Line Between Animals and Humans

Life Pets & Domestic Animals
1

This month at erenlai magazine our focus has been on animals and their relationship with humans. We included 10 articles ranging from a variety of different topics. Here are links to three of them, the rest can be found on our main page. It would be nice to get a discussion going if there are point you don’t agree on. :slight_smile:

Please let us know what you think since we are always trying to improve.

Huang Zong-Hui, Professor of Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University discusses Kafka’s ‘Report to the Academy’ and Roald Dahl’s short story ‘Pig’ and how the concepts of anthropomorphism and zoomorphism function within literature to define the shifting boundaries between the human and the animal:

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php/en/focus/2012-focus/human-animals/5015-the-line-between-humans-and-animals-in-literature

Criticism of bullfighting and arguments against it:

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php/en/focus/2012-focus/human-animals/5025-the-dubious-qartq-of-bullfighting

Photostory documenting an alternative pet store in Taiwan where food is made to human standards:

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php/en/focus/2012-focus/human-animals/5026-pet-shop-boys

Thanks!

2

There’s a line between humans and animals?

3

Just what I was thinking :slight_smile:

btw I hope this post won’t be dismissed as spam. The articles on the website are interesting and well-written and I get the feeling it’s a non-profit organisation.

4

In Dutch there is - as a proverb / comparison between both which the monks thaught us :smiley:

“DierenRIJK” = The Kingdom of Animals ( Rijk - rich)
“MensDOM” = THE stupidity of Menkind ( Dom - Stupid)

There is even an FB page on this :laughing:

facebook.com/pages/DierenRI … 7291456229

5

Yes we are non-profit, just interested in discussion. The title might be a bit strange on reflection, hehe. In any case, if the post infringes any rules then please help me close it.

6

I don’t have a problem with it.

7

Surely, there are several.
I ain’t been eaten yet.
:whistle:

8

9

[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Surely, there are several.
I ain’t been eaten yet.[/quote]

If that’s the standard, then surely we are the most animalest of all animals, as we do most of the eating (of other animals)!

10

hahahaha… that pic is hilarious !!!

11

Just what I was thinking :slight_smile:[/quote]

Me too. As I’ve asked in another thread, “Do humans really exist?” and the answer seemed to suggest that there is no such thing. Only a very rough categorization of an idea of what humans should be, but no definitive answer. If humans exist, then the process of evolution must have stopped, was more or less my theory. We can’t tell if we are still humans in the present it seems.

If that’s the case, then I continue to hold the position that there are no humans as we are ALL different from one another. There is only a continuing evolution of a particular strain of animal, which we presently, commonly refer to as human, but which may not be the case.

If you accept that, then there is no difference between ‘us’ animals and ‘them’ animals. In fact, it makes categorizing anything in the present quite a challenge indeed. It seems far easier to categorize animals which no longer exist or are known in nature, as their evolution has ceased.

Interesting thoughts, and I’m sure that different perspectives on evolution and categorization may exist.

12

[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Surely, there are several.
I ain’t been eaten yet.[/quote]

If that’s the standard, then surely we are the most animalest of all animals, as we do most of the eating (of other animals)![/quote]
That would most certainly be an insult to animals.

Nevertheless, call me a daydream believer, but I still happen to hold rather fast to the hedgehog position of human intellect. Those four-legged fiends never had much of an Enlightenment, now did they?

Why I bet some of them have no recollection of the typer!
:hand:

I’m with the homo.
Sapiens, that is.

13

Any criticism on any of the articles? The point sulavaca makes is very very different. Are there any scientific articles you could link me too related to that topic?

14

For a historical perspective, this question was asked many years ago on Formosa and was recorded by William A. Pickering.

[quote]Later, as I lay wakeful on my bed, I heard, through the thin paper partitions, my host and his cronies considering
their strange visitors.

‘Strange creatures, these barbarians’, grunted the mandarin, as he puffed at his opium pipe.

‘Aye, they are, indeed,’ acquiesced another.

A long pause, whilst they sucked their pipes reflectively.

‘That Pi-ki-ling, he’s a strange barbarian. Where did he learn to speak the language of men ?’

‘Aye, but he’s clever for a barbarian. He is almost a man.’

‘Nonsense ! he has not the eyes of a man.’ They are round, like the rest of the animals’, not turned up at the corners, like we men have them. He’s no man, I tell you.’

There was a grunt from the man addressed. The argument was conclusive. ‘Well, perhaps his mother might have been a man, anyhow!’ he volunteered.

‘May be, may be ; but he is a clever barbarian,’ settled my host, and the discussion ended.[/quote]

William A. Pickering, Pioneering in Formosa 1898 archive.org/details/pioneeringinform00pickrich

15

Sometimes. If the humans are fishing.

16

Sometimes. If the humans are fishing.[/quote]

:roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao:

Love fishing jokes