< a brief interlude >
I was just about to fall asleep... and as I am prone to do... shot awake with some sort of ostensibly innocuous thought. Here is an insight in to how my brain works:
If some people are better than others, does that mean some animals are better than others?
(of course we are all special and unique [which makes us not unique] and we all have our purpose, apparently and supposedly)
To really explain the question (or what I knew I meant by the question when my mind decided I had to suss this out), some clarifications should probably be made... as follows:
If some people are better than others... | I don't necessarily mean the ol' Einstein v Bundy rhubarb... I'm thinking more like Einstein v John Q Simpleton.
Does that mean some animals are better than others... | I don't necessarily mean that "Peaches" the pet schnauzer is better than another doggie (because we "know" them... but I'm getting ahead of myself), rather that there may be the Einstein equivalent doggie.
Here is where things start to get interesting...
John Q Simpleton is average. He is the vast majority. If I were to remove myself from being
part of Homo sapiens (or even Hominidae... or Homo, further), it seems reasonable to assume that I could, potentially, come to the conclusion that
all Homo sapiens are like our Johnny Q. Clearly, us humans, know this is not the case. For, even though, we are mostly John Q Simpletons, there are many among us are, "exceptional" (literally, without connotative intents).
On to the animal part of this...
Let us do a mental
find & replace on the above. [take your time]
Back? OK... that was quick... nary a John in our midst. Intriguing...
Let us use, for our example, the traditional pigeon. We'll just examine within
Columba livia (I'm not intending to compare if a pidge is better than a newt). We must ask ourselves, are
all pigeons the same? If yes, then why? What basis do we have for making that claim? Must it be the case that all pigeons are equivalent to our Johnny Q? If
Homo sapiens can have a variance within, why not
Columba livia? Not to turn comical, but is there a genius pigeon out there? Or, more importantly,
could there be?
...or at least a significant variant. Our exceptional pigeon.
The impetus of this was an observation of people kicking at birds on the street (not necessarily here in enzed, but not exclusive, either... which aside from angering me slightly, out of pure disrespect and just doing harm for no reason, seems to strengthen my Johnny Q Simpleton as majority observation). It was just a visual flash as I
almost went to sleep at a
decent hour (seems like I'm picking up a little John Q in myself, with this talk of socially acceptable bedtimes... however, it has more to do with physical demands than "The Man demands").
The mental picture was of someone walking down the sidewalk, and then
going out of her/his way to kick at a bird. I just want to be clear that I am not referencing someone shoosh-ing a bird from walking under their feet while they are having a lovely
al fresco lunch (although, this leads to another discussion on severity... which I'll spare you from).
The impetus for the impetus, I'm just realising, was a beer commercial. Tiger beer has a "re-incarnation" advert, where this old chinese man goes to get a beer, gets hit by a truck... reincarnates as X, dies trying to get beer, repeat, repeat, reincarnates as a baby bird, sees beer, tries to fly, falls from nest, dies. This made me think about a dead baby bird I saw on a bush walk last weekend. This made me think of a story told at work where some saw a bird with a broken wing. This made me think of un-necessary suffering. Birds. People kicking at birds on the sidewalk. Then to my original query.
It just seems utterly pointless to kick at a bird. Bully.
But, really,
are some animals are better than others? ...
could some animals be better than others?
There was also a concurrent stream in my mind about the whole "a dog is a dog until it is a pet" phenomenon referenced above.
Which, in turn, leaves us these nested nuggets:
-Those of us with multiple pets know they have different personalities... what does that do for our exceptional pigeon?
-Feral v compliant (how's that for connotation?)
-Are all feral alike?
-Is domestication the key?
-Do/did humans need to be domesticated (is that why we have rulers? or stewards? or shepherds?)
-Is domestication the gentrification of the soul?
Night.
