Did it start with Jane Goodall? The enterprising anthropologist didn’t just report her amazingly detailed observations of chimpanzees. She pursued an ideology by giving the chimps internal lives and thoughts in her writing in order to make them seem more human.
Now, that approach is all the rage. Barely a week goes by in popular scientific writing these days without some writer mining the meme that animals are really people too.
Latest example, “Watching Whales Watching Us,” by Charles Siebert in the New York Times Magazine. From the article:
Somehow the more we learn about whales, the more we’re coming to appreciate the sublimely discomfiting reality that a kind of parallel “us” has long been out there roaming the oceans’ depths, succumbing to our assaults. Indeed, when that baby gray calf bobbed up out of the sea and held there that first morning, staring at me with his huge, slow-blinking eye, it felt to me as if he were taking one impossibly long and quizzical look in the mirror.
Oh, please: When a writer rockets that far over the top, I lose trust in the entire article. Siebert is clearly smitten. It’s a romance. And when one is emotionally involved with the subject, yearning for something to be true, one will tend to interpret events to make them appear to be what one hopes. (Just ask any man who has fallen in love with the wrong woman.)
Something very strange is going on these days; a desperate desire to personalize and humanize nature, while we are depersonalizing and dehumanizing some humans. It is like the writer I discussed awhile back in a post I called, “Hyenas are People Too,” in which a professor named Deborah Bloom wondered in The New Scientist (of all places) whether she–or a hyena–was the real moral animal. She wrote:
I wish they’d attempted to answer that tricky question that nags at me whenever I study a captive animal. As I stand on the unrestricted side of a fence watching a hyena, and it watches me back with deep, wary eyes, which one of us is really the moral animal?
As I wrote then, we are. And I hate to tell Siebert, but that whale who gave him the eye was unquestionably a magnificent animal who may have been curious. But the writer’s deeply romantic yearning to transform whales into huge versions of us notwithstanding, was quite indifferent to his existence.
What are whales trying to tell us? Not a blessed thing.
July 13th, 2009 | 4:54 am
excuse me for my last rude comments toward you mr. Smith, but you are extremelly biased person. probably because you live in USA (conservative country ruled by democrates now with this mixed guy Obama as president).
Most of americans there suffer from… severe ignorance, why is that? i have a theory: school system in europe is very harsh, kids from first grade have too much information and almost all of the teachers here are females, and they want to see their students to show caring and desire for high education. USA on the other hand is a failed state, its exactly like the last days of USSR. Now Russia is again stable, but USA after 20 years can stabilize. You have only big army, nothing else. Its the same with Turkey, but they are enough intelligent to not make wars with other countries, unlike your government. Many of the teachers in USA are males and even “ghetto” (black gangsta type) males. Dont get me wrong: i am anti-feminist and pro-patriarchal system which is ruled by alpha high sexual males (like Europe), but the education is feminine thing.
sorry for my long post, but here my point: why you assume that we humans are so special and intelligent? arent you open to possibility that whales have fully developed culture and language? Do you belive that Earth is the center of our Universe? idiotic claims like this are not good sign for your intelligence my “friend” (fiend)
July 13th, 2009 | 9:32 am
and…. ummm… i saw something about you.
i am catholic (by religion) but i advocate social darwinism… so as i said, i saw something about your working place, and i have a very simple question – do you believe in evolution?
do you believe that we humans are something “special”, so “unique”? if your answer on my first question is – no and the second – yes… then mr. Smith, you are just another goon
July 13th, 2009 | 10:44 am
PETAgirl: Your philosophy is utterly nonsensical. Social Darwinsism is pure survival of the fittest. It usually applies to humans vis a vis each other, that is no charity, eugenics, etc. Now neo Darwinism says that we all came into being through random processes and that there is no purpose etc.
I believe in human exceptionalism, regardless of whether we evolved out of the ooze accidentally and randomly, were created, were intelligently designed, or a combination of the above. It doesn’t matter. Being human gives us unique rights and special responsibilities. You can do a search of my articles and posts to learn more.
July 13th, 2009 | 11:02 am
yes, i will read your articles. until then.
p.s:
but i dont understand your absolutism mr. Smith. No one can deny that we still need animals in medical labs (except really violent gangs of “green” anarchists which actually are just bunch of sociopathic females/males in their early twenties), but you cant deny that we as social animal group evolve toward complete vegan society: synthetic meat, junk food designed for burning calories, tomatoes with full taste of pizzas and so on…
honestly im asking you – do you belive that forever in human society we gonna need from low-paided jobs (they are actually hobbies and some sort of violent useless “sport”… “sport” as overconsumption of food or “sports” as chess, in another word – pseudo athleticism)
as fishers and hunters? according your vision of future do we still gonna have the need from animal products?
