Humanity has long stood at the top of the food chain. Our intellectual progress has allowed us to build a society in which we have no natural enemy. We have a decent understanding on how other species see the world but it is near impossible to fully grasp their daily struggles. It’s not like we can inhabit other’s bodies for a day. So, what do we do?
Anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of human characteristics to a god, animal or object. We attach our traits to other beings or objects in hope of better understanding them. We do this to be able to relate to them. I like to believe this is the reason we come up with so many tales about animals or creatures facing many of our same problems.
The Lion King is a good example of this. A power-hungry sibling who will stop at nothing to obtain power. If this was the real animal kingdom, they would simply fight for leadership and be …show more content…
But, unlike other primates, Sly is able to talk and understand our language making him human-like. At the start of the tale, he is made to seem as the villain “The teacher was upset about the ‘evil robot monkey” (Kowal, 2009). But by the end of the story, not only did I feel empathy towards Sly but also anger against his captors. How could they possibly be so cruel as to keep such a being in a cage? And those kids. It is unacceptable to let them harass a creature who can’t defend itself. And then … I realized …
This is the norm. This happens every day. We are Sly’s captors. One only has to take a look at the thousands of species being held in zoos for our amusement. Millions of creatures around the world who will never know freedom. There is however, a lighter side to all of this. Zoos serve a very important role as conservation environments. Without them, hundreds of these species would have gone extinct. There’s plenty of arguments for and against zoos. Me? I believe zoos are
Anthropomorphism is defined as the attribution of human characteristics to a god, animal or object. We attach our traits to other beings or objects in hope of better understanding them. We do this to be able to relate to them. I like to believe this is the reason we come up with so many tales about animals or creatures facing many of our same problems.
The Lion King is a good example of this. A power-hungry sibling who will stop at nothing to obtain power. If this was the real animal kingdom, they would simply fight for leadership and be …show more content…
But, unlike other primates, Sly is able to talk and understand our language making him human-like. At the start of the tale, he is made to seem as the villain “The teacher was upset about the ‘evil robot monkey” (Kowal, 2009). But by the end of the story, not only did I feel empathy towards Sly but also anger against his captors. How could they possibly be so cruel as to keep such a being in a cage? And those kids. It is unacceptable to let them harass a creature who can’t defend itself. And then … I realized …
This is the norm. This happens every day. We are Sly’s captors. One only has to take a look at the thousands of species being held in zoos for our amusement. Millions of creatures around the world who will never know freedom. There is however, a lighter side to all of this. Zoos serve a very important role as conservation environments. Without them, hundreds of these species would have gone extinct. There’s plenty of arguments for and against zoos. Me? I believe zoos are