Jane Goodall brings up a number of ideas during her talk that relates to what we have discussed, watched or read about this year in Global Ethics. I would like you to choose three of her main points and discuss how these relate to what we have discussed so far in class. You can either watch the embedded video or use this TedTalks link.
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"These are the kind of things which traditionally have been thought of as human prerogatives. But this teaches us a new respect, and it's a new respect not only for the chimpanzees, I suggest, but some of the other amazing animals with whom we share this planet. Once we're prepared to admit that after all we're not the only beings with personalities, minds, and above all feelings, we'll then start to think about ways we use and abuse so many other sentient, sapient creatures on this planet. It really gives cause for deep shame; at least for me."
This part of her speech is one of my favorites. It's true that in some ways we are more advanced than other beings, but that doesn't give us the right to treat them as we do now. For ages there have been disputes about respect among humans, but why can't we respect nature and its inhabitants? They aren't inferior; like Jane pointed out, the line that separates humans from animals is very thin. It's a huge disaster when the place you live in is your enemy; without humans, Earth would be one big, peaceful community. When Takers appeared, we were more like intruders that disrupted the planet's natural system and balance rather than the saviors and rulers that we believe we are.
The next thing she talks about really angers me. Hunters used to kill just enough to support himself and his family, but now with technology, weaponry and roads, they are killing more than they need for profits, thus destroying their culture and "the wonderful way of living for hundreds of years". This is exactly what we're talking about in Ishmael. The Takers' roots started when agriculture began, when we grew more than what was needed. It's a real pity, and we should stop our own expansion over the Leavers before it's too late and these amazing people with incredible knowledge disappear altogether.
What humans have that is distinctively ours is the ability to communicate with sophisticated language, and that is what has brought us so far. We should use that gift wisely and not abuse it at the expense of our planet and everything living in it. Hopefully, like Jane Goodall said at the end of her speech, we can put together our great minds and start making the right decisions.
I didn't see aggression to start with. There's no question that chimpanzees become more aggressive as a result of crowding, as a result of competition for food." (J. Goodall)
"It's very hard to look back with hindsight and say oh well I would have done it differently. If I had gone to Gombe and had access to information about the effect of feeding bananas on wild chimpanzees I wouldn’t have done it". (J. Goodall)
This two little quote is from during her talks on Ted. While i watching this clip. i found something connection with "Ishmael"
First, i found "Captivity"
Basically, being captives is related with on our society and the world. while her talks, she mention ed different cultures and different society. For example, people who lives in jungle and people who lives in city. Jungle people, they living with nature and all the resourses came from nature. which means also can be a humming nature.
on the "Ishmael" we talks about humming in our culture and society.
and now, i can find something relationship between captivity and humming.which is both are talking about our culture and society. But, it also we can think about what things we changed between past and now as a Takers and Leavers.
Second, i can connect with Global Environment Issues class as a Ecological Footprint. Jane also talks about Ecological Footprint. The reason she talks that is, since our technology is become more improve and give us a intelligent life, our nature starts disappear.
pollution, using resource is biggest reason for disappearing nature. Then, what should we have to do now? let's think about that, how made this problem? right, Human did it. which means, we can make less pollution. right now, we are the only one who can change the world. all things in our hand.
The central point of Goodall's speech can be summarized thusly: "Humans and chimpanzees are not that different.". Ishmael communicates essentially the same message as Jane Goodall, they both provide alternative perspectives, each one powerfully demonstrating the fact that humans are not nearly as distinct from other animals as we'd assumed, that we are indeed just another species with the vocalization mechanisms. Jane Goodall provides us with countless examples of Chimpanzee intelligence and culture, ranging from tool-usage to self-awareness, from embracing to sign language, to clearly illustrate how similar we are. Ishmael tries to impart the same fact to the reader, but from a different perspective, he uses analogous tales from other organisms to show that any creature will automatically make the erroneous assumption that it holds the prestigious position of the pinnacle of existence. Jane Goodall gave many examples of positive chimpanzee behaviour, I would like to provide a couple of examples of cruelty and brutality within chimpanzee troupes, because I think they highlight the fact that we are not so different after all, that many of our negative traits are mirrored in our primate cousins. Chimpanzees have been observed performing tasks such as group-hunting monkeys, where complex group-dynamics such as baiting and trapping are utilized to flush monkeys out of trees. Chimpanzees have also been observed performing murder (the purposeful killing of another member of a group), torture (this was recorded when a young chimpanzee male wandered into another group's territory, the male was subsequently pinned down by 4 other chimpanzees whilst the others proceeded to beat him), and even rudimentary war (this was observed after a schism within a chimpanzee group occurred, and both groups were competing for territory). These traits which we previously assumed were innately and uniquely human are now being observed in other species, forcing us to quickly reevaluate our self-declared position at the top of the biological hierarchy.
