Off the bookshelf - Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina
Photo credit: Vaughn Farris
Overview
Like a paper snow globe, author Carl Safina’s Beyond Words takes us to the realms of elephants, wolves, orcas, and many other species through a series of vignettes that deepen the human understanding of animals while raising questions about our perceptions of different species. Safina immerses himself into the works of notable biologists and researchers who have closely monitored these animals for decades, analyzing their characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors. Overwhelming evidence suggests that while animals fail to communicate in our oral tradition, they are beings of superior intellect and share our social structures, mental prowess, emotions, and rituals as outlined in observations and anecdotes.
Beyond Words is written in three main segments focused on elephants, wolves, orcas with interludes about chimpanzees, birds, and the author's dogs.
In the first segment, Safina explores Amboseli National Park. In the wilds of southern Kenya, he uncovers the truths surrounding the social structures of elephants and the importance of legacy in survival. Despite conservationist efforts, researchers have revealed many corrupt and deadly stereotypes that plague the existence of elephants. Safina details the failed attempts to ban ivory and how this obsession over elephant tusk has led to their extermination.
The second segment of the book takes the reader to view wolves in Yellowstone National Park. In the highest mountain ranges and deepest valleys, researchers track and document the incredible families of our dogs' ancestors. Safina writes about wolves' social structures, but unlike the matriarchal systems of elephants, wolves have a predominantly patriarchal system. In these systems, we discover how leadership, power structures, and strategy play out in a series of personalities that range from aggressive to persuasive. These personalities that help balance packs and hunt prey are vastly different from the "predators of humans" that wolves are typecast in the human narrative.
In the final segment of the book, the author travels to the oceans of the Pacific, off the coast of the Northwest, to learn about the survival of orcas. The tragic past and present of these large mammals should give us concern for our actions toward animals. Researchers detail instances where our often abhorrent actions have given rise to an understanding of their gentleness, intellect, and ability to bond. Despite what we know and continue to learn about these magnificent giants, failed policies and laws have made them super targets for the military and profiteers.
Throughout the book, Safina captures the essence of animals displaying leadership, parenting, bonding, mourning, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, and foreplay--proving that humans are not the only sentient beings we have come to believe we are. Safina challenges how scientists, governments, society, and the media have enforced incorrect stereotypes about wild animals and shines a light on what truly lives among us.
Thoughts
We all have moments where we have interacted with our pets or animals at a zoo and believed we felt an otherworldly connection. We may speak about what the animal did that is human-like, but don't speak about these connections as equal to human relationships. This book confirms what I've known all along, which animals aren't like humans – they are better. They are worthy of our humanity, protection, care, and respect. I appreciate how Safina challenges our assumptions of animals to their actual behavior:
[We never seem to doubt that an animal acting hungry feels hungry. What reason is there to disbelieve that an elephant who seems happy is happy? We recognize hunger and thirst while animals are eating and drinking, exhaustion when they tire, but deny them joy and happiness as they’re playing with their children and their families. The science of animal behavior has long operated with that bias--and that’s unscientific. In science, the simplest interpretation of evidence is often the best. When elephants seem joyous and joyful contexts, joy is the simplest interpretation of the evidence. Their brains are similar to ours, they make the same hormones involved in human emotions--and that's evidence, too. So let's not assume. But let's not bury evidence.]
We ignore the proof and fail to grasp the lessons from ancient traditions and religions that teach us harmony, life, and honor. In Christianity, the Bible says that God created light, earth, plants, animals, then humans. He prioritized animals and made man care for them. Many artistic works that pull from this story depict Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden walking among lions, bears, horses, and birds. I compare the story of the creation of the earth to what Safina writes:
[I don't mean to imply that I value the life of a fish or a bird the same way I value a human life, but their presence in the world has a much validity as does our presence. Perhaps more: they were here first; they are foundational to us. They take only what they need. They are compatible with Life around them. On their watch, the world lasted. They are not the same as us, but they experienced their lives vividly; they burn brightly. We've taken much of what they need, dimming their candle. They enliven the world, and beautifully.]
Have we forgotten to live up to the responsibility given to us in order to guard our egos? Are we too stupid or afraid to accept that animals are superior beings? We have created false beliefs that we are superior to creation—even to other humans. There is a failure on our part to broadly speak about how we are only a tiny piece of the larger picture. When we fail to keep our egos in check and allow ourselves to have thoughts of domination, we create injustice in a world that was originally designed to create peace and balance. That sense of supremacy has made the capture and cruelty of animals and business that seeks profit above consequence – a game that is evil and destructive.
Throughout history, we made distinctions between humans as “people” and wild creatures as “animals,” but we are all animals. We've used it as a term to disassociate ourselves from things that we don't understand. As the human race has evolved, we have moved through stages of enslaving animals. And, while those things have seemingly disappeared, they have not. They have only shapeshifted into cruel behaviors that we impose on the unrelatable, and that inability to relate is a failure of our intelligence. We project onto living things our expectations of who and what they are. When we begin to move past stereotypes, we see that animals have more than just a brain and intelligence, but also individual personalities. Our problem is that we treat everything like a “beast” until we are comfortable with it and can humanize it -- or colonize it. Partly because we have relied on science to determine what we believe, as Safina points out:
[Certainly, projecting feelings onto other animals can lead us misunderstanding their motivations. But denying that they have any motivation guarantees that we'll misunderstand it.
Not assuming the other animals have thoughts and feelings was a good start for a new science. Insisting they did not was bad science. Peculiarly, many behaviorists--who are biologists--chose to overlook the core process of biology: each newer thing is a slight tweak on something older. Everything humans do and possess come from somewhere. Before humans could be assembled, evolution needed to have most of the parts in stock, and those parts were developed for earlier models. We inherited them.
…Professional animal behaviorist inserted a hard divider between the nervous system of the entire animal kingdom and one of its species: humans. Denying the possibility that any other animals have any thoughts or feelings reinforced what we all most want to hear: we are special. We are utterly different. Better. Best.]
We allow those who are not in touch to determine what happens in the world. Suppose we continue as we have always done and allowed scientists, corporations, governments, and the military to dictate how we perceive life. There will continue to be murder of innocent beings, pollution in our air, contamination in our soil, and poisoning of our waterways - all of the elements that create our environment to sustain life. What is worse is that we will shut out our intuition and our connection with ourselves and our planet. The reality is we have the autonomy to determine our own agency and prevent institutions from perceiving life for us. Animals, however, do not. They live in this imagined nightmare every day because of us.
Our responsibility comes to those who cannot defend their lives— as Safina writes “those who have no voice or political voice.”
I hope in reading this book that you reflect on your own experience with animals and maybe see interactions as a pure connection. I hope you think more about our earth and how you can become more engaged in it--spend more time in nature, take up a cause to save animals, or get involved in protecting the environment.