this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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“Animals don't behave like men,' he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.” ― Richard Adams, Watership Down
That book does a really good job of presenting just how shitty humans are pretty much throughout, without coming across as being preachy or sanctimonious, and I like that.
Meanwhile:
Cats: torture their prey to death as a form of play.
Dolphins: you dont want to know.
If a person did half the stuff animals do, no one could look at them the same again.
People do some awful things but we are also probably the only species that has members that sympathise with other species above ourselves.
I once walked past like 20 ducks tearing apart one female to rape her. I'll never feel bad eating meat.
Oh yeah I forgot about ducks... an animal so rapey that females evolved some weird reproductive anatomy to help defend against it.
Kicking ducks must be your favorite hobby then!
Exactly what defines us is the sitting down and setting our wits to something.
Sometimes it's horror, sometimes it's greatness.
But everytime it's more prominent than anything other animals can do.
Because wits is the trait that succeed in evolution, it's the trait that gives you more agency.
I don't buy that for a second, and neither would you if you've ever had a beloved pet. These little furry guys treat you like their bff, I can honestly see why some humans refer to them as fur babies.
And it's not just cats, dogs, and crows. If you know where to look (shoutouts to the BigBoye subreddit, for example), you can find evidence of all sorts of animal species befriending humans or other species outside their own.
Ok fine dogs do. They're superior lifeforms in general.
You forgot about the ducks.
I made a comment further down in the chain about them. And quite frankly, I was trying to forget what they did.
So much of that is dead wrong:
"Play" isn't just an idle pursuit. It's also a form of safe practice of one's life pursuit. In the case of cats, they evolved to be almost 100% carnivores, so it's natural for them to live, breath, and yes practice / play at honing their pursuit and kill skills. It is literally their fundamental job that separates them from dying off.
Let's not forget two things here: 1) much of the rapey stuff (as with ducks) also serves the fundamental life model of reproduction being one of the highest natural priorities, however its accomplished; 2) dolphins are hella smart, just like us, and if anything, it goes to show that smart species with idle time can devise some pretty wild pastimes.
To compare the lifestyles of a single animal species (humans) with all the others is a fool's mission. In fact, most animals live fairly predictable, innocuous lives. They have their classic interactions with the world and don't tend to bother other species-- mainly because it's not worth their time.
Nonsense. Pretty much all higher social / tribal animals can pretty easily sympathise / empathise with other species, such as our fellow apes, dogs, cetaceans, corvids, elephants, parrots, and even domestic cats.
@fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
People are not automatons that are obligated to no longer think a behavior is fucked up just because that behavior benefited these animals in terms of increasing the liklihood of them passing down their genes.
As for one species empathising with another, that is a far cry from empathising more with another species than your own or being willing to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of another species. I WAS NOT saying that no species empathises with another.
Sure, that's fine. Label and condemn as you like.
My point is, that's not a relevant rebuttal to Adams' quote, as most sexually dimorphic animals do not behave that way. I.e., females generally select their partners, and are not commonly raped. Indeed, that's part of the whole long-term survival point-- that 'courtship' species have better chances for genetic diversity & fitness for their environs.
*shrug*
Okay, if you say so. It sure sounded like it, but maybe I misread.
That doesn't refute the poster above. Humans have evolutionary imperatives too.
That's not nobility as the original Watership quote implies but a simple lack of capacity to conceive and implement evil. The original quote could equally wax poetic about how rocks don't try to spoil other creatures lives.
I agree that animals can also sympathize with other species. Intelligence is a spectrum.
It does when you put it in context, tho, that being that the poster above did not refute Adams' point in any meaningful way. Specifically-- rape isn't ordinary in terms of two-sex species, and is likely a poorer long-term survival mechanism compared to courtship species.
That's not correct. Higher animals certainly possess more self-awareness than rocks, and have (as you say) a spectrum of capacity for self-awareness, for reflection, and for modifying one's behavior.