Goodall then proceeds to explain the ways we have manipulated and destroyed our environment (I use the word "our" very carefully, the range of possession is not restricted to humans, but is extended to the community of life, which includes chimpanzees), with disastrous consequences. As long as we maintain the chauvinistic belief that we are somehow distinct from other animals, that we are conquistadors of the world, that the world is, as Ishmael so aptly describes, a giant life-support system for the human race, we will continue using it as such, we will continue to enact the story of anthropocentrism, we will continue to consume resources until we eventually, inevitably drive ourselves (and probably a large number of other large mammalian species) to extinction. Jane Goodall illustrates our anthropocentric beliefs by saying that we have used and abused other sentient beings, which should force us to feel shame and guilt. Recent research is forcing us to change our prior belief that humans are different from other species, this recently blurred line between humans and other animals is propelling a new movement; Great Ape Personhood, which proposes to extend legal and moral rights to great apes. This movement is staunchly advocated by Jane Goodall herself, and Richard Dawkins. Speciesism is a powerful description of our previous views on animals, it is high time that we reevaluate those views, we have, throughout history, struggled so passionately against sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination, the time has come for us to fight against animal discrimination.
The third similarity between Goodall and Ishmael is the form of their pleas for help. Their cries for help are designed to educate people, to provide examples of human brutality, human stupidity, human fallacy. They both accept and understand that the central problem facing humanity (as well as life as a whole) is human arrogance, that we somehow believe that we are the destined rulers of the world. They both seek to demolish this belief, which they see as one of the fundamental causes of biological and environmental abuse. Jane Goodall aimed her message at all who would listen, and doubtlessly imparted it in the Roots and Shoots programme, while Ishmael sought to reeducate a single individual by forcing the listener to analyze Mother Culture's teachings from a neutral perspective, both work incredibly well. Great teachers and brilliant thinkers world-wide understand that the best way to change the world is to educate, our problems are caused by our ignorance, the more we illuminate the vast, dark room of the unknown, the more we begin to understand about the world, the more we begin to make a difference. Al Gore, Richard Dawkins, Jane Goodall, Ishmael, they all seek to change the world through education, each one fighting tooth and nail to eradicate ignorance, to create environmental and biological awareness, each one enacting their own story of hope for life on earth, each one slowly being heard, each one making a difference.
Jane Goodall, she spends more than 40 years on studying in ethology. She found out that human do not have much differences from chimpanzees. Human behavior and animals’ behavior are almost the same. Chimpanzees also have love, feelings, and sensations. The main difference is we have to ability to communicate with sophisticated spoken language but, we are overusing our power and destroying the planet. We have been trying to protect and to recover the human culture diversity, but we do not respect the primitive culture, instead of disrespect, we are destroying it. This is kind of related to what E.O. Wilson was try to say, we only know a little of knowledge, we don’t even know what the consequences are. There are still a lot of things for us to explore. Human will probably be the only primate on this planet eventually. We should respect and protect plants, animals, and everything on this planet.
The second thing she talked about was we were surrounding by the media since when we were born. This is exactly same as what Ishmael was saying in the novel. Media creates the anger, hatred, love, happiness, sadness, and these could cause violence. The violence would lead people to destroy our planet. We have to stop express our anger in destroying this planet. We can’t over kill the animals.
The last thing is the Roots and Shoots. It is like the union of teaching people to save the world. This also connects to Ishmael. In the beginning, narrator was looking for “teacher”, because teacher teaches things, they enlighten and aware people. People should start teaching kids even from Pre-K that everyone has a role to play and to change the world. We polluted the river, and then we restore the nature back. I like what Jane Goodall said in the end, she said the hope is not in the politicians, it’s in children and our hand, we are the one who make the difference, we can even change the world over night.
