Ripped! from the headlines. Wherein I philosophize.
I don't get to read the New York Times very often. (Shocking, I know.) This is yet another of the things I really regret about my chosen profession, because the writing never fails to make stop and think. Case in point, two articles:
(Registration required to view the articles, or email me, and I'll email you a copy.)
"Even as we’re forcing them out, it seems, the elephants are going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever more discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for them, the ones who in many ways seem to regard the matter of life and death more devoutly than we."
One of my favorite sci-fi underpinnings is the question of alien first contact: if we found another form of life, what would it be like? This article, and the work behind it, suggests we'd do better to look closer to home, i.e. take off the black glasses of species superiority and recognize that the damage done to elephant minds and lives by human violence looks an awful lot like the damage done to human minds and lives by ... human violence.
Like one of the subjects of the article, I'm mystified how people can deny animal intelligence without denying our own. Hath not an animal eyes, hands, dimensions, senses, etc.? What little remember from anthropology suggested it's human culture and civilization that distinguish us from other species. I really think it's a much finer than than we think it is.
When traveling in Africa, I had the chance to see elephants and gorillas in the wild. I walked up on foot out of the human world and into theirs. I like to think if everyone could look another creature in the eye, on it's terms, and see intelligence reflected, we would be incapable of hurt. It bothers me, especially these days, that I know firsthand just untrue that is.
(As a side note, while in Africa, I read a great novel of child soldiers, Beasts of No Nation, by Uzodinma Iweala.)
"In the end, when somebody gets to know Cam the soldier, Cam the citizen, they always take my side,” he said. “That’s where my triumph is. The hurt goes away."
As the child of immigrants, I've struggled with the question of what it means for me to be an American -- something that makes me proud, hopeful, cynical, and despairing, all at once. In this article, writer Andrea Elliott asks all these questions through the prism of a single man, a Kurdish immigrant and Army National Guard recruiting sergeant.
He's every immigrant, or every American, all at once. He's the man who left behind his old ways to become this thing called an American, and who suffers for it when he goes back home (ironically, to California). He's the man harassed and targeted by his fellow soldiers -- in the army he's so proud to be a part of -- for his religion, his race, his face. He's a man who believes in the American dream.
The article is really well done, and I think you get a look at the situation from all the angles. I get the feeling that the writer of the article meant to tell a story of the sergeant's exploitation by an Army (and, frankly, country) that pays lip service to its own ideals. And maybe she's right. Maybe this country doesn't deserve a man like this, who would sacrifice so much for these ideals. But maybe it's because of men like him, that we are what we are.
(Registration required to view the articles, or email me, and I'll email you a copy.)
"Even as we’re forcing them out, it seems, the elephants are going out of their way to put us, the keepers, in an ever more discomfiting place, challenging us to preserve someplace for them, the ones who in many ways seem to regard the matter of life and death more devoutly than we."
One of my favorite sci-fi underpinnings is the question of alien first contact: if we found another form of life, what would it be like? This article, and the work behind it, suggests we'd do better to look closer to home, i.e. take off the black glasses of species superiority and recognize that the damage done to elephant minds and lives by human violence looks an awful lot like the damage done to human minds and lives by ... human violence.
Like one of the subjects of the article, I'm mystified how people can deny animal intelligence without denying our own. Hath not an animal eyes, hands, dimensions, senses, etc.? What little remember from anthropology suggested it's human culture and civilization that distinguish us from other species. I really think it's a much finer than than we think it is.
When traveling in Africa, I had the chance to see elephants and gorillas in the wild. I walked up on foot out of the human world and into theirs. I like to think if everyone could look another creature in the eye, on it's terms, and see intelligence reflected, we would be incapable of hurt. It bothers me, especially these days, that I know firsthand just untrue that is.
(As a side note, while in Africa, I read a great novel of child soldiers, Beasts of No Nation, by Uzodinma Iweala.)
"In the end, when somebody gets to know Cam the soldier, Cam the citizen, they always take my side,” he said. “That’s where my triumph is. The hurt goes away."
As the child of immigrants, I've struggled with the question of what it means for me to be an American -- something that makes me proud, hopeful, cynical, and despairing, all at once. In this article, writer Andrea Elliott asks all these questions through the prism of a single man, a Kurdish immigrant and Army National Guard recruiting sergeant.
He's every immigrant, or every American, all at once. He's the man who left behind his old ways to become this thing called an American, and who suffers for it when he goes back home (ironically, to California). He's the man harassed and targeted by his fellow soldiers -- in the army he's so proud to be a part of -- for his religion, his race, his face. He's a man who believes in the American dream.
The article is really well done, and I think you get a look at the situation from all the angles. I get the feeling that the writer of the article meant to tell a story of the sergeant's exploitation by an Army (and, frankly, country) that pays lip service to its own ideals. And maybe she's right. Maybe this country doesn't deserve a man like this, who would sacrifice so much for these ideals. But maybe it's because of men like him, that we are what we are.