SOME THOUGHTS ON THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HUMANS
AND OTHER ANIMALS
Yoko Yamaguchi
I have been thinking about the difference between human beings and
animals.
In general, human kind (compare to animals) represent a concept such as,
intelligent, using tools, have warm relationships, have sympathy, sharing
both sorrow or happy feelings, communicate each other, sophisticate,
cooperate each other. all the positive aspect.
On the other hand, animal represent, aggressive, savage, no orders,
barbaliatic, uncivilized, no mercy, survival for the fittest, vulgar etc.
those are stereo types which leading to modification of interpretation,
defensive function of social organization, culture, forms of social
organization, keep social position. Generalization of all the image toward
animals.
Actually I have been doubting about the images toward animals and self
esteem of ourselves, human being. As I can see the news around the
world, murders, wars, genocide, etc, I think we can not say only animal
is the brutal and human being is much higher than them.
If we are smart enough, why do we have to kill each other? If we are
clever enough, we can control all the negative emotions, fear, anger and
aggression, there will be no fight.
I will discuss about some of the expressions and examples that against the
stereo types and negative aspects toward animal kingdom.
Human being tend to think they are the only creature in the earth who can
build the sophisticated society and cooperate each others.
As we can see the society of the ants, bees it seems like they have quite
well build society. They are cooperate and separate the task and share the
foods together. Like some of the members go to collect foods for the rest
of the members, some of them are protect the nest from the enemy
outside, some of them take care of the larva who become next generation
of the colony.
Bees are sharing the knowledge and information by using dance, the one
who found the good resource of the pollen and honey will goes back to
the nest and tell the fellow bees where the flower field is by dance.
Spoken language is not the only way to communicate,
developed their own sign language.
bees have
Then I would like to talk about the emotions, do animals have emotions?
sometime the pets around us seem like they have emotions, like
sorrowing cat because the owner is away, glad dog because somebody
take him a walk. I have read about the article about elephants which
sorrow the death of the fellow elephants. and buried the body with twigs
and grass.
And there are good example from the dog in Japan. The story is quite
famous and it represent of the dog’s affection toward the owner and
loyalty.
In 1940´s Japan, there were a professor and he kept the dog named
Hachi, the professor went to a university everyday and Hachi, the dog
always see him off at the station in the morning and welcome him at the
same station in the evening. That was their everyday routine.
One day, the professor had heart attack at the university and died at there.
Of course, Hachi never knew the fact the professor had passed away and
not come back again and kept waiting at the station for his master.
Several times, the family member of the professor tried to take Hachi to
their home, but found Hachi went to back to the station to wait the
professor. Several years had passed, Hachi was still waiting outside, no
matter what weather it was, rainy day , stormy days, snowing days etc.
finally he died in front of the station. The story became famous and
people collect money to built a statue of the dog(I am not sure why
people are always try to built a statue of something, is that just only for
memory?)
And the statue now become famous meeting point in Shibuya station(one
of the main and biggest station in Tokyo).
Japanese people really like these kind story especially somebody who
keep the loyalty to the master.
I heard about another aspect about this story, the dog had keep waiting at
the station, because the butcher who have store near by the station fed the
dog everyday. Quite nasty but maybe it would be a reality.
Anyway, the story suppose to represent the love and loyalty of a dog
toward his master.
Then I will move on the other story about aggression of animals. Many
people still believe that predators, meat eaters, the brutal animals like
wolves, tigers, lions. fight and attack each others and the fight would
continue until the weaker one will die. Because human being can stop
fighting because human beings are rational creature.
But it is not true, according to the ethnologists. I read some books from
Conrad Lorents, about the aggression and attack.
For example, wolves, it seems like the are hated by European especially.
Of course they fight each other, territory, foods and fighting over
females, there are a lot of reasons to fight. but there are sigh between
wolves, if one surrender and the loser show his throat to the winner, the
winner have to stop the attack. The sign for the surrender is become
instinct of wolves. If one started to give the sign of the surrender, it
means the game is over and have to stop the fight immediately. The
suspend of the attack would give the loser to time to escape and nobody
would die from the fight.