I felt ashamed when Jane Goodall said that chimpanzees have emotions, can perform sophisticated cooperation, knows physical and mental suffering, sense of humor, and most important, they recognize each other. They share and pay respect to each other. What she was trying to convey is that there are no much difference between humans and chimpanzees. Humans do have these abilities too, but in now days; humans never really “recognize” each other, so how can we as humans also “recognize” other species beyond the human race? Her speech fits perfectly in what Ishmael is trying to say—humans are arrogant, and it’s hard for us to recognize and accept the fact that there are also other living beings among us. It’s like the discussion we had about whether the earth is the center of the universe or not. It took long time for those religious people do accept the fact that the earth is just a small dust-gas ball in the universe. So, this is a question that I’ve thought of: is it true that humans have to wait until the last moment to stop harming the earth when they see there are real proofs showing that the earth is facing huge devastation? If one day we accept the fact that humans have these abilities too, we would start noticing what we’ve done to this planet.
Humans have developed spoken languages that allow us for communication, but we never appreciate such ability. We think it is normal to have that ability, like what the Mother Culture tells us, we just follow it and accept it.
The other thing she brought up was the hunter’s part. The hunters used to take only what they need, which I refer to the Leavers’ living style. Now, the society transformed into a civilized world, which is the Taker’s society. Those hunters hunt not just for their own needs, but for money with the support of modern technology. The consequence will come as a devastating result--- I call it as devastation cycle that once Leavers become Takers, the world is being destroyed until everything comes to a dead end… and reborn after thousands years or more..
“The world is not only compose of human beings, but there are also other animal bring, animals have voices.”
I want to refer this back to Ishmael because we as humans thinks we are the masterpiece. Ishmael said that we think everything is made for us and we have the rights to do things to other species. We think we are better than any other species and superior. Jane said that humans think they are better because we can do many things that we thought the animals couldn’t do. But we are starting to find out that animals can do a lot of things. Animals also have emotions and can make tools. Animals can do many things that humans can do and we don’t know what else they can do because we don’t have enough knowledge of them. This made me thought of E.O. Wilson’s speech. He said that we don’t have enough knowledge on other species, so we have to explore and understand them.
“Before, people just kill the animals they need, now, because of the roads, hunters go in from the town, and they kill everything that moves and sell it.”
I also want to refer this back to Ishmael because we also talked about this in Ishmael. Before agriculture starts, we just take the amount we needed and when there are no more left, we move to another place. Now, we are killing animals and not care about the consequences that will come. The animals that we keep killing will become extinct and it will affect other things. We, as human beings are too greedy, we just care about ourselves and making money. This makes me think of interconnectedness. When you take out something, it will always affect other things too. Another word that also pops up in my head was sustainability and Jane Goodall mentioned it too. She said that animals are not sustainable. If we keep killing them right now, there will be no animals left in the future and everyone will starve to death.
The other thing Jane Goodall was doing was to educate us, and encourage us to make a difference. She is doing this so we can be aware of the things that are happening to us right now and into the future. This made me thought of Ishmael wanting to get students to save the world and E.O. Wilson want us to help build the encyclopedia of life. These three people/animal want us to do something so we can have a better future. They are not just looking at what will happen now, but they look into the future and plan for the future. These three people care about the world and want to save it and want us to take action.
I really liked what Jane Goodall said, “Every single individual makes a difference.” We can help contribute to the society little by little and by looking at the big image.
The funny thing about this work was, just the beginning of the first 4 minutes of the TED talks, I could already make my 3 connections. Right as she starts to talk about her Aquador experience, my brain had already started to turn. Thoughts had started to rush in like the flow of a river.
But beofre that...
Jane Goodle had always been a person that i had “wowed” at. Since the first time i had heard about her leaving everything behind, and work in the rain-forest, in a place that she is a stranger to.
“I've started of just, i came directly here, from the deep deep tropical rain-forests in Aquador. Where you could get there with a plane with indigenous people with paint on their faced and parrot feathers on their headdresses. Where these people are fighting, to try and keep the oil companies and keep the roads, out of their forests. Their fighting to develop their own way of living, within the forests, in a world that's clean, a world that isn't contaminated, um, a world that isn't polluted.”
This sentence had lead me into the thought of everything we had talked about, especially the endangered species. Clearly this sentence summarizes everything we had learnt from our endangered species blog assignment. How we had been destroying the world and not caring what is going on around us. Of course by what Jane Goodall later on explains, we are also like animals, so I could easily categorize humans as endangered species.
