Cultural Cognition

I have to agree with Matt's post, in that this chapter - along with the first - were both the most easy to understand and ultimately the ones I will best remember. A point was brought up in the final chapter that I had been pondering throughout this book, especially since Adil kept bringing up Tarzan. Disney has brainwashed my concept of reality. Tomasello puts this much more elequently:"The many popular accounts based on anecdotal observations of animal behavior, along with a healthy dose of the human penchant for seeing other beings as idential to themselves, are not, in my opinion, helpful to the enterprise" (206). This is especially true for me, as I imagine much of my generation, growing up watching Disney movie after Disney movie. I want to believe that giant gorillas have maternal instincts and that a pet tiger could feel jealousy towards its owner's love interest. As humans, it is my opinion that our unique ability to empathize is both our strength and our downfall. I want to believe that I can empathize with these animals and therefore I attribute human qualities to them. It is for this reason I've struggled with some of Tomasello's arguments when initially reading them, though I always ultimately am convinced after our class discussions. Did anyone else in the class face this same problem? Even while talking about the autistic woman who found a better way to slaughter cattle, I empathized with the cattle and imagined the intense fear they must face simply because I fear death. I'm not a vegetarian, that was just my initial response. After Professor McCrickerd talked about the fact that cattle do not have the capacity to fear death I drifted back into reality, however I must admit I wanted to challenge her at first. It was only after considering my absurd argument for "cattle rights" that I held back. Did anyone else experience this?