JeffBC
Posts: 5799
Joined: 2/12/2012 From: Canada Status: offline
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quote:
ORIGINAL: PeonForHer I think you give it away by putting the word 'fairness' in quotation marks. It looks like a sense of fairness (in *some* but by no means all species, though, as you admit), but can we say that it actually is that? That was essentially the point David Attenborough was making, IIRC. Science is just recently coming around to the idea that humans are animals and this vast gulf that we've always perceived is nothing but hubris. I've always thought that. So I'm ill inclined to interpret things differently than they so obviously look. I see the facial expressions. I see the actions. I listen to the tones. It all seems pretty clear to me. You can always say, "but who can know the mind of an animal?" to which I say, "who can know the mind of another human?" quote:
You can certainly make a case for it all being about power in the natural world - of course - that seems so seductive a human concept. Really? here's some examples from the world not human. If an asteroid hits the earth it wins. It has more power. There is no debate. there is no nothing. If a lion and an elephant get into it, the elephant wins... period. "Power" is not some made up human construct. Nor is it some sort of BDSM theory. It's a fact of life and it matters. In the end, when we got done with all the pious hand-wringing it may be all that matters. quote:
But what we tend to do, all too easily, I think, is project all sorts of ideas onto non-human nature, then 'read back' what we think we've seen there. As I said above, I see that statement as nothing other than narcissistic swill.... "Oh, humans are the center of the universe" type stuff. No, we're not all that different from animals in an awful lot of ways and I choose Occam's razor rather than making up elaborate theories to explain away the obvious. Scientist gives food to one chimp but not the other and the one given food refuses to eat it along with various expressions of aggravation. Looks pretty simple to me. In the end, hierarchy is a part of cooperation not the antithesis of it. Power is undeniable.
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I'm a lover of "what is", not because I'm a spiritual person, but because it hurts when I argue with reality. -- Bryon Katie "You're humbly arrogant" -- sunshinemiss officially a member of the K Crowd
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