“They're right in the middle of this rain-forest, with some solar panels, the first in that part of Aquador, and that was mainly to bring water up by pumps so the women wouldn't have to go down, the water was cleaned.” Later on Jane Goodall also mentions about their chief being able to use a laptop computer. This made me connect to the Phil Borges talk, about how different cultures are slowly disappearing, because either we are destroying them, or they are choosing to leave where they are and enter the world of technology. Jane had also mentioned a little about some houses being able to use only 30 minutes of light, and i remembered that in science we had as activity online to see how much ecological footprints you had made, and by turning of and on the lights makes a big difference.
Lastly, she had said that there are different cultures of humans in this world, but the world is not only composed of human beings, they are also other animal beings.
This made me think of what we have been talking about in ISMAEL,how us humans feel that we are supreme, how we should and are the center of the world.
I found that like Mr. Loken had said, yes, this whole Jane Goodall has almost everything we had talked about throughout this semester. Of course there are still loads of topics that can be mentioned, but for now, I just wanted to show how even in the first 4 minutes, there were already 3 points that was connected to our topics.
“There isn’t a sharp line dividing humans from the animal kingdom,”
This is the focal point of Jane Goodall’s Ted talk. Throughout most of her ted talk she is trying to bring the voice of the animal kingdom into affect. There isn’t a great distinction between the human race and that of other creatures on this planet. Human arrogance has led us to believe that humans are far greater and advanced than any other living animal on this earth. As Jane points out, this belief is false. Jane Goodall’s speech closely relates to the novel Ishmael. Ishmael expresses essentially the same concerns about the human race as Jane does. Both of which provide us with different viewpoints or perspectives on how humans inevitably supposed to go about living. Mutually, both Ishmael and Jane Goodall have are trying to address the fact that humans are not as dissimilar from other animals as we are told by Mother Culture. Chimpanzees are doing many things that would lead us to believe they are closely related to humans. Some of these marvelous creatures are so intelligent that they are capable of using a computer. These chimps are able to use sign language as a means of communication. One of the most astonishing things that helps me prove further that the line between humans and chimps is distinct is the fact that these chimps have been observed using grass to fish termites out of wood. They have even made their own tools by stripping the leaves off of a branch and later using it to fish out termites. This accomplishment would be considered a human characteristic yet these chimpanzees are capable of doing it. “ We must now redefine man. Redefine tool or accept chimpanzees as humans.” I think this quote is very powerful. It makes you realize that although we have been told different, chimps are more or less very similar to us in many regards. These chimps can kiss, hold hands and make movements similar if not identical to humans. These creatures are able to hunt just like human beings and they even share their pray. All of these things are thought to be human prerogatives in which only we humans are able to accomplish successfully. Both Ishmael and Jane Goodall are trying to raise awareness to the human culture. There are things that we don’t understand and these two are trying to help us understand these things. Ishmael talks about how any organism will automatically assume that it is the juggernaut and the world was made for them. Ishmael and Jane are very similar because they want to create awareness of the problems that we are facing but seem not to care about the after affects. We just take it all in as though its inevitable and destined to happen. These qualities that we assumed were strictly human characteristics are being observed in other species. I think the quote I used before demonstrates this whole idea very well. “ We must now redefine man. Redefine tool or accept chimps as humans.”
Another point that Jane Goodall focuses on is the way humans have carelessly destroyed our environment. She talks about her time in the deep deep tropical rainforest of Ecuador which can only be reached by plane. She spends time with Indigenous people who are fighting every day to keep their forests. Every day they have to worry about Deforestation because these ignorant and selfish people want oil and wood. This made me think back to the part in Ishmael where he introduces Takers and Leavers. I think this is a perfect example of that. The takers would obviously be the people trying to destroy the forests of these Indigenous people. I don’t see why these people would have to come all the way into the “deep deep tropical rainforest of Ecudaor which can only be reached by plane.” These leavers, Indigenous people, are living reasonably good lives without the fear of the poisoned world. We humans(takers) are destroying this world slowly but surely. We are using up resources like we have an endless supply of them. If we keep on living as though this world was made for humans and only humans we will run into major problems down the road.
One thing Jane Goodall, Wade Davis, Ishmael, Phil Borges and E.O Wilson all have in common is the willingness to explore different ideas. Each one of these individuals are attempting to spread awareness in hopes of making the world a better place. Humans are destroying the world we live in and unless we start to realize that we are not alone on this journey we are doomed. More and more research is being done to prove that humans are not as separated from all other creatures on this earth. Chimpanzees seem to be closely related to us and the only thing that really differentiates the two of us is that we have a sophisticated spoken language. Although we have this language that is so powerful we tend to abuse it. We can use communication to get across just about anything we want. We have the internet, television, videos etc. So much can be done to save the world and I think that’s what each of these individuals is trying to accomplish. Inevitable we’re harming ourselves. The Roots and Shoots program Jane Goodall has started is only a start. The program is in place to give us each hope and to change peoples lives. Hope is in our hands It is up to us. We’re the ones that can make a difference. We can change the world.