Why it does not happen to the human being?
There are theories that human being is too weak to have the restriction of
the attacks.
One, human being is basically so weak animal (or designed to be weak),
so we are not supposed to be fight each other. We do not have any claw
to scratch someone to death, fang to bite or other equipment to kill or
fight. First time our restriction instinct had built, we are not supposed to
use any weapon. Just a kind of clever monkey, who expected we would
start to use tools and use it as killing instrument?
Axe, arrow, these primitive weapons were created for hunting or protect
ourselves from predators around us. Because we have nothing to protect
ourselves. We can not run as fast as other animals, we gave to the life on
the trees unlike other monkeys, so tree is no more place to hide. Our
ancestors were smart enough to create the new tool to fight back to the
predator, but stupid enough to use them to other fellow human being.
Steal foods, keep territory, from several reasons human started to fight
each other, and we have not have any restrictions to attack.
The second reason why human beings are not be able to stop killing is,
because of the human have imaginations.
For example, two people are fighting and the one is winning, it is really
easy to him to let the loser to go, just give him a chance to escape, it need
only a second. But maybe if he is clever enough to think about the
session that the loser would come back later to revenge. So if he kill the
loser now, he would not come back to revenge him.(Maybe he is not
smart enough to think about the ghost of the victim will come back to
revenge, like in the play Hamlet).
And after he killed the loser, he would afraid that the family or kinship of
the loser will come to revenge him anytime(like the young prince tried to
do). It could be the start of the masmurderer, genocide.
If once it happened, it will not stop easily. The family members will kill
each other to prevent further attack and it makes murder go on and go on.
We can easily find examples from the world news, Kosovo, Somalia etc.
Genocide is happening all over the world.
It happens only to the human being, we are the only one to be able of
imagine so far. We have never heard the masmurder of the tigers or lions
, what so ever.
In this meaning, the strong animals who have killing equipment naturally
are more gentle to the fellow species.
But this restriction of the attack only work on same spices. The sigh of
the surrender is different to the other species. To show throat means
surrender to wolves, but it does not mean all the predator have same sign
as them.
If different species animals are fighting, one surrenders and gives a sigh
of the surrender, but the other would notice the sign and continue
attacking. Usually the sign would be stop the attack and show the weak
part of the body to the winner. And if the sign is shown and the attack
will not stop, what will happen next? It is the tragedy. The attack will
continue on until the loser will die.
Lorenz wrote about the story about two fighting bird from different
species. A turkey and a peacock, under the circumstance of the natural
environment, the fight would not happen, but somebody put both into
same small cage, so no escape way usually they have in the outside.
They fought until the loser died.
Let me go back to the human beings, we have also restriction of the
attack and sign for the surrender.
Shake hands is a way to show that both of the people have no carry
weapons.
As a student of the history department, let me talk about the inauguration
ceremony of the knights. The king put his sward to new knight who is
kneeling in front of him. I suppose this means the knight gave the king to
his life totally surrender and the king would have absolute right to kill the
knight or not. King would admit his surrender and make the knight
swear the loyalty to the king.
And human beings also have a restriction toward babies. They are small
and so weak. They will not survive without the help of the grown up.
Their appearances work to adult to help, take care and feed them. I have
hear story about the cry of the baby. It is designed as annoying sounds to
the grown ups. So they would take care of the baby to just make them to
stop crying.(sometime their attempt to get attention of the adults would
failed. Some really aggressive people kill babies to stop them to cry,
unfortunately)
If the sound is nice tone, everybody would like to listen more and never
thought about to make them stop.
Anyway babies know by heart how to survive. And some gene inside of
us drive us to take care and love them. Otherwise will killing each other
and neglect babies and we will disappear from the planet.
Conclusion for the essay, in my personal opinion, we are no better or no
worse than the animals. Each of us have different habits or customs or
rules, and it is difficult say to who is superior than the others.
Just differences, because of the evolution which we have followed.
Reference:
The Biology of Peace and War: Irenaus Eibl-Elbesfeldt
The Ring of the King Solomon Korat Lorenz