Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Elephants

I just read this article: An Elephant Crackup? in the NY Times and I'm amazed at the similarities humans and elephants share.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

‘‘Elephants are suffering and behaving in the same ways that we recognize in ourselves as a result of violence,’’

A very good read. Thanks for putting it on.

egm said...

That was a good read indeed.

Girl next door said...

@ Makanga and Egm,
glad you enjoyed it! It was long but quite gripping. I'm rather interested in the research that Abe is doing that draws parallels between the orphaned boys and the orphaned elephants. Makes us realize that the social network we grow up in is very important for our psyche. I can see how human developmental stages a la Erikson play out in the animal kingdom (human and otherwise).

egm said...

That is true indeed. Even the mere fact that you feel energized when hanging around people with a vision and drive to achieve their goals vs the lousiness you feel when around people for whom the biggest goal is getting to the next bash and getting drunk is testament to this.

Girl next door said...

@Egm,
so true, hence the need to pick friends wisely. Some of us learn this the hard way.

@Eddie,
It was a very enlightening article and I like the style it was written. A lot of foreign writers tend to have a condescending tone when writing about some issue going on in African countries. In fact, just the very idea of lumping "Africa" into one and making certain conclusions pisses me off because it doesn't acknowledge the variety within the continent.