I wonder what the latest spew of videos on the loving and non-violent behavior of animals towards humans and towards animals of other species mean?
Since some time on Whatsapp, facebook, youtube, there are videos of dogs and cats being friends, dogs teaching puppies to climb stairs, a pigeon passing titbits to a dog, a bear saving a crow and a dolphin rescuing a dog from a shark! Oddly, the camera is always already present in these wonderfully serendipitous discoveries.
Are they simply cleverly crafted videos? If so, why are we crafting these videos in this age? As humans display increasing violence in their own lives and natural tragedies, sometimes driven by human activity, pile up in daily news, is this our final refuge? To see animals doing unexpected acts of kindness, even against their own nature? Or are we actually forming new mythologies to recover modes of non-violence that can overcome difference - if a bear can rescue a crow, overcoming his 'nature' surely two religious communities can overcome their 'culture' and find common ground... Of course it is not as literal, but is there actually an exploration of a more fundamental common ground for togetherness in these 'real' myths? Are we remaking quietly, and in the most mundane way of sms and whatsapp forwards, a new sensibility?
If these videos are really real... then were they always real? and that with new technology we simply have learned and found means to capture them? in that case, how do we successfully find them and record them? In the video age, we seem to have an odd expectation and future driven life is it not? Where one is already thinking two steps ahead- I have the camera ready before my child does his first walk, or before my dog runs to nuzzle my cat! In its charismatically enigmatic way is life simply giving us the vision we have projected? In a more direct way, if these videos are real, then it means that the world was always a 'better' place than what our 'survival of the fittest' pop sociology indicated and that even humans could think of other models to design political and social life. Or can we actually even hazard the view that with humans going nuts, animals have decided to undergo a shift in consciousness?
All these are perhaps crazy ruminations, but the surreal-ness of these multiple videos leaves one willing to imagine the remotest possible. Perhaps my reading the news about the NASA's new successes with non-fuel satellite propellers is also pushing such wild theories!
Since some time on Whatsapp, facebook, youtube, there are videos of dogs and cats being friends, dogs teaching puppies to climb stairs, a pigeon passing titbits to a dog, a bear saving a crow and a dolphin rescuing a dog from a shark! Oddly, the camera is always already present in these wonderfully serendipitous discoveries.
Are they simply cleverly crafted videos? If so, why are we crafting these videos in this age? As humans display increasing violence in their own lives and natural tragedies, sometimes driven by human activity, pile up in daily news, is this our final refuge? To see animals doing unexpected acts of kindness, even against their own nature? Or are we actually forming new mythologies to recover modes of non-violence that can overcome difference - if a bear can rescue a crow, overcoming his 'nature' surely two religious communities can overcome their 'culture' and find common ground... Of course it is not as literal, but is there actually an exploration of a more fundamental common ground for togetherness in these 'real' myths? Are we remaking quietly, and in the most mundane way of sms and whatsapp forwards, a new sensibility?
If these videos are really real... then were they always real? and that with new technology we simply have learned and found means to capture them? in that case, how do we successfully find them and record them? In the video age, we seem to have an odd expectation and future driven life is it not? Where one is already thinking two steps ahead- I have the camera ready before my child does his first walk, or before my dog runs to nuzzle my cat! In its charismatically enigmatic way is life simply giving us the vision we have projected? In a more direct way, if these videos are real, then it means that the world was always a 'better' place than what our 'survival of the fittest' pop sociology indicated and that even humans could think of other models to design political and social life. Or can we actually even hazard the view that with humans going nuts, animals have decided to undergo a shift in consciousness?
All these are perhaps crazy ruminations, but the surreal-ness of these multiple videos leaves one willing to imagine the remotest possible. Perhaps my reading the news about the NASA's new successes with non-fuel satellite propellers is also pushing such wild theories!
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