
The Syrian government has regularly dismissed reports accusing the state of human rights abuses.
But the more pressing anxiety is over the sheer sorry state of human nature.
A dying patient is in the most vulnerable (and final) state of human existence.
In Detroit, Adam grows despondent about the stale state of human culture.
He was on an overseas visit for the council, assessing the state of human rights in Poland, when he died.
Imperfection being the inevitable state of human projects, the imagery at the end is always blurred and bloody.
In certain ways, the very setting of the World Economic Forum reflects the restless, challenged state of human affairs.
"We are not interested in taking money from Ethiopia when it is in such a desperate state of human need," he said.
"They think there's something out there called the natural state of human beings, against which we juxtapose these supposedly artificial manipulations".
He did this by declaring, in his Leviathan, that the natural state of human life was one of ceaseless "war of all against all".
