If you were an elephant...

January 26, 2017 11:18 AM

Lawyer/veterinarian/philosopher/author/IgNobel laureate Charles Foster takes a second-person look at the mighty elephant and just how human and inhuman (in all the best ways) it is.
posted by Etrigan (17 comments total)

Thank you. I needed this.
posted by routergirl at 11:23 AM on January 26, 2017

I don't enjoy the "they're better than us" stuff. I'd like to hear more about what we know about elephants and the way they live, not what the author thinks about humans. I know plenty of humans and am capable of forming my own opinions of how we are. But if I'm to form opinions on whether elephants are better than us, I need more cute facts plz! I could just take the author's word for it, but that is less cute than learning elephant facts.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 11:55 AM on January 26, 2017 [6 favorites]

If you were an elephant
And I were a lady
would you marry me anyway?
Would you have my baby?
posted by Naberius at 12:12 PM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]

Galaxar Nebulon, I highly recommend the Carl Safina book Foster drew on for the piece. Safina explores the complexity of their relationships and their societies, the structure and sheer reach of their communications, their memories -- it's amazing.
also heartbreaking, because you can't really talk about elephants without talking about the shitty things humans continue to do to them, but still SO MANY CUTE ELEPHANT FACTS
posted by Fish, fish, are you doing your duty? at 12:20 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

I love elephants so much.
posted by yoga at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's hard to put yourself in the shoes of a sentient being who you know is suffering cause even second hand suffering hurts us too
posted by bleep at 1:00 PM on January 26, 2017

My impression of evolutionary psychology is that it doesn't even anthropomorphize humans. The idea that you might "be relational – joyously shouldering the duties that come with community – because it made you happy... because you like other [humans]" - is considered suspect in the discipline where selfish genes decree that human altruism is limited to, as Steven Pinker puts it, nepotism and reciprocity.
posted by clawsoon at 1:10 PM on January 26, 2017

I love elephants so much, it is often hard for me to read about elephants. I love them because their hearts are so big, and they use their big brains for the sake of their big hearts. I love them because they are capable of such gentleness and love. I love them for all of the characteristics they have that leave them so open to pain and sorrow. I love them because they mourn, and it hurts me to think of them mourning. :-(

I also always feel bad for male elephants. Poor male elephants, cast out from their social groups. :-(
posted by meese at 1:35 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

I also always feel bad for male elephants. Poor male elephants, cast out from their social groups.

When my son was about 5 or 6, we were talking about how cool elephants are, e.g., that they remember elephants they haven't seen in years and how gentle they are when handling elephant skeletons. Then we got to the part about the herds being momas, grandmas, aunts, and kids, i.e., that the boys leave when they're teenagers and the dads live off by themselves. Oh my god, I will remember the look on his face until I die.

So, yeah, wonderful, majestic, etc animals, but how do you sleep at night after you make your sons leave?

/anthropomorphize
posted by she's not there at 2:58 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

But I mean, that must be what they like? What they prefer? Like how it's bittersweet when your kids leave home but that's how it's supposed to work.
posted by bleep at 3:15 PM on January 26, 2017

If you were an elephant, you and your tribe would be forced to migrate far from home. There you would arrive as refugees in ancestral human lands where you would proceed to wipe out the entire crops of subsistence farming communities in a single night. While this would be a war crime by human standards, since you're big, grey, and don't talk much you'll be unconditionally supported by poets half a world away who once had to make do with a hamburger because they couldn't afford a full Happy Meal.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:20 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

That pretty much describes me and lots of people already. It would be better if tribes weren't forced to migrate far from home if they didn't want to.
posted by bleep at 5:22 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

Bleep: most 6 year old boys that I've known can barely handle a long weekend away from Mom, so the idea of being banished as a teen is a horror. I probably should have assured my son that by the time he reached his teen years, he would be OK with leaving, but I was already dreading that day. (He's 24 now and has been living on his own for years.)
posted by she's not there at 7:21 PM on January 26, 2017 [1 favorite]

The sons aren't sent away forever and ever, as I recall. They come back and visit! But their live off with other males, doing male things in their own communities.

And given that the males do occasionally go into musth and become a danger to everyone around them, an affliction female elephants do not suffer from, so it makes sense that they would structure their society in a segregated manner in order to reduce danger to women and children.

If they were simian, of course, it would be the responsibility of the female to calm and soothe and male, and if a child happens to die, well, they shouldn't have provoked him. /s
posted by a power-tie-wearing she-capitalist at 9:24 PM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]

I really liked the article, but I could have done without the telepathy woo.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:43 AM on January 27, 2017 [1 favorite]

Elephants is good people.
posted by gnutron at 3:58 AM on January 27, 2017

I would have the little six year old watch Safari Live with me and explain that by the time a male elephant has to leave, he's ready and will find other males to help him learn what he needs to learn, he'll have friends and have help.
Giraffe herds work the same way, males leave females stay. Impala, kudu, you name it.
Lions, cheetah and leopards disperse almost the same way. It would be a good time to explain that animals probably don't feel the same way humans do about these things.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 12:47 AM on January 28, 2017