Posts Tagged ‘animals’

I am a liberal arts sort of person.  My mental pool is full of history and philosophy, poetry and good stories.  Math is as appealing as a cardboard sandwich to me; but sometimes what bits of certain sciences can be stated in words is pretty yummy.  Except when it strikes me as stupid in the “Well, duh…” category.

It seems to me that even science must have been dumbed down the last few years; my liberal left-leaning pinko self wonders if the Bush Administration contributed to what looks like silly trivializing of scientific enquiry?  Reading some news stories about science routinely has me shaking my head and saying “And somebody got a grant—got MONEY—to do THAT?!”

But I don’t think it is really politics guiding the kind of stuff I am talking about, and I admit the most fun of being a scientist would be to just play with the proving of ideas. Nonetheless, I still find some of those studies to be shockingly “Why on earth would you even NEED to ask that question?”  For instance, today’s science news tells me that mockingbirds can tell people apart, and furthermore, they KNOW which people are kind of asshat-ish!  Wow, huh?

There has been a host of such stories, basic science blather on “Oh my, look dogs really ARE smart and DO know what words mean!” and “Who knew, parrots really CAN talk and not just repeat back!”  Who knew? REally?  Anyone who spent more than a month with the animal in question, dumb ass!

Here is the deal, and I think it is the crux of some of the problems on this planet: people are hubristic morons!  We, as a species, think we are SO very special that every other living critter on the face of the planet waits with bated breath to be discovered by us.  Very not, folks…very not.  Animals don’t speak as we do, that doesn’t mean that even a mockingbird can do without knowledge of which bipedal asshat would be likely to shoot it with a air rifle for shits and grins.  It’s called “survival” dudes!  Animals have their own intelligence and  need to be good at different things than we usually pursue. We have forgotten about survival in that light; but if the world keeps suffering from our hubristic attitude, we will likely get some rude reminders of what it means.

There are stories of the ancient gods punishing humans for the sin of Hubris—over-weaning pride; you know, the kind that made them think they were on par with the Gods.  While I admit, scientists who theorize about cloning dinosaurs back into existence might be threading that particular needle, most of them are not that over-proud.  But if you just look at “hubris” with a small “h”….ordinary human superiority, if you will, a lot more people would be going round with a glowing letter on their foreheads.  And it isn’t a big red “A” either. We bipedal and speech endowed primates think we are the crown of creation and we treat everything else like crap.  I won’t go into how some religions encourage that kind of thinking, or I’d be here all day.

Scientists might be onto something pointing out the less recognized abilities of animals and birds, but only IF it teaches people that WE as a species are more limited than we like to admit.  After all, most of the animals on the planet would go on just fine, and even better without us sharing the earth.  We can’t really say the same, can we?  Even that crown of creation idea falls short when you start prying the gems out with a penknife—-every species is a gem, and extinctions soon make your sparkly head-gear look like a cheap cardboard play prop.  We humans can’t do it alone, we aren’t meant to be the only species, nor the ‘top’ species.  Human and hubris both begin with the letter “h” and we might just keep that in mind in our interactions with our planet.  We need to get the hell over ourselves and get back to thinking of ourselves AS one of the animals not the zookeepers.

In wartime, in time of disasters, and in personal life, sometimes it is the unexpected picture that just breaks through whatever wall of personal comfort is holding the chaos out of your mind. I heard conversations in the aftermath of Katrina, for instance, about why people had NOT scraped up a donation for the Red Cross: “You know, it is a tragedy, but really, those PEOPLE should have known better and left in time.” Yeah, cause everyone can just do that, of course. The person saying this went on to say they did give a donation to a group that was rescuing animals in New Orleans, “Because animals have no choice, you know?”

That much is true to a heartbreaking degree. Animals have no choice when either mankind or nature decides to upend their furry, hairy, finny, feathery worlds. But are people never innocent? I have a nasty sneaking suspicion that people who are capable so far as personal resources are concerned, sometimes don’t reach out to help other people for a couple reasons. First of all, I think they run from the very images out of fear—that somehow they themselves could be so vulnerable to horror and tragedy. They can’t/won’t help because they can’t bear a minute’s thought of being part of that suffering body of mankind—so to keep their personal exemption card unstained, they do nothing. Second, I think they often enhance this comfort zone by rationalizing that people somehow deserve to be miserable. And well, sometimes that may true, but I will argue just enough with the existential idea sometimes put out—that no innocents exist —to say there are ALWAYS innocents and choiceless sufferers. And I will endevour to aid in such situations because I won’t stint in relieving whatever allegedly “deserved” suffering is going on at the cost of those innocents suffering alongside. I simply don’t have the necessary presumptuous nature to credit “deserved” with meaning negligible or ignorable.

But, of course, animals ARE innocents always. And the images of animals in misery always grabs all but the most wretched hearts in an absolute stranglehold. So, for all who think it might be permissible to “not give two shits about the Iraqis” let me just post a picture by the estimable Zoriah to give those dried up hearts a squeeze. To everyone else, I apologize for the gratuitous violence to our already pulverized-to-tenderness hearts. That miserable starving bit of fur in the soldier’s hands IS representative of what Iraq is enduring….

(The image is from this blog: http://www.zoriah.net/ )