Jane Goodall started the TED TALK with discussing a group of indigenous people she visited. This group of indigenous people lived in a place where concealed from the civilized society. The chief of this culture wanted to learned more knowledges from the developed society such as health cares and technologies from the developed world; to get a better and convenient life, however, the aggressive civilizational destructions kept their feet on the ground, marring their environment to gain profits from it held their feet on the ground. For better or worse , there are companies wanted to destroy the environment around where they lived to get the oil and gain profits from it. Therefore, the chief decided, the companies are not going to destroy any of the land around his people and they are not going to take away their culture; they are going to fight back. This story reminded me of two TED TALKs we watched. This story is the edition of the story Phil Borges was talking about in his presentation. There are cultures that are endangered and there are cultures that are effaced by the civilized world, we cannot just watch them disappear; we need to stop producing the destructions to the environment.
It also reminded me of the E.O. Wilson’s TED TALK. In the talk, E.O. Wilson talked about interconnections between things and there are other various creatures lived on this planet. Nevertheless, human did whatever we want to the environment and did not aware there are other things around us. The companies wanted the oil in the region therefore they destroy the environment, and did not notice there are other things other than us lived on this planet. I also wanted to connect this to the myth that mother culture always humming at the back. The mother culture always tells us a myth that we are the central of the world, we are the one who is going to rule over the world, we are the one who is going to control the world, therefore, we think we can do whatever we want to the world without caring about others on this planet.
Next thing Jane Goodall talked about is the chimpanzees she has been studied on. Her research makes me realized we are not that different from a chimpanzee. Love, a chimpanzee she studied on which shared the command behavior human have. Love doesn’t like to make mistakes, if she made a mistake, she asked for one more time to do it. It’s exactly the same behavior as human, we do not like to make mistakes, if we did make mistakes, we asked for another chance to change the result. For example, the Global Ethics homework, if we did not do well on the first time, we will learn from our mistake and go back to redo it. Chimpanzees also shared other behaviors that human have. They have concepts of family, they love, they communicate, they hunt with high level of cooperation, they feel, they have sense of humor and they have different personalities. They showed same behaviors with different formats. But overall, we are not that different from a chimpanzee. They also have languages that we can not understand that is sounds that can only recognized by themselves. Her research makes me thought of the myth that mother culture humming at the background. The myth showed that we are the best, we ought to control and rule over the world. However, we are not that different from the chimpanzees. Maybe, we are not the chosen one to control the world, we are not the one who can rule over the world, and we are not made for occupation.
"We have found after all there isn't a sharp line dividing us from the animal kingdom. It's a wazzy line. It's getting wazzier all the time as we find the animals doing things.", says Jane Goodall. She points put the fact that humans are not superior than the other animals. Most people used to believe that we, the human beings, are on the upper level above the rest of the animals, which causes some problems. For example, because they believe we are superior, so it would be a lot easier for them to kill the other animals. It would become that we think we can do anything to them, because we are higher than they are.
The other amusing thing she has pointed out, is that there are about 50 different chemicals in all of our bodies that we did not have in 50 years ago. "...we are abusing the great power we have and we are destroying the world. In the developed world, in a way it's worse..." she says, "...and the diseases increase in places with filthy toxic, wastes, and dump. We're harming ourselves, as well as to th other animals, as well as to the mother nature." It's similar to what we have read in Ishmael. Ismael also brought up the point that this isn't "our" Earth. Most of us treat this Earth as if it were "our" property, and so we could do anything we desire. Our ignorance is what drags everything down. We do things when we are not sure what will happen next. We do them just because we are blinded by the benefits, but we don't usually realize what comes after that.
The last, and my favorite one from her is her telling that everyone has th role in play. It's not only some of us who caused the problems but also what all of us have done that caused a whole lot of trouble we are facing today. E.O.Weilson has said something pretty similar. He said that the extinction of just one kind of insect can destroy the whole world. Although insects are small, they can be big and influential. We can not put all the blame on the hunters, the people who dump all the wastes, the ones who cut down the trees, etc. The little things we do everyday, can make a difference if you put them all together. It's like the extinction of one kind of insect. They are small if you only see them as "an insect", but they are huge, if you can look at the bigger picture.
