APOLARITY

To understand elephant experience, it is necessary to continue unraveling elephant psychological mysteries—to understand individual differences in elephants in the same way we try with humans. Something that is now scientifically possible.

C.G. Jung once wrote that humans remain a mystery to themselves because they are unique, lacking someone or something against which comparisons can be made. This argument can no longer be made. The practice of using animals as human surrogates for probing into the human mind and human behavior implicitly acknowledges cross-species similarities, but somehow, though sharing the attributes that privilege humans, animals have been denied psyche and rights.

Today, the seemingly impermeable species barrier has eroded, similarities outweigh differences, and a theoretical and perceptual fusion has taken place. Human psychology and animal behavior are brought together in the creation of a trans-species science, a new scientific paradigm, the beginnings of which were described by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago. Investigations into the natural world no longer revolve around the question “How are humans different?” Instead, they cause us to wonder in awe at our relatedness. How we as humans think, feel, and behave is reflected not just in our mirrors, but in the faces of elephants.

- G.A. Bradshaw, Elephants on the Edge: What Animals Teach Us about Humanity, 16

• Darwin’s twin track: ‘Evolution and emancipation’ – BBC article about the book Darwin’s Sacred Cause, explaining the role that the horrors of the slave trade had on Darwin’s thinking and motivation.

Why was Darwin’s evolution uniquely defined by common descent, the joining of races and species through shared ancestry? Darwin’s common descent image is so obvious today that we forget to question where it came from.

Common descent in Darwin’s younger day was ubiquitous in anti-slavery tracts. Consider the words of the famous cameo, depicting a kneeling slave asking “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” That cameo was in fact the brainchild of the pottery-dynasty founder, Josiah Wedgwood, Darwin’s grandfather.

Reasonable people can disagree reasonably, and I firmly support the right of a minority to have views that differ from that of the majority.

It smacks of intellectual dishonesty, though, when the overwhelming majority of experts in a field view the evidence a certain way, and the only argument the detractors can make is to accuse said experts of conspiracy, suppression, and disregard for the facts.

We all have ideological presuppositions that cause us to favor one explanation over another, believe one expert over another, but it becomes ironic and self-parodying when a group purports to stand for Absolute Truth, but is unwilling to acknowledge the academic integrity of thousands of brilliant and well-researched scholars.

I guess it depends on whose bias you trust more. Which is more likely, for “all or nearly all national and international science academies and professional societies” (wp) to be so ideologically entrenched as to not see what is clearly in front of their face; or for what is essentially a single, small lobby group, consisting of scientists whose religious tradition depends on an a priori understanding of the way things came into existence?

I really enjoy George Orwell. I have read 1984 and am just starting Animal Farm. Here is a link to a political essay he wrote about the English language in 1946. He was definately a clear thinker, a free thinker when it comes to politics. In a way it is scary to read his work, because he foresaw where the world was headed. The essay I have linked to is about writing. Every writer should read it, because he points out how confusing and unintentionally deceptive people can make the English language. All we have to do is succomb to writing like someone else, to using a tired cliche or overused metaphor and we think we have somehow “beefed up” our writing. Orwell especially decries political writing, because its euphemism and unclarity makes for a use of the language that is meaningless. Politicians devise ways of saying things that can be interpreted any number of ways, with the result being that the masses are pleased, yet in fact they believe nothing. The propaganda and slogans fills their minds to the point that they think they are educated, yet have not thought. Thinking – actually considering what something means, pondering before regurgitating – it is a lost art.
Politics and the English Language