The real point is this-- unlike all known animals, we collectively have the information available to us of how terribly our existence and practices are fueling one of the greatest extinction events in Earth history... on track with causing civilisation to collapse, likely causing most of humanity to soon die out, if not go entirely extinct. We have not just that info based on the science, facts & reality, but the average mental capacity to understood and take necessary action to prevent all this. Or at least, we "had." Instead we've collectively chosen to pursue our individual lives and let things sort themselves out. Well, good luck with that.
Adams' quote was perfectly fair IMO.
Evolution doesn't care about ideal mechanics- only good enough. Rape was common in the ancient world. Rape happens today despite the long term survival favoring long term pairs.
I was relating the spectrum of intelligence. That is human is to animal as animal is to rock. I didn't claim that animals have no awareness but that they are less than humans. So attributing nobility to what is really a lack of ability is like attributing nobility to a rock.
A rooster would plot and murder its neighbors if it had the intelligence and opposable thumbs to make weapons.
There's certainly some facts & reality there, professor, but that still doesn't change the fundamental point which Adams' made, and I defended. It's like you're freely swinging from 'matters of proportion' to binary values in order to fit your argument.
Which was a poor analogy from day one, considering the many permutations.
Also-- that's a pretty weird, tight-ass understanding of what Adams meant by "nobility."
Like, seriously...?
Okay, you win on that one-- I fear you're exactly right there; ala chickens being such unnecessary assholes towards each other and other creatures.
Tell you what, though-- feel free to have the last reply.
It's like you dance around a smidgen of a circuitous argument, but can never actually figure out what you're actually trying to say. (or think) Good luck, you.
A poster pointed out that animals aren't better than humans and will do anything they can get away with just like humans. You attempted to appeal to evolution which I refuted. The refutation means Adams is wrong. Animals are like humans because humans are animals too.
You insult when you've been proven wrong. Nice.
OH!
My poor little one... :-(
😒
Ohh, you're so clever...
You got me, pard!
Watership down is PTSD camouflaged as children's media.
Richard Adams wrote it based on his military time. Certain features of the book are clearly informed by his experience, like how they're constantly talking about how fatigued or rested they are, based on the speed they've been traveling or working and how long they've been at it.
He said he based particular characters on particular people he knew. The seagull was a big explosives guy, Bigwig was a tough-as-hell officer that he really liked working with, and so on.
Watership Down and Animorphs. How the fuck did those books end up being kids books?
Because children are interested in darkness and fiction is a safe place to explore it and contextualise it?
Yeah Animorphs as a kid had a darkness that Goosebumps couldn't touch. The first one for me was realizing that one of the party members was forever stuck as a fucking bird, and they had whole chapters of his perspective getting used to the fact that his former life is gone. That was unheard of at the time.
Tobias. Totes tragic.
Rachel becoming a fucked up person who only knew how to live in war was also great.
Tomorrow when the war began was another childhood fave of mine.
I wouldn't say that sort of stuff was unheard of. My mum gave me some super tragic books about Polish kids during the war, there was loads of stuff with like thawing dead soldiers enough to steal boots etc. My mum's Polish so fed me a lot of grim stuff to read to help understand her parents and their experiences. Idk if you're usaian? maybe popular stuff was a bit more sanitised because of moral majority stuff?
Yeah I'm American and we had mostly Scholastic book fairs and the school library to count on for books. Animorphs, being published under them, was heavily advertised at the fairs.
Considering myself to be an "advanced" reader I'd stick to the young adult books, but mostly sci-fi (Dune) and fantasy (Dhampir). For 5th or 6th grade me, though, Animorphs was engaging enough until a new book came out and was constantly checked out at the library.
That kind of attitude is steeped in human supremacy. Even fucking plants do warfare. We're not special, even in our capacity for evil.
Sure, but they don't consciously choose to do it. Fungus doesn't decide that it's going to make life miserable for the plant it's growing on, a tall shade tree doesn't decide to starve the smaller plants beneath it of sunlight. We're unique in our capacity to see a possible course of action, do an in-depth analysis of the effects that it will have, see every foreseeable shitty outcome, and decide, consciously, to do it anyway.
This is idealistic bullcrap. When you actually look at nature you see lots of examples of lifeforms just choosing violence for no good reason.