I really agree what Jane Goodall said in the TED talk speech. We are actually same as those animal we seen. There is interconnection from Ishmael, this world is not “our world”. This world is only hypothesis. The truth is that we are all creature on this earth and there are no who’s earth or world. We stand a niche. Those poverties, they lived with original ways; using natural tool to get food. They are just same as those chimpanzees; chimpanzees have nine different tool. From what Jane Goodall said, the difference between human and chimpanzees is human had language and culture but this will not separate the “class level” of humans and chimpanzees. From the speech those natural survivor and poverties have no idea what happen in world because all they do is try to survive. An example from speech, those people in the forest cut down the trees in forest though that many pressure from foreign country, all they want is to get money and try live a day. From Phil Borges these are endangered culture. Us, who had modern education and lived in modern world, we have responsibility to tell them and help them because we made the mess. This world is all interconnections, If only the modernized people do it. The mess will still going on continuously. This is the area that we need to work on. Today, is not only how convenience is the technologies, is how “good” the technologies are. From the film Wal-Mart, what we do is not just try to get the lowest price product. We should get a good product, which means the product of the company will protect the workers. Things we do will have the consequences. For example Wal-mart gets the consequences of doing those un-man kind things. The consequences of doing these factory and company is Mother Nature will fight back. Global warming, deceases…etc are the consequence. From what the blog comment I wrote in EO Wilson said, this world people are blind fold themselves. All this consequences happening in the world is not happened separately, we should have a “global mind” think broadly.
After watching Jane Goodall’s speech, a feeling of shame rushed into me. Jane said that we human are not much different from the chimpanzees because they too have emotions, knows physical and mental suffering, have a sense of humor and have the ability to invent and use tools. If they are not much different than us, why should they be locked up in the cage? The reason is this, we want to be superior. We want to rule the world and twist is around if we feel like it. It took us very long to accept the fact the chimpanzees are not much different to us. It is true that we humans have a greater power but we abused this power. Instead of using this power to help, we destroy. Just like what Ishmael said, we think we are the peak of the creation. We think our destiny is to rule the world in our own way because we are the chosen one. But the more advance we get, we realized more things. We realized that mother earth is far more powerful than us. A simple earthquake can destroy a whole city, a simple tsunami can sink a whole island. This is not what human want. There’s is no way we could rule the world like this. So humans challenged mother earth. We open up a mountain is we want to get through and we fill up a lake if we want more lands. Humans are too arrogant and will never give up until we fully conquered the world. We humans not only pressure the animals, we also put pressure on the native humans. This is according to Ishmael, the Leavers. They are indigenous who lives in the deep forest and up in the mountains. They live with the nature peacefully and understand the way we should live. Ishmael said we humans need to find the way to live and the Leavers is doing just fine in their forest. Sadly, instead of asking for helps, we went and tried to take over land. We went into their forest and dig holes just to find oils. They helplessly defend themselves but this doesn’t seem to work because no one outside knows about the fight in the forest. This is just like what Ishmael said, humans use to travel around the world to find food and we don’t stay in the same area for a long time. But, when agriculture begins, human started growing food and raises more kids. This repeats and humans eventually decide to growing more then what we needed. This is similar to what Jane Goodall said about hunters. They use to only kill what is needed to feed them. But as time goes, hunters turned greedy and started killing more then what they needed. Some is restored for food, but most of them are sold to merchant for profits. This is very disgusting when I heard Jane Goodall said it. If we don’t change our greediness, one day we might bring extinction to all animals! Another similarity Jane Goodall, Ishmael and other scientist from TED have is that all of them seek help from the readers or the audiences. They know that not all human beings are the same and there are some peoples out there that also want to save the world. So they are trying to convince the open minded people. Ishmael is using a lot of lessons and challenges to get the reader opened up. This way we won’t forget what we’ve learned. E.O Wilson and Phil Borges try to convince the audience by power speech with true statements. For Jane Goodall, she chooses another way. Her method is using Roots and Shoots programme. This is just a union that teaches peoples how to save the world. Kind of like the Global Ethics class now. Another thing about Jane Goodall and other peoples is that they give us hope. After all the terrible facts, they gives us hope for the better future. In the end, Jane said that the hope of our planet is in our hand and if we want, we could change the world over night.
