Temple Grandin is an autistic American professor of animal science, best-selling author, and a consultant to animal livestock. Autism can be defined promptly as a mental disorder, in which the person seems, depending on the severity of the condition, to live in his or her own world. In Grandin’s early life, she lacked the abilities to read people’s emotions, expressions or understand others’ body language. All these disabilities made Grandin’s social life challenging, as she could not interpret people’s intention, and did not know how to conform to the social norm of the people surrounding her. Grandin lived on Earth but yet she felt significantly different from other people, and preferred to think she was from Mars. She also experienced that
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Interestingly, although she was disconnected from the human world, she felt especially closed to the animal world. In fact, normal people tend to treat autism people and animal in a similar way, in which they are both objects and lack of understanding about surrounding world. During Grandin’s childhood, she developed her linguistic ability many years after other children, and felt baffled by the barrage of words people spoke, just as animals must. However, Grandin and animals around her shared this similarity, and immediately connected with each other without words. Later on Grandin was able to discover animal issues and apply science to support their comfortable behaviors. According to Kohn, “life” is a phenomenon which can be appreciated as such only from multiple perspectives, or multiple possibilities of interpretation. Therefore, in this case, Grandin has opened a new way to interpret life and understand animal via her “disabilities”. By “talking” to animal, she established an ethical relationship with animals, “understood” their point of views and what happens inside the animals. Grandin treats an animal as a sentient being, not an emotionless object like other normal people would have thought. This is similar to the case of white people practice “racism” on black people in 19th century. White people lacked compassion towards the blacks because they refused to understand the …show more content…
Grandin was trying to assimilate to normal human life but she still felt she was different. Then, when Grandin realized she had the same way of thinking “in picture” with animal, she started to understand them and started to benefit from that experience. As a result, when Grandin eliminated the boundary between human and animals, she discovered a better world for her and became successful from the connection to the animal. As for racism, white people put on the blackface to join the minstrel show but they still reluctantly believed that they were different. Similarly, as white people thought about black people, they recognized the black advantages and they wanted to get it for their own sakes. However, white people never wanted to erase “racism” ideology to acknowledge the human-role of black people and to experience things from the slave
Interestingly, although she was disconnected from the human world, she felt especially closed to the animal world. In fact, normal people tend to treat autism people and animal in a similar way, in which they are both objects and lack of understanding about surrounding world. During Grandin’s childhood, she developed her linguistic ability many years after other children, and felt baffled by the barrage of words people spoke, just as animals must. However, Grandin and animals around her shared this similarity, and immediately connected with each other without words. Later on Grandin was able to discover animal issues and apply science to support their comfortable behaviors. According to Kohn, “life” is a phenomenon which can be appreciated as such only from multiple perspectives, or multiple possibilities of interpretation. Therefore, in this case, Grandin has opened a new way to interpret life and understand animal via her “disabilities”. By “talking” to animal, she established an ethical relationship with animals, “understood” their point of views and what happens inside the animals. Grandin treats an animal as a sentient being, not an emotionless object like other normal people would have thought. This is similar to the case of white people practice “racism” on black people in 19th century. White people lacked compassion towards the blacks because they refused to understand the …show more content…
Grandin was trying to assimilate to normal human life but she still felt she was different. Then, when Grandin realized she had the same way of thinking “in picture” with animal, she started to understand them and started to benefit from that experience. As a result, when Grandin eliminated the boundary between human and animals, she discovered a better world for her and became successful from the connection to the animal. As for racism, white people put on the blackface to join the minstrel show but they still reluctantly believed that they were different. Similarly, as white people thought about black people, they recognized the black advantages and they wanted to get it for their own sakes. However, white people never wanted to erase “racism” ideology to acknowledge the human-role of black people and to experience things from the slave