Jane Goodall video reflection

I felt ashamed when Jane Goodall said that chimpanzees have emotions, can perform sophisticated cooperation, knows physical and mental suffering, sense of humor, and most important, they recognize each other. They share and pay respect to each other. What she was trying to convey is that there are no much difference between humans and chimpanzees. Humans do have these abilities too, but in now days; humans never really “recognize” each other, so how can we as humans also “recognize” other species beyond the human race? Her speech fits perfectly in what Ishmael is trying to say—humans are arrogant, and it’s hard for us to recognize and accept the fact that there are also other living beings among us. It’s like the discussion we had about whether the earth is the center of the universe or not. It took long time for those religious people do accept the fact that the earth is just a small dust-gas ball in the universe. So, this is a question that I’ve thought of: is it true that humans have to wait until the last moment to stop harming the earth when they see there are real proofs showing that the earth is facing huge devastation? If one day we accept the fact that humans have these abilities too, we would start noticing what we’ve done to this planet.

Humans have developed spoken languages that allow us for communication, but we never appreciate such ability. We think it is normal to have that ability, like what the Mother Culture tells us, we just follow it and accept it.

The other thing she brought up was the hunter’s part. The hunters used to take only what they need, which I refer to the Leavers’ living style. Now, the society transformed into a civilized world, which is the Taker’s society. Those hunters hunt not just for their own needs, but for money with the support of modern technology. The consequence will come as a devastating result--- I call it as devastation cycle that once Leavers become Takers, the world is being destroyed until everything comes to a dead end… and reborn after thousands years or more..