July 13th, 2009 | 12:03 pm
“I wish they’d attempted to answer that tricky question that nags at me whenever I study a captive animal. As I stand on the unrestricted side of a fence watching a hyena, and it watches me back with deep, wary eyes, which one of us is really the moral animal?”
My thought in answer to Ms. Bloom’s musing would be to remove the fence and we might see who is the moral animal. If as is quite likely, the hyena isn’t, then she will be torn to shreds and we can then take the hyena to court and put him back behind the bars for his failure to live up to the moral standards he/she so obviously shares with Ms. Bloom.
Thanks for your blogs, even if it sometimes seems difficult to believe that people actually hold these positions seriously (and I know they do).
I loved the deer looking at me this morning after she trashed our bird feeders, but I am pretty sure she wasn’t asking me if I was offeneded at her lack of interest in my personal property. At best she was only thinking: Do you have more? Seeing nothing in my hands she wandered off into the woods.
July 13th, 2009 | 12:47 pm
OK, let’s have a contest. Let the whale or the chimp write their complaints in an essay and then compare it to an essay written by, let’s say a 10 year old. Or let’s have the chimp and the whale organize and build an advocacy group to represent them in the U.N. (please no humans allowed to participate in the group); or let’s have the whale and the chimp make a work of art so that they can express their feelings about humans; a statue, a painting or why not, even a simple stick figure drwaing.
Of course we can perhaps read the chimp’s or the whale’s written constitution on the matter or perhaps they can invite us into their courts or houses or worship.
Wait, perhaps the chimp is too busy dodging the lions, cheetas or other pedators who would eat him without a single second doubt. Or the whale is busy avoidng the kille whale on the proul. See, these animals show themselves so insensitive to other animals feelings, how can they be so absolutist?
GIVE US A BREAK!
July 13th, 2009 | 1:19 pm
Though PETAgirl’s English syntax needs a little practice, she’s got the technique of ‘ad hominem’ attack down cold.
July 13th, 2009 | 1:54 pm
slow down your arrogance Kathleen…
this blog is yours (Mr. Smith and… what are you by the way – bioethicists? human right activists?… human society dont need protection sweetie), but such open bias and absolutism toward one innocent group of people as PETA activists/members and vegans show sign of severe idiotism… may, may.
nobody from you (psuedo-intellectuals) answer my simple question: do you belive that in early future (70 years are short period) we still gonna need from animal products and usage? dont forget that only before 70 years most parts of the first world had for local transport – animals… so pls, im trying to open your eyes, nothing less, nothing more. and here is the future of the first world: complete veganism.
biotechnology, nanotechnology, syntehtic biology are the key elements for truly animal liberation and in the same time human progress.
i am catholic and supporter of social darwinism: massive human depopulation, severe agression, eugenics, “ethnic hygiene”, mass abortions and suicides for the masses… do you see something wrong with this Kathleen? intelligent people have the same mentality as me… intelligence is not your virtue i suppose.
In europe dont exist problem between religious people and atheists: both groups dont believe in objective reality of supreme being. in USA i assume is different…
July 13th, 2009 | 2:01 pm
PETA girl. Meat is a natural food for people. I highly doubt people will stop eating it in 70years. I respect vegetarianism because it reflects people eschewing natural and enjoyable food for ethical reasons. I compare it to monasticism. It is an example of human exceptoinalism.
Hopefully, we will be able to reduce our use of animals in research within 70 years, but I doubt we will ever be able to do without it–at least not do so and remain ethical.
Glad you think you are intelligent and those with whom you disagree are not. Hubris is one of humankind’s less flattering attributes.
July 13th, 2009 | 2:18 pm
Yes… come to think about it, still gonna have meat-eaters. most of my friends are meat-eaters (actually they are: meat reductionists, but is the same), so probably technology gonna make the killed meat more tasty or even truly “humane”. so yeah, you have a point here.
veganism is ethical choice, this is my way;P
good luck mr. Smith: you are very intelligent and kind person and even if we dont agree in many things we still can get along and be respectfull to each other.
i wish you the best
July 13th, 2009 | 2:25 pm
before i leave:
“I respect vegetarianism because it reflects people eschewing natural and enjoyable food for ethical reasons. I compare it to monasticism. It is an example of human exceptoinalism.”
actually i have articles (real paper, not online) in czech language about the connection between vegetarianism/veganism and catholicism.
if you care and if you are catholic (i doubt since most americans are protestant british or with scandinavian heritage) you may search these sociological articles on google (if somebody translated them of course).
July 13th, 2009 | 3:11 pm
This past February, I had the amazing experience of touching a baby Pacific Gray Whale in Bahía Magdalena. It was incredible that after the initial encounter of 20 minutes the mother and the calf followed our tiny panga for a while. It sure made us appreciate a certain bonding aspect of this specific human-whale interaction.
