[b]Frans de Waal
If you wish to expel religion from our European civilization you can only do it through another system of doctrines, and from the outset this would take over all the psychological characteristics of religion, the same sanctity, rigidity, and intolerance, the same prohibition of thought in self-defense.[/b]
First Communism, then fascism and now…nihilism?
…on August 16, 1996, when an eight-year-old female gorilla named Binti Jua helped a three-year-old boy who had fallen eighteen feet into the primate exhibit at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo. Reacting immediately, Binti scooped up the boy and carried him to safety. She sat down on a log in a stream, cradling the boy in her lap, giving him a few gentle back pats before taking him to the waiting zoo staff. This simple act of sympathy, captured on video and shown around the world, touched many hearts, and Binti was hailed as a heroine. It was the first time in U.S. history that an ape figured in the speeches of leading politicians, who held her up as a model of compassion.
What are we to really make of this?
Ultimately these battles are about females, which means that the fundamental difference between our two closest relatives is that one resolves sexual issues with power, while the other resolves power issues with sex.
[i]I just saw a documentary about this on Nat Geo. So: What are we to really make of it?
One can train dolphins to jump synchronously because they do so in the wild, and one can teach horses to run together at the same pace because wild horses do the same.
Okay, but where’s the training part come in then?
Rather than reflecting an immutable human nature, morals are closely tied to the way we organize ourselves.
My guess: genetically and memetically. Though not necessarily in that order.
If faith makes people buy an entire package of myths and values without asking too many questions, scientists are only slightly better.
Okay, up to a point. But only up to a point.