As I was on Stumbleupon, today, I stumbled on an Animal Planet page. The page itself wasn’t what interested me as much as the Animal Planet logo on the top left corner. After the fancy little words “Animal Planet” was the tag line “Surprisingly Human.” Seeing that made me wonder if this paralleled at all with Morton’s view of the “Ecological Thought.” By equating animals with humans, does this say that humans are the greatest, and other animals have a few qualities that connect us, though we, as humans, still have reign? Or perhaps, is this embracing the “Ecological Thought,” and by saying that animals are “surprisingly human,” we aren’t really as superior as we thought, because of the similarities?
Let's hope it is the second part of your question.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Professor Bell. As I stated in one of my earlier posts, humans only have a 2% difference in their genetic makeup than do chimpanzees. So why are they caged in a zoo and not us? Or why are we out in the wild and making technological progresses everyday and not them? We hold ourselves to a higher importance than most (if not all) other species because we are the only species that has evolved enough to do so.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Professor Bell as well. Although I do hope it is the later, it concerns me that animal planet's tag line implies that human are above animals and further they are surprised that animals possess qualities which are comparable to human qualities. Instead they should have a program about humans and communism or terrorists and call it "humans, surprisingly primitive". If anything, I would say that animals are just as advanced as human beings, just in a different way.
ReplyDeleteWow, I really like what Kate said.. "humans, surprisingly primitive." That would be a phrase that I think a lot of people would have a problem with. Humans seem to have an inability to believe that there may be things greater than us, unless they are intangible (ie God). We must conquer or be better than almost everything that we come into contact with, whether it be mineral, animal, or vegetable. It's like when the fat guy in "Deliverance" said "Did we beat it?" (talking about the river). The idea that humans are less then proposed is a hard one.
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