July 13th, 2009 | 3:35 pm
PETA girl: I enjoyed my visit to the Czech Republic very much. I am not Catholic, but the Church does not have a vegetarian dogma. However, I think that St. Francis is invoked by vegetarian Catholics and others to advocate that position.
VIVKEKANIRAMAN: Yes, I saw a gray whale and her calf very close to a boat on which I was fishing. Awesome experience. As to the bonding, I have a feeling that such things can happen. We always change animals when we have close interactions with them. But whales aren’t “us,” and they are not trying to tell us anything.
July 13th, 2009 | 3:53 pm
It isn’t so much that we can’t answer your questions PETAgirl, but that as Wesley has pointed out above, we don’t agree with you. On the surface, I find that your reading of human present and future undermine your apparent concern for the animals precisely because I disagree with your Social Darwinism.
It is precisely because we believe in human exceptionalism that we care what happens to the animal world. If we weren’t exceptional, the animals wouldn’t have a chance with our powerful hungers that at times appear insatiable. Only because we are unique can we raise the issue of controlling our appetites or of how animals should or should not be used for testing.
I have not the foresight to know what the future will look like. Some of what you predict may come to pass, but predicting the future is not rational business, nor is it an argument that one can be answer.
I have a daughter who is a vegetarian and friends who are as well. I have no opposition to such behavior, but do not believe their choices to be binding on my own with regard to diet. As to animal testing, Wesley’s answer is probably correct.
I am confused about your confession of faith. How one can claim to be a Catholic (of what persuasion I am unsure) and also be opposed to objective truth while at the same time favor massive abortion, suicide for the masses and most of what you say you support is beyond any rational argument that I can understand. It is as confusing as that last sentence. I know enough people in Europe to find your claim suspect regarding what people believe. I am not Catholic and I am pretty sure such thoughts do not hold together as Catholic teaching.
If you perceive that you have been dismissed as a serious conversation partner, it is probably true. Not because we think we are better than you, but due to the fact that your posts are unclear almost to the point of incoherence. A serious discussion of the issues would be most welcome, but not what we are getting in in your comments, hence the sarcasm of my previous post.
July 13th, 2009 | 4:02 pm
Surely there is a rather wide gap between the admittedly absurd notion that whales (and dolphins, and chimps, etc.) are “us” and (what seems to be Smith’s view) the view that they do not, or cannot, engage in some form of primitively rational communication with humans? If a sentimentalized environmentalism gives us “persons” where there are only animals, then it is equally true that a reductive Cartesianism gives us blank stares where there is obviously some modicum of rationality. I wonder what Smith makes of the work on MacIntyre on this topic of animal rationality.
July 13th, 2009 | 4:59 pm
WJ: I never wrote that whales couldn’t communicate with human beings. I don’t know. But if they do, I doubt it would be “rational,” as in trying to convey a specific message to us. And it certainly isn’t in the way that the writer romantically described. That’s my point: Science is being devolved by people like this writer into romanticism and anthropomorphism, and for purely ideological reasons.
Some animals communicate with people: dogs sure do. Cats also. But generally it has to do with animals that have been domesticated, which changes their behavior.
I repeat, whales are not telling us anything. We are talking to ourselves.
July 13th, 2009 | 10:42 pm
I’m pretty sure that if your committed to communication you’re a fortiori committed to rationality. What would a non-rational communication be?
July 14th, 2009 | 7:09 pm
Nonrational communication would be instinctual; e.g. a beaver slapping his tail on the water to warn others of danger, even though ‘rationally’ he would know that there were no other beavers in that pond and by making noise he’s drawing attention to himself.
To put it another way, we try to teach our young to communicate rationally. Think of how many times you have to coach kids to control automatic expressions that might cause them social problems.
I wish there were other moral animals. Sea lampreys could be convinced to peacefully leave the Great Lakes. Of course, if they stopped sucking the guts out of other fish, they’d die, but one thing at a time.
BTW, I’m still laughing over the unbiased comment about Americans being extremely biased. Pot and kettle, no? ;)
July 14th, 2009 | 11:32 pm
“In europe dont exist problem between religious people and atheists: both groups dont believe in objective reality of supreme being.”
Ummm…if religious people in Europe don’t believe in the objective reality of a supreme being, then what exactly are they religious about? Atheism perhaps?
July 17th, 2009 | 12:57 pm
Apparently, it’s not just whales – from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090717/ap_on_re_us/us_squid_invasion;_ylt=AsUV1o918WhKSC29l9sGo3cDW7oF:
“It was an amazing privilege to touch a creature like that and see how amazingly beautiful it was,” she said. “They have these wonderful eyes. … They look all-seeing, all-knowing.”
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact