Crossing by small launch from Miami’s busy cruise ship harbor to Fisher Island one day, I felt a bump. I asked the pilot, “What did we hit?” He replied, “Maybe a manatee.”
Poor critter. Slow as plankton for most of its life, a manatee munches on greenery found below the surface. Unfortunately, when manatees eat near the surface or seek air, these cows of the ocean succumb to numerous boat collisions. Under pressure from human activities, manatee numbers continue to dwindle in Florida’s shallow waters. Many have died. In 2021, some 1,000-plus have gone to that big algal pasture in the sky.
It’s a sad story. Seemingly helpless and harmless critters have been undone by what we do. We humans run a rather cruel and merciless world that seems to have little room for other species. Just ask the dodos. But then, we, too, are subject to interspecies harm.
I suppose that only those with a “heart” find extinctions worrisome. I also suppose that those with “hearts” think our species has never lived harmoniously with other “Earthlings,” and it's time for a change to some "natural state" that sustains life in balance. But life’s been tough all around. The Romantic Period’s myth of harmonious oneness tying humans and the rest of the animal kingdom lies in stark contrast to reality. Tigers in the Sundarbans, where they kill an average 20 or more people per year, and in other locales in India are the fast motor boats, and humans are the slow manatees. I think of lines in William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”: “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry.” In a paraphrase of Blake’s words, the “hand” that made the tiger also made a lamb and the manatee—and the human. Tough world. No room for foolish error. And yet…
Given the plethora of YouTube videos that show bad outcomes during encounters between beast and human, just about every human should be aware of the potential for personal extinction during an interspecies encounter. Yet, the YouTube videos of bad encounters keep popping up, eliciting in viewers statements like “What an idiot!” “What was she thinking?” An example lies in a video of a Chinese man who, in attempting to bypass paying for a ticket to the zoo, climbed into a tiger’s enclosure. The “attack was captured on camera and shared on social media, with one video showing a tiger gnawing on the man's body as people screamed."*
So, what made so many who are no longer with us think they could, like the late Steve Irwin, play with dangerous animals with impunity? What makes some still long for gentle moments on a picnic blanket amidst waving grasses and flowers as the unicorn stands peacefully nearby? Is it the mistaken notion that human attributes are also animal attributes, that feelings are universal? Is it a belief that risk is a myth inapplicable to daring individuals? Are we under the illusion that like some “dog whisperer,” all of us can “whisper” to dangerous animals, especially when we’re filming the whispering for a YouTube video?
There’s no love lost when there’s no love involved. Hunger drives wild carnivores to eat what is available, and large herbivores defend themselves against perceived threats. A bison in Yellowstone is not a family pet; it has speed, mass, and horns, all lying in front of an instinct to undo threats by tourists in search of personal fame.
What leads some people to a premature personal extinction is the belief that they can, in fact, read the personalities of wild animals, that belief, and of course, the drive to make a name for oneself on YouTube. Once posted, forever remembered, right? The “famous” live forever. That’s why you know the names of Mayan, Aztec, and Inca heroes. No? Who was that guy who got chased by a bison in Yellowstone?
If social media have taught us anything about our species, it is that we are unlike any other critters with which we share the title “Earthling.” Other animals might be imbued with an unconscious drive to survive; some humans, in contrast, seem to be imbued with a conscious desire for reckless endangerment. And this latter flippancy with risk occurs in spite of numerous lessons folly has taught throughout our history and still teaches us via YouTube and other media.
Living the life of a slow organism subject to random collisions, manatees reveal that their very nature incorporates a weakness that evolutionary changes could not, to speak teleologically, anticipate. Humans, supposedly endowed with a “better nature” that can overcome weaknesses born of phylogeny, demonstrate that no amount of technology can prevent injury and death by folly.
And because there have been so many humans, maybe in excess of a hundred billion since our species arose, the loss of many to folly makes a forgotten list. That every generation has its folly practitioners indicates that in spite of a “better nature,” humans choose to take their place among the weakest of Earthlings, choosing danger under multiple motivations, as though they were manatees purposefully looking for waters where boaters spin their propellers. Homo sapiens sapiens, or “wise wise man,” the only remaining species of genus Homo, might be better labeled as Homo sapiens fatuus stultus, or wise unwise foolish man.
And that brings me to news reports in recent years. Driven by social media, members of Homo sapiens fatuus stultus have gathered in great numbers called mobs to ransack, destroy, injure, and even kill one another. Joining under the influence of media a mob, any mob, is like swimming in the midst of mindless propellers.
Is it possible that we are mislabeled? Maybe the more appropriate designation for our species should eliminate any mention of wisdom. We are, in actuality, Homo fatuus stultus, “Unwise, foolish man.” In this age of renaming everything on one whim or another, we should consider removing the term wise from our Linnaean classification. More characteristic of our species than wisdom are its folly and lack of wisdom. Having consciousness, we pride ourselves on our “better nature”; yet, among all Earthlings, only our species continuously jeopardizes and even annihilates itself in both small and large numbers. Only our species seems to risk making a short life even shorter by swimming slowly in a fast-paced world that will take only temporary notice before speeding off to encounter another fool floating near the surface of imbecility.
Note:
*30 Jan 2017. See story, but not video, online at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-30/man-mauled-by-tiger-after-climbing-to-fence-avoid-buying-ticket/8225016 Accessed November 18, 2021. The same story links to a story of two women who at a Beijing safari park exited their car in the presence of a tiger that killed one and mauled the other woman. Homo fatuus stultus.
Poor critter. Slow as plankton for most of its life, a manatee munches on greenery found below the surface. Unfortunately, when manatees eat near the surface or seek air, these cows of the ocean succumb to numerous boat collisions. Under pressure from human activities, manatee numbers continue to dwindle in Florida’s shallow waters. Many have died. In 2021, some 1,000-plus have gone to that big algal pasture in the sky.
It’s a sad story. Seemingly helpless and harmless critters have been undone by what we do. We humans run a rather cruel and merciless world that seems to have little room for other species. Just ask the dodos. But then, we, too, are subject to interspecies harm.
I suppose that only those with a “heart” find extinctions worrisome. I also suppose that those with “hearts” think our species has never lived harmoniously with other “Earthlings,” and it's time for a change to some "natural state" that sustains life in balance. But life’s been tough all around. The Romantic Period’s myth of harmonious oneness tying humans and the rest of the animal kingdom lies in stark contrast to reality. Tigers in the Sundarbans, where they kill an average 20 or more people per year, and in other locales in India are the fast motor boats, and humans are the slow manatees. I think of lines in William Blake’s poem “The Tyger”: “What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry.” In a paraphrase of Blake’s words, the “hand” that made the tiger also made a lamb and the manatee—and the human. Tough world. No room for foolish error. And yet…
Given the plethora of YouTube videos that show bad outcomes during encounters between beast and human, just about every human should be aware of the potential for personal extinction during an interspecies encounter. Yet, the YouTube videos of bad encounters keep popping up, eliciting in viewers statements like “What an idiot!” “What was she thinking?” An example lies in a video of a Chinese man who, in attempting to bypass paying for a ticket to the zoo, climbed into a tiger’s enclosure. The “attack was captured on camera and shared on social media, with one video showing a tiger gnawing on the man's body as people screamed."*
So, what made so many who are no longer with us think they could, like the late Steve Irwin, play with dangerous animals with impunity? What makes some still long for gentle moments on a picnic blanket amidst waving grasses and flowers as the unicorn stands peacefully nearby? Is it the mistaken notion that human attributes are also animal attributes, that feelings are universal? Is it a belief that risk is a myth inapplicable to daring individuals? Are we under the illusion that like some “dog whisperer,” all of us can “whisper” to dangerous animals, especially when we’re filming the whispering for a YouTube video?
There’s no love lost when there’s no love involved. Hunger drives wild carnivores to eat what is available, and large herbivores defend themselves against perceived threats. A bison in Yellowstone is not a family pet; it has speed, mass, and horns, all lying in front of an instinct to undo threats by tourists in search of personal fame.
What leads some people to a premature personal extinction is the belief that they can, in fact, read the personalities of wild animals, that belief, and of course, the drive to make a name for oneself on YouTube. Once posted, forever remembered, right? The “famous” live forever. That’s why you know the names of Mayan, Aztec, and Inca heroes. No? Who was that guy who got chased by a bison in Yellowstone?
If social media have taught us anything about our species, it is that we are unlike any other critters with which we share the title “Earthling.” Other animals might be imbued with an unconscious drive to survive; some humans, in contrast, seem to be imbued with a conscious desire for reckless endangerment. And this latter flippancy with risk occurs in spite of numerous lessons folly has taught throughout our history and still teaches us via YouTube and other media.
Living the life of a slow organism subject to random collisions, manatees reveal that their very nature incorporates a weakness that evolutionary changes could not, to speak teleologically, anticipate. Humans, supposedly endowed with a “better nature” that can overcome weaknesses born of phylogeny, demonstrate that no amount of technology can prevent injury and death by folly.
And because there have been so many humans, maybe in excess of a hundred billion since our species arose, the loss of many to folly makes a forgotten list. That every generation has its folly practitioners indicates that in spite of a “better nature,” humans choose to take their place among the weakest of Earthlings, choosing danger under multiple motivations, as though they were manatees purposefully looking for waters where boaters spin their propellers. Homo sapiens sapiens, or “wise wise man,” the only remaining species of genus Homo, might be better labeled as Homo sapiens fatuus stultus, or wise unwise foolish man.
And that brings me to news reports in recent years. Driven by social media, members of Homo sapiens fatuus stultus have gathered in great numbers called mobs to ransack, destroy, injure, and even kill one another. Joining under the influence of media a mob, any mob, is like swimming in the midst of mindless propellers.
Is it possible that we are mislabeled? Maybe the more appropriate designation for our species should eliminate any mention of wisdom. We are, in actuality, Homo fatuus stultus, “Unwise, foolish man.” In this age of renaming everything on one whim or another, we should consider removing the term wise from our Linnaean classification. More characteristic of our species than wisdom are its folly and lack of wisdom. Having consciousness, we pride ourselves on our “better nature”; yet, among all Earthlings, only our species continuously jeopardizes and even annihilates itself in both small and large numbers. Only our species seems to risk making a short life even shorter by swimming slowly in a fast-paced world that will take only temporary notice before speeding off to encounter another fool floating near the surface of imbecility.
Note:
*30 Jan 2017. See story, but not video, online at https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-30/man-mauled-by-tiger-after-climbing-to-fence-avoid-buying-ticket/8225016 Accessed November 18, 2021. The same story links to a story of two women who at a Beijing safari park exited their car in the presence of a tiger that killed one and mauled the other woman. Homo fatuus stultus.
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