Jane Goodall mentioned that the indigenous people, who lived in Ecuador, fight to develop their own way of living in the world that is not contaminated and not polluted but clean. Nevertheless, we then learned that the chief of the clan is using laptop and the clan is provided with electricity every day for a few hours. I think this clearly shows where we can apply the terms “takers and leavers” that Ishmael uses during his teaching. We can refer the indigenous people as leavers who tried to prevent the destruction of earth. However we can see how the takers affected and influenced the leavers in the way that they also use very modern technology and began to loose their culture. This also connects to the main point from Phil Borges’ talk of losing cultural diversity within the human society. Later she pointed out how the takers overused resources, over hunted wild animals, contaminated the water, and polluted the air and cause deforestation, global warming, extinctions of many species and etc. I think Jane Goodall’s main point here is interconnection and how everything affect one another and for every act, there’s a result.
“There isn’t a sharp line dividing human from the rest of the animal kingdom.”
I think this statement best summarized one of Jane Goodall’s main points. She used her own experiences with the chimpanzees and what she had learned from them as examples of showing the similarity of human and other species on earth. When she started her journey of living with chimpanzees in 1960, she observed that we share many traits with chimpanzees. Both chimpanzees and human use tools to make life easier. We both show emotions, as well as cares for one another. We all went through the same process, such that in our childhood, we stayed with our mother and slowly move into emotional independence. We then developed family relationships and our own unique personality. We also learned how to adapt to the surrounding environments. In addition, both of the species hunt together, share pray and communicate with body language and sound. If we look at the comparison from another ankle, there are also many negative aspects that both species. The Discovery series on chimpanzees, recorded murder cases where they plan to assassinate another chimpanzee in order to gain territory. There are also cases where they hunt monkeys as a group and torture them. Just like what Ishmael is trying to tell his student, we human beings are not much different than other species that live on this planet. However, we were all captive under a civilizational system that forces us to exploit and destroy the world in order to live. This also tied into the sound that’s always humming the background of our mother culture. We human species for a long time believed that the world was created for us, and therefore we could do whatever we want for our own goods, even if we have to harm other species and the environment.
I think Jane Goodall’s last main point is telling us the necessary of education in order for humans to save the world. She believed that very single one of us take an important role in this process, which there are so many ways we could educate one another, such as using our gift of verbal communication and the technology of mass media, internet and so on. Together Jane Goodall, Ishmael, Phil Borges and E.O Wilson were all educating others through their talk and they all wish that this crucial information could spread among the world and save all life and this planet. Just like Phil Borges, Jane Goodall also created an organization called “Root And Shoots”. It is an organization for children to show their concern of human community, animals, as well as the environment. Just like them, we need to start doing things that we can do, to help with the process of saving the earth. We can start off by don’t buy or use materials that will do harm to the environment, talk to others about what you’ve learned and tell them the truth and many other little things that we can do each by each, little by little to stop the destruction and save this planet.
(in continuation to my first entry...)
Jane tells us that mostly in the developed areas people are being stupid because of their advancements. We are contaminating our world, and knowing that this will also affect ourselves in a negative way (i.e health), we still continue to do it.
This ties in to something she said earlier that we are abusing our power and privileges that come from our knowledge. I remember I said something similar in my second podcast on the summary of Ishmael and it was one of the major points of our "captivity". Is it Mother Culture's fault that we're like this? But then again, even she was born from man's mind. Do we blame our ancestors then? But the fault is also on us because we have chosen continue to live on the principles of Mother Culture. However, this mindset and tradition has been practiced for ages and it's not easy to change.
This is the redo:
First I just want to clarify the two points I made in my first comment:
1. Jane Goodall was saying that chimpanzees are like the humans is because she wanted to make contradiction between humans and chimps. The chimpanzees are living peacefully within their own society, following the peace-keeping law. Contradictorily, Ishmael is trying to say: humans are arrogant, and it’s hard for us to recognize and accept the fact that there are also other living beings among us. We are trying to break the laws just because we think we are the best.
2. The point of how the hunters hunt for not just the food but for extra profits equals to how the Takers community works. Leavers are transforming into takers and adapting to the Taker's society.
The last point (which I wasn't so clear on explaining):
Jane Goodall said that humans have developed spoken languages that allow us for communication, but we(Takers) never appreciate such ability. We think it is normal to have that ability, like what the Mother Culture tells us, we just follow it and accept it.
The media is one of the biggest source for communication among the Takers society. In this vast communication network, we get all sorts of information from everywhere. The negative effect is that media influences our minds. Media usually directs the way we view things and do things. We get used to what the media told us therefore we do things like the media told us to do. Ishmael is also trying to make the same point that we lost ourselves in those informations that were told by the Mother Culture, and often made wrong decisions that create damage within this environment.
Sorry, one more connection to make with my 3rd point about media & communication:
We were talking about how the media affects the way people see the girls in our Non-Fiction class.
Images of sexy women are very commonly seen on everyday life. Many of the adds used thin, pretty girls to sell their products. Those girls on the adds are thin, tall, has big-eyes, sexy lips, smooth skin and perfect body shape.
The purpose of selling those products seems to be twisted into how women should look like.
I have to admit that I'm a girl, and I do want to look like those girls on the adds, with big eyes, thin body. It is because the adds coveys a message to me of what I'm supposed to look like!
This is parallel to how media sends out information of what us, the Takers, are supposed to do-- We are the boss, we must conquer and rule the world!!
1. Jane Goodall started the Ted Talk by discussing a group of indigenous people she visited. This group of indigenous people lived in a place that is concealed from the civilized society. The chief of this village wanted to learn knowledge from the modern world. However, the culture and the environment to the companies were only the peripherals; the most important issue to the companies was the profit. This story reminded me of another Ted Talks we watched. Phil Borges and Wade Davis presented the Ted Talks. There are a lot of cultures that were being effaced by the civilized world. We need to be aware of what we are doing are causing a lot of negative effects on not only us, but also other culture and other species. It also reminded me of the wrongdoing the takers did. After the takers had agricultural revolution, they started to think they are better than other people and what they are doing is the only way of living. Therefore, they started to kill the leavers who were trying to live their own ways of living. Starting from the Fertile Crescent, the takers started killing violently. Until now, the takers are still killing the leavers, who are not living the way the takers want them to live.
2. The next thing Jane Goodall talked about is the chimpanzee she has been studying on. Her research makes me realized we are not that different from a chimpanzee. Love, a chimpanzee she studied on, shared the common behavior as of a human. Love doesn’t like to make mistakes, if she made a mistake, she asked for one more time to do it. It’s exactly the same behavior as human; we do not like to make mistakes, if we did make mistakes, we asked for another chance to change the result. For example, the Global Ethics homework, if we did not do well on the first time, we will learn from our mistakes and go back to redo it. Chimpanzees also shared other behaviors that human have. They have concepts of family, they love, they communicate, they hunt with high level of cooperation, they feel, they have sense of humor and they have different personalities. They express same behaviors with different type of actions. But overall, we are not that different from a chimpanzee. They also have languages or sounds that can only be recognized by them while they are communicating with each other. Her research makes me thought of the myth that mother culture that is humming in the background. The myth said that we are the best; we ought to control and rule over the world. However, we are not that different from a chimpanzee. Maybe, we are not the chosen one to control the world, we are not the one who can rule over the world, and we are not made for occupation.
3. The last idea that strikes me the most is all the negative consequences we had made to Earth. Jane Goodall mentioned that we abused our advantages of languages and intelligence to destroy, to harm the world. She also mentioned we were all influenced by the mother culture. However, I believe, we should take the responsibilities and use the advantages we got to save the world, let other people understand the results we had caused, and try to save the world. The reason I said use our power to save the world is not because of the arrogant idea of we are the best. The reason is we have got the power, we should use it positively instead of negatively and harm, the world.
When I think of Jane Goodall, I can imagine her in a deep rain forest with sunlight and talking with a chimpanzee. It made famous for her to study of chimpanzees in Tanzania, which she has been doing for almost 50 years, On TED, She talks about changing technologies, cultures, and the state of the environment.
Many of the abilities that humans have traditionally thought to be exclusive human, Such as using tools, feeling despair, sharing, and having a sense of humors can also be found. if not all, They are animals that have a large and complex brain, as we ourselves do. Chimpanzees are actually dependent on their mothers for the first five years of their lives, unlike many other animals, so that they have a chance too learn all of the complex facets of chimpanzee life.
According to Goodall’s talk, it seems to be our complex system of spoken language. Language allows humans to visualize and conceptualize and then share ideas with each other about intangible things, it just like what we hope to do for future.
But all things are connected, and the environmental problems, which are threatening the chimpanzees, are also threatening us. It's not too late, says Goodall, and we must have hope, but the time is now, to do something about it. And as soon as we find the solutions, we can fix it.
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